tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23886922412749532512024-03-14T03:48:34.729-04:00Elizabeth Thuy Gordon Appalasian (Appalachia + Asian) WriterElizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-67418200998060436672020-09-30T14:23:00.000-04:002020-09-30T14:23:50.238-04:00Poem in Appalachian Review<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWXvNhyphenhyphen_ObgWWlTX7v-3L3LLs0ZTIRe2GYx46UfBjKxHe0hq2JUDfP2ukw5vAJeKbqGnn070ahvNPteeIX77aU-1XMhcUe-YhyO8_A7_GJiJWWSiHrh7iU1hotT8tLrCpVZfqJqhQ9rUgh/s419/Screenshot+2020-09-30+at+1.38.58+PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="281" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWXvNhyphenhyphen_ObgWWlTX7v-3L3LLs0ZTIRe2GYx46UfBjKxHe0hq2JUDfP2ukw5vAJeKbqGnn070ahvNPteeIX77aU-1XMhcUe-YhyO8_A7_GJiJWWSiHrh7iU1hotT8tLrCpVZfqJqhQ9rUgh/w269-h400/Screenshot+2020-09-30+at+1.38.58+PM.png" width="269" /></a> </p><p>A slim package came yesterday in the mail. The Spring 2020 issue of <i><a href="https://appalachianreview.net/" target="_blank">Appalachian Review</a></i>, which includes my poem "Almost Heaven, or Mixed-Race Roadtrip Following the Fall of Saigon." Past contributors to <i>Appalachian Review</i> include Pinckney Benedict, Wendell Berry, Wiley Cash, Nikki Giovanni, bell hooks, Silas House, Fenton Johnson, Barbara Kingsolver, Maurice Manning, Ann Pancake, Jayne Anne Phillips, Ron Rash, Lee Smith, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Neela Vaswani, Frank X Walker, Crystal Wilkinson, etc. etc., so I feel I'm in excellent company. </p><p>The journal used to be called <i>Appalachian Heritage</i><u>,</u> a name that too many people, according to its website, associated with "a simplistic view of Appalachia as a place frozen in a quaint, bucolic, homogenous past or, at worst, a particular ultra-conservative brand of politics and identity." Hence, the name change. </p><p>It's a shame that the word "heritage" has come to carry so much ugly baggage. But it's worse than a shame that so many people have used the word "heritage" as a weapon and an excuse. As in, "The rebel flag is nothing but a symbol of my heritage." Or "This country's in danger of losing its heritage, so keep your hands off my rifle." </p><p>Are there BIPOC folks in Appalachia? Of course. I was one. But we're not what people picture in their minds when the phrase "Appalachian heritage" is bandied about. My white hillbilly grandmother always referred to her Black friend Belinda as just that -- "my Black friend Belinda." When I was a child this same grandmother often joked that I was "Made in Japan." (I suppose "Made in Saigon" just didn't have the same ring to it.) In her mind and in her world, the default race (just like the default bread) was white. Anything different was worthy of mention. </p><p>My poem in this issue honors my grandmother, but it doesn't exalt her. I don't think she ever quite knew what to make of her "Oriental" daughter-in-law or her three dark-haired half-breed grandchildren. I don't think Mawmaw (that's what my siblings and I called her) ever flew on a plane but once. And that was to visit her daughter in Hawaii. For reasons I'll never know, Mawmaw took me along. We must have been quite the sight. A wiry red-headed Scots-Irish mountain woman and an 19-month-old decidedly nonwhite baby. I don't remember a thing about that trip. But in photos, on those tropical beaches and among the native Hawaiians, only one of us looked like she belonged.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-4333570676721189332019-11-06T16:32:00.001-05:002019-11-06T16:32:43.906-05:00R Is for Rainbow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A few weeks ago, just days apart, I had the pleasure of learning that one of my scripts, <b>R Is for Rainbow</b>, had been accepted in not one—but two!—festivals. Anyone who writes and submits work knows that acceptances are jolts of pure pleasure. They're like miraculous blips on a heart monitor that is otherwise flatlining. <i>I'm not dead after all! </i>Which can be hard to believe when the rejections come piling up like snowdrifts or, worse, when the response is nothing. Nada. Zip. [ouch]<br />
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I'll be attending one production this weekend, when the play is performed at the Heralds of Hope Ten-Minute Play Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland. It will also be one of six plays produced sometime in 2020 for the Stages Ten-Minute Festival near Portland, Oregon, a city my husband and I have long wished to visit. (Portland is reputedly a vegan paradise).<br />
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<b>R Is for Rainbow</b> is an unusual play for me, in that it is sweet, playful, and happy. (Though I hope not sappy). As such, it's a far cry from the dark, wrenching things I mostly write.<br />
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Stages' Robert Dodge asked the playwrights for what inspired their script. Here's the story I sent him:<br />
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<i>When I was a college student, I worked third shift in a convenience store/gas station. Vendors and suppliers made their deliveries during the early morning hours, and I got to know many of them. There was the bread man, the Frito-Lay guy, the rival Coke and Pepsi fellows, and so on. One morning, one of the vendors asked me to read something for him—I think he wanted help in choosing a flavor of soda—and in the course of our conversation he revealed that he was illiterate. I remember him telling me about his tricks for coping, and I was amazed. After all, he had a demanding fulltime job that required him to drive and make deliveries all over the city. From then on, I realized that literacy and intelligence are two separate animals. This man was charming, smart, and capable in so many ways—except he had not learned to read. My play is a small way to honor people like him, and a reminder that matters of the heart exist beyond words.</i><br />
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It will be interesting to see how differently the productions will be handled by their respective directors and actors. I really like my characters, Lucinda and Elmer. They're good people who are getting a second shot at love, and I'm curious if they'll be as appealing in bodily form as they are on the page. Likely, they'll be more so. Actors are capable of bringing things to their roles that writers never see coming. That's one of the many things that makes writing for the stage such a thrill.<br />
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Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10511320330793260668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-37114977888736789822019-04-21T13:59:00.000-04:002019-04-21T14:33:05.232-04:00Bears, Pigs, and Dragonflies: An Easter Sunday Non-Sermon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My brother-in-law phoned me yesterday afternoon. He’d locked himself out of the house, and could I </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">let him back in? Someone else might’ve been annoyed, but I was thrilled to get the call. More than once I’d done the exact same thing. Accidentally closed the locked door behind me and marooned myself outside. In fact, I’d done it earlier this week and had to call my sister over to rescue me. Luckily, we all have each other’s house keys and live close by. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the way to Craig’s place, I switched on the radio. It was already tuned to WHQR, the local public radio station, and was in the middle of an interview. I tried to fit the pieces together. A man was talking about battling a wildfire, trying to save his house. I assumed this was in California. He spoke of stomping on the fire for seven hours straight, his boots melting, his legs aching. At one point, he said, he tried using kayak paddles to beat back the flames, because his legs were just too tired. When a fire truck finally arrived, instead of getting the help he expected, he and his friends were admonished: “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous. Get out.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As harrowing as his tale was, the part that took my breath away was an offhand remark about a bear who came bursting out of the woods, fleeing the blaze. Just as the bear escaped from the inferno, the man said, the animal saw him and immediately turned and ran back into the flaming forest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does this say about us, about humans? What are we to think when wild animals fear us to the point that any other option is preferable? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it’s not just wild animals, of course. Earlier this week I watched a video clip on Facebook. A truck carrying pigs to slaughter was barreling down the road. The pigs were stacked so that the animals on top were at least ten feet from the ground. The video showed one pig intentionally leaping from the top tier of the truck. She crashed onto the pavement, her body rolling and bouncing like a pink fleshy boulder across the opposite travel lane and onto the shoulder. That’s where the clip ended. A few of the comments cheered the pig on. But the jump had probably broken both her front legs, and other body parts as well, I surmised. And the pain and terror she experienced in her attempted escape must have been horrific. But just as the California bear took his chances in the conflagration rather than face a human being, so this pig, despite infinitesimal odds, preferred any situation but the one humans had put her in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is this our species’ legacy? To be worse than suicide. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mourn many things in this life. But animals’ fear—their reasonable, rational fear of us—fills me with a sorrow like no other. I’m reminded of Scott Russell Sanders’ essay “Sanctuary.” In it, he tells of visiting a nature preserve. He goes there hoping to give himself an hour or so’s reprieve from the grim news of war. When he arrives, he notices the animals fleeing from his every step. He can’t tell them that he’s not there to harm them. And it even if he could tell them, why would they believe? Our species has committed, and is still committing, acts of genocide against other species at a pace and scale beyond comprehension. Of course they’ll run, even if they have no place to go. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today is Easter Sunday. My sister had invited me to a friend’s Easter brunch, but knowing that everyone but me would likely be feasting on flesh, I declined. I too used to eat that way. I don’t anymore. One of the greatest joys of my life came when I learned that I could live, and live well, without having to consume the bodies of other animals. What I’ve chosen to do instead is to take a walk in the woods. A nearby state park is offering a hike this morning. I called to ensure it was actually happening. A hike on Easter morning in the “Have a blessed day” South? It turned out to be true. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The animals there will certainly flee us, too, will cry their sounds of alarm just as they did with Sanders. But I’ll bring my camera and binoculars anyway. Not a gun or a trap, not a crossbow or a bulldozer. Just my sadness and apologies. And my awe. Awe for the ones who have survived, despite our species’ active efforts to destroy. Despite our species’ apathy and neglect. Parks and preserves are not enough for the flora and fauna of our planet to flourish though. A few, or even many, isolated islands set amid devastation disguised as “development” simply will not suffice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On a walk with my husband last month, there was much chatter about a recent alligator sighting. A woman we encountered on the path asked us, Did you see the gator? Fearfully, she told us exactly where he been sighted, how big she’d heard he was. I wish I’d reminded her the alligator had much more to fear from us than we from him. Instead I smiled, a Southern reflex, and Tim and I continued along our way. It was our first time visiting that walking trail and I didn’t like it. With its high fences everywhere and its fake lake in the middle. I doubt I’ll go back. I hope the state park will be better. I hope I’ll find some smidgen of hope this bright Easter Sunday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most times, I want to run away from humanity too. Like the bear, I want to turn my back and flee from all that terrifies me. Other times, I feel I am living in the burning woods already. Everywhere I look, everywhere I turn, I see the flames of cruelty, killing, and routine brutality. Like other animals, I don’t know where to go or what to do. Do I run? Do I leap to my death? Or do I stay on the truck and go in the direction everyone else is going? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I try my best not to be part of the world’s slaughter, the world’s erasure. Confused and disheartened, I walk in the woods or along a riverbank or shore. I gasp at the beauty I encounter. I take photos I can marvel over later. An Anole shedding his skin. An Osprey building her nest. That Yellow-bellied Slider who stayed boldly on the log while the other turtles slipped into the water. And the red-eyed dragonfly who stood still on the end of a twig and allowed me to photograph her again and again and again. It took me forever to get her transparent wings into focus. She could have darted away at any time. And yet she stayed. And yet she stayed.</span></div>
Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10511320330793260668noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-57294819537624546272018-09-28T12:36:00.001-04:002018-09-28T13:16:05.679-04:00Chrissy and Me and Sexual Assault<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Like millions of others yesterday, I watched Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony in front of the senate judiciary committee. Like Anita Hill years before, Ford was there to share what she knew about a powerful man poised to take an even more powerful office.<br />
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Ford was 100% certain she had been assaulted as a teenager, but was unsure about many other seemingly important facts, such as the date and place of the attack. Her inability to provide this information, along with her 36 year delay in making the assault public, has caused many to doubt her claim.<br />
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A recent <span style="color: #a64d79;"><a href="https://nypost.com/2018/09/25/eight-big-problems-for-christine-blasey-fords-story/"><span style="color: #a64d79;">New York Post</span></a> </span>story is typical of the criticisms leveled at Ford and her faulty memory. “Ford still can’t recall basic details of what she says was the most traumatic event in her life,” the article trumpets. How can Ford be believed, it goes on to insinuate, when she "concedes she told no one what happened to her at the time, not even her best friend or mother”?<br />
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Ford’s recounting of her experiences forced me to examine my own from roughly the same time period, when she and I were roughly the same age. Other than both being female, the two of us had little in common. Ford was blond; I fantasized about blondness. Ford lived in a swanky D.C. suburb where she attended a private prep school and was at home in country clubs. I was an immigrant from Vietnam who went to public school in Tennessee and for whom country clubs were exotic places mentioned on TV. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-brett-kavanaugh-allegations.html"><span style="color: #a64d79;">According to her high school friends</span></a>, “Chrissy” was popular, athletic, and universally well-liked. I was none of those things.<br />
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And yet Ford and I share something profound: We both survived sexual assault. I am not surprised that Ford is sketchy on many details of her attack, because huge parts of my recollection are hazy too. Like her, I place that my assault in or around 1982, though I’m unsure of the exact location. Like her, I thought I was going to be raped but managed to escape. Like her, I told no one. Not the best friend I confided my hopes and dreams and fears and worries to, and certainly not my mother.<br />
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In many ways, Ford remembers much more than I can. While Ford is able to name some of the people who were at the gathering where her assault took place, I can't remember anyone specifically at my location. Nor do I recall, if I ever knew it, the name of my attacker.<br />
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But the details I do remember I will never be able to forget.<br />
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What do I know? I know I was in college. I know it was at a frat party. (The first and last frat party I ever attended). I know my attacker told me he was from out of town and not a student at my school. I know when the party was winding down I went with him to his vehicle. But my keenest, clearest, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt memories are these: His hand between my legs. My hand desperately trying to stop him. And the frightening expression in his eyes when he looked at me and said, slowly and threateningly, “Let go of my wrist.” It wasn’t a request.<br />
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I doubt the young man even remembers our encounter. For one thing, he was extremely drunk and we never saw each other again. And secondly, what was there to remember? It was “no big deal” because “nothing happened.” At least that’s how I’ve thought of it all these years. I wasn’t raped. I got away. In the world I grew up in, that makes it a non-event.<br />
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It took listening to Christine Blasey Ford to teach me that something <i>did</i> happen that night. Something criminal, isolating and silencing. The proof isn’t in a police report or in any eye witness accounts. It's not recorded on a calendar; it will never substantiated by a confession. The proof is in me. The me who has forgotten the details but remembers the trauma. The me who through pure luck got out of that vehicle and stumbled through the darkness back to my dorm and never told a soul. Until now.<br />
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<br />Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10511320330793260668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-44895374471285997572018-02-25T13:40:00.001-05:002018-03-02T10:05:17.418-05:00The Story Silence Tells<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week I participated in <a href="https://www.capefearmuseum.com/event/southern-griots-preserving-history-storytelling/" target="_blank">Southern Griots: Preserving Local History Through Storytelling</a> at the Cape Fear Museum. Organized by <a href="https://athenianpw.org/" target="_blank">Athenian Press</a>, the event featured a lovely array of artists in different genres (poetry, playwriting and screenwriting, dance, filmmaking, music). We shared our work and talents, each of us emphasizing art's ability to lift up, preserve, and pass along human stories that might otherwise be lost.<br />
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The night before, in anticipation of the event, I kept thinking about stories. Not just those we tell, but those kept secret. As an Asian-heritage person, I know that silence is woven into my cultural legacy. My Asian-American friends and I have talked about the frustrating silence of our Asian parents, about the lack of demonstrativeness, both physical and emotional.<br />
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Other cultures have this too, of course. Brits are famous for their "stiff upper lip." And Appalachian hillbilly culture, despite its propensity for tall tales, is known for enduring in stony silence. It's a human thing, I guess. Sometimes we talk too much. We gab. We overshare. (TMI). We tell the same old tale over and over and over. At the same time, we hold it all in. We keep things locked in dark places. There are words and stories and memories that will never pass our lips.<br />
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At dinner the night before the Griots event, a Jewish-heritage woman joked that her people never had a problem with silence. <i>But what about Holocaust survivors? </i>I asked. Whereupon she told me that yes, when it comes to those who endured the Shoah, her loquacious tribe tends to clam up. We agreed that silence is a byproduct of trauma. Think of all the war veterans who won't talk about their experiences, she said. I didn't have to think hard. My father was one such person. Although he wasn't in combat, what he experienced was enough to keep him war-averse and uncommunicative about the military part of his time in Vietnam for fifty years. (Though he was always happy to bend your ear about the pretty Saigon girls).<br />
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In the year or two before he died, my father hinted that he was finally ready to talk. Once or twice, he made cryptic off-hand remarks like, <i>If there's anything you want to know, now's the time to ask. </i>I didn't have it in me to remind him of the time when, freshly back from a trip to Vietnam, I did ask about his war experience. He tried to tell me, but the words resisted. His face turned white, then red, and his throat choked with tears. He couldn't utter a word. He apologized, embarrassed, and that was that. I felt for him, but was frustrated too. Because his memories were my past, my history, and his inability to share them meant that a part of myself would never be available to me.<br />
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By the time my father expressed a willingness to talk, it was too late. We were living in different countries then (he'd retired to Nicaragua), and I was no longer the brave young woman emboldened by the taste of her home country. I never asked again. He never told. And maybe that's the story. When you can't say the words, when you're unable to ask for them<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">—</span>that's a story too.<br />
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What does it say?<br />
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I'm still figuring that out.<br />
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It certainly says something about fear, about terror. It says something about pain. Who doesn't want to keep hurt at bay? In an age where every iota of human experience seems to be shared ad nauseam online, it's good to be aware of how much still remains unsaid. Silence, like absence, conveys its own meaning. When a finished puzzle is missing just one piece, where do your eyes go? Straight to the void.Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-46749144936035106022017-12-18T09:07:00.000-05:002019-11-06T15:47:15.208-05:00Haunted by an Adverb<iframe frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/371167286&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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It's mid-December, Christmas lights are up, and the World Series—the "fall classic" that marks the climax of the 27-week baseball season—feels like a fast-fading memory. Except it still haunts me. Not so much the games themselves, although the Series went the distance. And to sports fan there's no thrill quite like a "game 7." But you may have heard about an incident that occurred after Astros hitter Yuli Gurriel homered off of Dodgers pitcher Yu Darvish. Gurriel celebrated his home run by pulling his eyes into slits. Not your typical gesture of jubilation. In fact, a completely nonsensical one—unless you know that Darvish is Asian. And then it makes all the sense in the world.<br />
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If you're Asian and you're reading this, you know exactly what I mean. You've been the recipient of "slit-eyes." Probably more than once. You know that, as racial slurs go, it's the equivalent of the N-word.<br />
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If you're not Asian, maybe you don't know this. I'm assuming the [non-Asian] writers and editors at Sports Illustrated, the country's leading sports publication, didn't know it. Because what else could explain their headline describing the slit-eyes as a "seemingly" racist gesture?<br />
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Damn, that adverb still galls at me.<br />
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If slit-eyes aren't racist, what are they?<br />
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The day after seeing that headline I wrote <a href="https://soundcloud.com/soundcloud-liz/seemingly-racist-gestures-1" target="_blank">this poem</a>. My first-ever "slam" style poem. I think I needed that music, that rhythm, that you-are-going-to-HEAR-me intonation to express what I couldn't <i>not</i> express.<br />
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"Seemingly racist" indeed. My blood is still boiling.Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-15673921972623147582017-11-01T15:21:00.001-04:002017-11-01T15:21:05.952-04:00In Fear of Ecophobia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday I got an acceptance notice (yay!) from the online literary magazine <a href="http://wraparoundsouth.org/" target="_blank">Wraparound South</a>, which will be publishing a short essay of mine in audio form. As part of the acceptance, they provided a long list of questions and asked me to answer one of them. (Author responses are included in the "Back Porch" section of their site). The question I picked was "What advice do you have for new and emerging writers?" Here's what I said:<br />
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I would advise all writers to learn something tangible about the world they inhabit, specifically the natural world, which we too easily forget is the source of all our highfalutin technology. A single microchip takes many times its weight in fossil fuels, chemicals, and water to produce. So even if you’re an ecophobe (which I hope for all our sakes you’re not), you’re still deeply connected to and mutually dependent on the non-manufactured world. If you’re not keen on learning which rare earth minerals make up your laptop, at least learn about your fellow organisms. Is that “bird” in your poem a flicker or a nuthatch? Are those “trees” in your story white oaks or black locusts? As writers, we must believe that words matter. Words allow us to see the world around us and, by extension, allow our readers to see what they might not otherwise notice. So don’t settle for generic. Know the world. Know its names. </blockquote>
Was I too blunt? Perhaps. But ever since reading Mary Oliver's <i>A Poetry Handbook </i>back in the 1990's, I've been haunted by a fear I'd never before heard expressed: "eco-ignorance," let's call it. Oliver worries that modern-day readers, having lost touch with the natural world, will by extension lose touch with the world's great literatures—literatures that are imbued with intimate and direct experiences of nature's inhabitants and processes.<br />
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Oliver declares it "obvious" that an understanding of literature requires familiarity with nature. The eco-ignorant are, in Oliver's words, "locked out of the poetry of our world." To illustrate her point, Oliver asks, "What would Romeo's amazed outcry—'It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!'—mean to a reader who is without an intimate feeling for the way, every morning, the light rises and blazes against the darkness?" The horrifying answer, of course, is that it would mean nothing. Without a <i>direct</i> experience of dawn, metaphors of dawn are reduced to an intellectual understanding. No amazement. No heart-in-your-throat wonder. No poetry.<br />
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I am deathly afraid of the rise of eco-ignorance. Not merely for its impact on reading and literature, which is depressing enough, but for its repercussions on nature itself. The world outside our windows is being rapidly and systematically destroyed, but as long as our attention remains highjacked by Facebook quizzes and who's trending on Twitter, the destruction won't register. Most of us have no trouble distinguishing a Nike logo from Reebok's, but couldn't tell the difference between a sycamore and a tulip poplar if our life depended on it. Naming leads to noticing. Noticing leads to caring. Caring leads to action. At least that's what I tell myself.<br />
<br />
I wish Mary Oliver were wrong. I wish eco-ignorance wasn't a dangerous and tragic reality. I wish children interacted more with the outside world than the pixelated one. But more and more, we're forgetting that interaction is even possible. We "interface" with the world by watching it. We've been reduced to "viewers" and don't realize that we've lost anything.<br />
<br />
Here's a true story. I kid you not. A man in New York City is feeling tired and world weary. His high-powered job, previously a source of excitement and pride, isn't satisfying anymore. At a loss for what to do, he consults a therapist. The therapist suggests a change of focus. The man is advised to take time for himself, away from work. "Watch the sun set," the therapist says. The man is skeptical—he says he never watches the sun set—but he agrees to try.<br />
<br />
(Are you with me so far? There's nothing to it, right? Just a slightly depressed man who's willing to take time out of his day to view the setting sun. Can you picture it in your mind? When I pictured it, here's what I saw: The man asks his driver to drop him off near a good viewing site—by the Brooklyn Bridge, maybe, or perhaps Battery Park or the High Line. He walks to get a vantage point. Maybe a leans across a rail or sits on a bench, unbuttoning the jacket of his expensive tailored suit. The clouds turn pink or gold. The sun descends and the water shimmers. The sun's orb dips below the horizon, leaving a swiftly sinking yellowish glow. The blue sky above him darkens to indigo. The temperature cools. The man takes a slow deep breath, the lights around him suddenly glaring and bright. He's done his homework. Watched day turn into night.)<br />
<br />
But in reality that's not what happened. What happened was, the man went home to his luxury tower on a fashionable street. What happened was, he poured himself a drink and sat on his sofa and glared at the sun through a wall of reinforced glass. And it bored the hell out of him. After a few minutes he quit looking and went online to answer some emails. It had never occurred to him to experience the sunset outdoors. Just as it had never occurred to me that anyone would think to do it indoors. Or that anyone would fail to see the difference.<br />
<br />
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<br />Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-87271703441200407162017-08-29T11:35:00.003-04:002017-08-29T11:38:21.153-04:00WE ARE HERE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"We are here! We are here! We are here!"</div>
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—Dr. Seuss, <i>Horton Hears a Who</i></div>
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I didn't plan on writing a Letter to the Editor this morning. </div>
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No, I'd awakened from a restful sleep (as evidenced by the damp spot of drool on my pillow), having been serenaded by the patter of raindrops all night. I opened my laptop to check the weather (clearing) and the scores from the midnight tennis match I was too sleepy to watch to conclusion (Sasha Zverev, in three). Then I scrolled down for more news, thumbing past sex offender photos and a bagel shop grand opening to click on “<a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/entertainment/20170824/list-5-plays-john-staton-would-love-to-see-done-in-wilmington" target="_blank">5 plays John Staton would love to see done in Wilmington</a>.” </div>
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Having recently attended some very good plays here, and anticipating seeing more, I was intrigued to know which works our local theater critic would be advocating. I read his choices (interesting, but no real surprises) and was about to close the tab when my personal spidey sense kicked in and made me look again. And there it was. Or, more accurately, wasn't. </div>
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What I mean is, people like me didn't make the cut. </div>
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Of the five plays listed, all were by white males. And while this does not qualify as a calamity, when you're a female writer (like me), and you've just written a play whose main character is Vietnamese (like me), and you harbor the deepest doubts as to whether this work could ever be staged in a city lacking a discernible Asian population (like Wilmington)—well, you see why I might be concerned. </div>
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We writers who are not male and/or not white have something to say. We do the work, get our degrees, hone our craft. But with all the statistics piled up against us, it's hard not to wonder if we're invisible. I grew up in the south and I love the south. I don't want to live in LA or New York. But I also want to know that there's a place for me and my work in this region. That someone out there hears my voice and the voices of others like me. </div>
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And since it may not appear in the paper, here's the letter I wrote. </div>
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Dear Editor:<br />
<br />
Interesting how the “5 plays John Staton would love to see done in Wilmington”
are all by white males. According to the Dramatists Guild’s tally of regional,
non-Broadway theater productions by playwrights’ gender and race, nearly
two-thirds (63%) of all productions mounted across the U.S. were written by
white men. That figure is nearly three times the rate for female playwrights of
all races (22%), with the rate for women playwrights of color a pathetic 3.5%. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let me say for the record that I am sure there’s nothing
sinister behind Staton’s choices or that his list means he’s anti-diversity. However,
when the dominance of white males is the norm, as it is for produced
playwrights, then it’s all too easy for us to be blind to our own unintended
biases. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As a biracial female playwright, I’d like to offer five
alternatives to Staton’s all-white, all-male list:</div>
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<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">“Circle Mirror Transformation” by Annie Baker: It’s
hard choosing just one work by this gifted young playwright but, if forced to,
this quiet, enthralling play would be it. No heroes, no villains. Just five
ordinary characters who, in fits and starts, come to know each other and
themselves in ways both funny and profound.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">“Appropriate” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins: The
American Family Drama is perhaps my favorite theatrical genre. But what this
young African-American playwright does with white siblings converging at their
old home following the death of the family patriarch, who may or may not have
been a white supremacist, takes the genre to a whole nother level.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">“Kentucky” by </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Leah Nanako Winkler: What’s not to love? There’s a large cast, music and
dancing, cross-cultural hijinks, and an Asian female lead who’s not a
prostitute. Seriously, it would be a blast to see what local talent would do
with this rambunctious, thoroughly modern script.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">“Disgraced”
by Ayad Akhtar: No doubt winning the Pulitzer Prize made it the most produced
play in the U.S. in 2015-16, and rightfully so. The Pakistani-American Akhtar
takes an unflinching look at Islamophobia and gives voice to the challenges of
being Muslim in his explosive take on the classic dinner party plot.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">“</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Harry and the Thief” by Sigrid Gilmer: What
if someone with a time machine traveled back to 1858 in order to supply the Underground
Railroad’s Harriet (Harry) Tubman with 21st century guns? That’s the
mind-bending premise of this high-speed action comedy that integrates
contemporary race issues with historical events. Who knew abolitionists could
be such fun?</span></li>
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<!--EndFragment-->Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-79301188050037856702017-08-21T13:06:00.000-04:002017-08-21T15:45:15.675-04:00HOPEWARD BOUND<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1IoPtX7I6M2OEjyhaMpAI1ZG7dt41STu-eIN27xVPjTv2IpkIt-KvyV4wrY9zbEwNOqLQj0LDIAWhmWZVAHm52S8S9hiQgGjMiRMOhW9j36aM3u98RIKmTRayaQsYyJiSaigraXSUerZ/s1600/fullsizeoutput_605.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1IoPtX7I6M2OEjyhaMpAI1ZG7dt41STu-eIN27xVPjTv2IpkIt-KvyV4wrY9zbEwNOqLQj0LDIAWhmWZVAHm52S8S9hiQgGjMiRMOhW9j36aM3u98RIKmTRayaQsYyJiSaigraXSUerZ/s320/fullsizeoutput_605.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A while back my brother-in-law asked if I wanted to collaborate with him in putting on a poetry event here in Wilmington. <i>Yes, </i>I said, before he proposed <i>hope</i> as a theme. </div>
<br />
Hope, of course, forms the basis of all my writing. Just kidding.<br />
<br />
Early on, as a poet in college, I wrote a poem mocking Wendell Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things." It was a scathing lampoon, and accomplished too. One day I'll dig it up and post it here. Earlier, in high school, I wrote of tortured love, depression, the impossibility of closeness or connection. Earlier still, in grade school, I penned story after story of human cruelty toward other animals. You could say hope was my essence, my obsession, my brand. If you were an idiot.<br />
<br />
So as the day of the event draws near, I've been turning my attention hopeward. I remember being in a meeting of Unitarians where the leader eloquently made clear that hope, not optimism, was the thing. I wish I could recall her exact words, but her conclusion, if not her rationale, has stuck with me. I've always had hope, I know. I would not still be alive if I didn't. But I've never thought to explore or emphasize it in my poetry, until now. With just over a month till the event, I'll be seeing what happens when I adjust my poetic lens to put hope in focus and let the rest go blurry. Here's what happened this morning:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>FIVE GRAINS</b></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">One day I went looking for hope</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">enough to leaven a poem</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">the way yeast leavens powder into bread</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">knowing I wouldn’t find it in any store</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I walked past all the markets</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">knowing I wouldn’t find it on a road</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I left behind asphalt and macadam </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and the dead epaulets clasped to their shoulders</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">did you know there are roads almost everywhere</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">did you know I have heard the sound of machinery</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">every day of my life</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I took myself as far as I could go</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">not very far</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">just a shady patch of earth</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">where it was easier not to see </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">vehicles crisscrossing the sky</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I watched the sweat bees drink</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">their fill from my salty skin</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and that was one grain of yeast</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I swam in the drying wind</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and that was another</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and when a squirrel scolded me for staying too long I left</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">wondering if my species</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">was the world’s unwanted guest</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">then I saw a family in a dusty sedan</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">stopping to let a turtle cross their path</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and their patience was one more grain</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and their wide eyes taking </span>in the turtle made two</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and the turtle herself </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">sticking her neck out into a future </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">not even the blind could see </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">was a third</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and then I had </span>enough grains</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">for this poem to rise</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">enough hope</span> to keep plodding</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">my way through the world</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">where you also are</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and you</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and you</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">and you. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<br />Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-66399592107073144672017-08-04T10:28:00.002-04:002017-08-04T10:28:49.555-04:00SCATTERED<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The bluffs you say</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">the bluffs</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">and I try to imagine them</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">holding his ashes</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">a smidgen of him</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">nestled in a crevice</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">which remains dark</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">and cool despite the Shawnee sun</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">beheld by damselflies</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">the river singing him</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">lullabies all day and all night</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">in all seasons</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">never mourning</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">never guilt aggrieved<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">just her green<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">sacramental waters</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">soiled with tears</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">flooded with prayer.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
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</style>Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-87956685623609477192017-07-23T08:46:00.002-04:002017-07-24T07:33:19.281-04:00The Dead Live Among Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1X5a4MWeNz7dgdZxQRyjpv6YDxjCdRxWHyVwQZ69RaYJNg9UQ-ZEM-LYAn9LUB3QStsJT1kAswyzkcnTDEHbepGQ853kN1W2ZcsKJCtSd4bvYrR4hPMdYBxFxlX20SaCfGLQo7YkJjhP/s1600/ILM+farmers+market+sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1X5a4MWeNz7dgdZxQRyjpv6YDxjCdRxWHyVwQZ69RaYJNg9UQ-ZEM-LYAn9LUB3QStsJT1kAswyzkcnTDEHbepGQ853kN1W2ZcsKJCtSd4bvYrR4hPMdYBxFxlX20SaCfGLQo7YkJjhP/s320/ILM+farmers+market+sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Yesterday a friend and I visited the riverfront farmers' market in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. We got there late. It was hot. People were walking away carrying armfuls of flowers, lugging showy striped watermelons, tugging tired children out of the street.<br />
<br />
We worried about the dog's paws and looked for shade under the vendors' tents. We passed tables of summer vegetables, racks of flowy clothes, scented soaps and lotions, a knife sharpener, bakers, potters and a pickle makers, a woman selling mussel pearl jewelry, an dog biscuit duo giving away samples and profit. We bought some kombucha. Fell for the child who asked, <i>Can I pet your dog? </i><br />
<br />
At the end of the market, just before we turned to go back, I saw the one thing I hadn't expected to see: a car just like his. Yellow-and-black like a wasp and I was stung. I gasped and cried out, reflexively turning away to face the water. My friend put her arm around me. The tears did all the talking. A car just like his. It would have made me smile when he was still here. But of course, impossibly, he isn't.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>THE DEAD LIVE AMONG US</b><br />
<br />
The dead live among us<br />
if they’re lucky<br />
<br />
their photographs<br />
weigh down the mantel<br />
<br />
narrow the hallway<br />
their things<br />
<br />
share the darkness<br />
in sealed attic boxes<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
the stained cookbook<br />
wants to open<br />
<br />
to their favorite meal<br />
a son is caught wearing<br />
<br />
their nose and upper lip<br />
a daughter laughs<br />
<br />
with their fabulous shoulders<br />
siblings fight worry<br />
<br />
with the spasm of their brow<br />
the luckiest dead<br />
<br />
are still present<br />
on their birthdays<br />
<br />
their failings and their virtues<br />
recollected with wry<br />
<br />
sad smiles with audible sighs<br />
their grandchildren<br />
<br />
still want them back<br />
their dog hasn’t lost<br />
<br />
their scent in his mind<br />
and it will be many years<br />
<br />
before they are strangers<br />
to the living<br />
<br />
many years<br />
before everyone who knew them<br />
<br />
becomes a look around the eyes<br />
an image under glass.Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-58276464301179891602017-05-20T11:59:00.002-04:002017-05-20T12:17:59.987-04:00West Virginia on My Mind<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/323640620&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Possibly it's due to the recent death of my father. Or maybe
it's just a matter of my own aging, but I've been finding West Virginia
coming into my poems lately. It was the place my father was from, the place my
paternal grandparents lived and where my family often visited when my brother,
sister, and I were small. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
My paternal grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Gordon. I was named after her. The
first time I ever found myself starstruck was seeing her in her Moose Lodge
finery the year she was crowned queen. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Actually, I may not have seen her at
all. It was the photo I remembered. It lived in one of our family photo
albums, and there was no other photo in there like it. Not our Easter pictures,
not our "fancy" professional portraits—nothing could compare to what
Mamaw looked like that day. To me she was impossibly glamorous, though I'm sure <i>glamour</i> wasn't
in my vocabulary back then. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
After I wrote the poem, I went back to find the photograph. I couldn't
believe how well I'd remembered Mamaw's appearance or the specific qualities of
her outfit. The details of <i>her</i> had clearly been seared into my
brain. I remembered the things, and only the things, that had struck my child's
mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
Looking at it now though, I'm startled by the elements I'd completely
forgotten: the black lacquer wall hangings my parents had brought back from
Vietnam, the sturdy telephone that always sat on its little table, atop the
skinniest phone book I'd ever seen to this day. The white aluminum blinds that
covered all the windows in the entry room. No one else I knew had blinds like
these. And I'm certain that Mamaw didn't know anyone else in 1969—or ever—who
had a family like the one that became hers after my father returned from
Vietnam. In that little town, Oak Hill, West Virginia, the simple military
operation that grew into the Vietnam War came home to roost. And though we were very, very far from the battlefield, we were still in the midst of it all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">LOOM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was a big deal when Mamaw <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">was crowned Sweetheart Queen <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of the Oak Hill West Virginia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Loyal Order of Moose<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">my sister and I sitting on our knees<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">on the living room carpet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">wondering at the goings-on<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">behind her bedroom door<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and when she emerged we <i>oohed</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and <i>aahed</i> at her shoulders bared<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in the first strapless gown we had ever seen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the tight red bodice<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the layers of taffeta <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">encircling her legs hiding her feet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">its flare so wide<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">she couldn’t be hugged<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">her white arms gloved in whiter satin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">up past the elbows<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a bejeweled tiara tucked<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in the stiff swirls of her hair<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a Polaroid was taken<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and we watched them go<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">her and our Papaw<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in his fancy dark suit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">off to a place I’d been to only once<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">fifty months before<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the family’s five-year-old<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hula Hoop hotshot<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">shoop-shooping</span></i><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> that plastic ring<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">all day on the summer lawn<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">thrilled by what my little body <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">could will the toy to do <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">moving it high to the top of my chest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">arms stretched to the sky<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">or down my terry-covered thighs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a spinning whirlwind around my knees<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">then up the torso again<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">traveling over and over<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">giving Mamaw an idea<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of what to do with me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">clip a flower to my hair<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">fit me in a grass skirt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">transform her foreign grandbaby<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">into something Hi-why-an<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">wreathed in an artificial lei<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a woman’s borrowed bikini top<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">looped around my neck<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">finally Mamaw had found<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a use for all that tawny skin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and though children were not permitted<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">at the monthly Moose Lodge dinners<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">they made an exception for me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the entertainment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">there to charm the bleak mountaineers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">bring a whirl of the exotic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to their coal dusty lives<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">she took me by the hand <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to the front of the hall<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the smiles as the music was cued<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-73416266148295782322017-04-24T13:47:00.002-04:002017-04-24T13:48:15.514-04:00Why "Appalasian"?<i>Our writing is inspired, in part, by our obsessions—those images, memories and concerns we keep spinning in our heads.</i><br />
<i>Carolyn Wright, poet</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiraWJfdpbM3KJbdHqXVEB4rR4o8L6_x76eBDSGvYsZpMj-nFsrJMlj8i5D3ulzGqQBcymWgbi_YcP-uUlPsSj-a9UdCjNcId_dxCYEsqCvHJDAJmtqQBZ1wpo0ZxMj5x3mmIQ1E04z7nLn/s1600/227-48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiraWJfdpbM3KJbdHqXVEB4rR4o8L6_x76eBDSGvYsZpMj-nFsrJMlj8i5D3ulzGqQBcymWgbi_YcP-uUlPsSj-a9UdCjNcId_dxCYEsqCvHJDAJmtqQBZ1wpo0ZxMj5x3mmIQ1E04z7nLn/s320/227-48.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Yes, certain images, memories, and concerns keep spinning in my head. One of these is Vietnam, the land of my birth, the country that gave America nightmares. Being biracial is not incidental to my identity but essential to it. And it wasn’t me that made it so. My white classmates taught me well the lesson that “one of these things is not like the others”—they were the others and I was the one. And of course there was my mother. Her face, her voice, her tiny body. Other, other, other. As children, one of our most primal sensory experiences is the sound, the cadence, of our mothers’ voice. My mother’s voice spoke with a Vietnamese accent, used Vietnamese syntax. Although I don’t speak Vietnamese, though I can’t understand the meaning of the words, the sound of that language is a sweetness in my ears, a tugging in my heart. Can you imagine? Being in love with a language that is your own, that will never be your own? It’s an apt metaphor for biracialism. How can I not write and obsess about race, what it is and what it isn’t? Both of my races have informed me, formed me, found me and lost me. Even after all this time, race remains a great uncharted territory. My poems and other writings survey a tiny piece of it, not to draw borders or boundaries but to mark it with my scent, like an animal does. I want to leave a reminder, a bit of tangible evidence: I was here.<br />
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Then there’s Appalachia. The southern end of that ancient mountain chain. Home of hillbillies. Coal miners and moonshiners. Another voice—rhythms and diction that I know so well. All those hard r’s snagged in the slow-moving rivers of drawled-out vowels. The churches everywhere you look. Christianity in the blood, in the red clay, in the unshy music that makes even the avowed atheist come to Jesus. The blackness and whiteness that stand side by side and can’t quite figure out what to do with each other. Forever yoked. Choked on the past. Like Indochina, exploited by outside powers for the sweat and toil of its people (euphemistically labor), for the blood and guts of its land (euphemistically natural resources). I may have been born near the delta of the mighty Mekong, but I grew up beside the tremendous Tennessee, with a pair of mountains, Signal and Lookout, only an upward glance away. I cooled my young body in Chickamauga Lake, squished my chubby toes in the mud of Chickamauga Creek. My address was, literally, Chickamauga Avenue. Southernness informs my writing, too. The land and seasons, the flora and fauna, these all laid claim to me even if the people never did. And I claim them back.Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-67899187662865963722017-04-24T08:09:00.002-04:002017-04-24T12:28:41.098-04:00Emerging from the Cave<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: right;">
<i>You have to protect </i><br />
<i>your writing time. </i><br />
<i>The easiest thing to do on earth is not write. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<i>—William Goldman</i></div>
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Although bright and airy, my Wilmington cottage has been, for the better part of four months, a kind of “cave” for me. Not a safe and quiet place to hibernate, but a safe and quiet place to generate. Ideas, poems, stories, plays. The writing I’ve found so hard to do elsewhere has been possible to do here. It’s not just the place itself, though that certainly helps. The easy weather, the life bursting forth so abundantly and beautifully all around me. But the writing has also come, I think, because of the way I’ve hunkered down. Narrowed my focus. I’ve put blinders on to limit my vision, diminish distractions, and it’s worked.<br />
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Wilmington is full of wonderful opportunities—ones that speak to the deepest parts of me—but I’ve purposely kept myself from pursuing them. There’s a UU church with an inspiring and eloquent minister, with warm and kind and like-minded people. It’s the exact place I want to be part of. Except I want writing more. So, after attending a handful of services, I stopped going. I could see how easily I could get sucked in to the life of that church, how it could consume my time and attention, and though it would give me much—pleasure, community, connection, a sense of belonging, meaningful activities that align with my values of peace, justice, and mercy—it would also lessen the time and attention I needed to write. Thus I chose to stay away, remain in my cave.<br />
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The same applies to the vegan community here. It’s active, vibrant, welcoming. There was a time not so long ago when I would have jumped at the opportunity to connect with such a group, delirious for the chance to ally myself with other devoted vegans. Again, I stayed away. Online I read longingly about their monthly potlucks, about the environmental book club led by one of the vegan group’s main organizer, and I desisted. I attended one potluck, saw that it was good, and haven't been back. I've avoided places where I might meet kindred spirits. Downtown there’s a bookstore. It’s the hub of the city's literary scene. The kind of place where, if you mention you’re a writer new in town, you're told you must get to that bookstore right away, you must meet the amazing woman who runs it. It’s what’s done. And I didn’t do it.<br />
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Instead, I’ve remained hunkered in the cave. I’ve written. I've allowed myself one regular commitment, a playwrights' group, but that was only because playwriting is so new to me and I wanted a place where I could learn, where my work could get the critique it needs. Otherwise, I’ve intentionally isolated myself. Now and then it hurt, I admit. There were pangs. But as long as the writing was coming, it was worth it.<br />
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Last week, though, I stepped out of the cave. I participated in a staged reading outside my regular group, met new writers and actors, and had a great time. On Saturday I finally went downtown to that bookstore for a poetry reading and workshop, and on Sunday I went there again for another workshop. I met the bookstore’s owner and other writers, learned about literary activities going on around town. Then I went home to my cave and thought about what I should do. I’m pleased to have made connections, but I don’t want things to snowball. Don’t want an avalanche of other “stuff” to obliterate the writing. I’m pleased with the way I’ve protected my writing so far. Pleased with how I’ve resisted temptation, picking and choosing a little something here, a little something there, while putting nothing ahead of the writing.<br />
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Loneliness is easier when the isolation is self-imposed. But I do see myself making more frequent forays out of the cave. I’d like to share my work. Put it in the spotlight and see if it shines. I’m pleased with what I’ve written. It’s some of the truest work I’ve ever done and it deserves to be known. All our truths deserve to be known. And if I find that I’m losing my focus, I can and will pull back. Back into my cave, my cottage, where the blank page is always waiting to be filled.<br />
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Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-79914248419238878042017-02-15T18:47:00.001-05:002017-05-16T12:12:25.203-04:00Palms, Preachers, and Poems <iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/322907023&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe><br />
<div id="cp_widget_1487197818132"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"></div>I'm spending the winter of 2017 in the South. Deeper in the South than I've ever lived before. I'm so far south in North Carolina that I'm practically in South Carolina. In this part of the south, flowers bloom in wintertime and palm trees grow alongside the pines. In fact I'm looking at a palm tree outside my window as I write this. It's a common species, a Windmill Palm (<i>Trachycarpus fortunei</i>), but every time I see it I’m still astounded that it's only a few feet from my front porch.</div><br />
My writing cottage—that's what I’m calling it, for now, anyway—is in an ungentrified part of Wilmington, not far from downtown. Ungentrified, as in a euphemism for black. I'm not white, but my neighbors don't know this. I mentioned it to Tracy, a neighbor who makes extra cash mowing yards on this block, but I don't think he really heard me. He must not know many writers, because he likes to joke with me about telling a friend there’s now a writer in the neighborhood, and the friend warns him to watch out, ’cause she might be like that writer in <i>Misery</i>. Tracy has told me this joke more than once. I don’t remind him that the woman in the movie was the one who (spoiler alert) broke the writer’s ankles and wasn’t actually the writer herself. Who was (no surprise) a man. But I get that that’s not the point. Tracy and his friends don’t know writers. Or, I’m guessing, a lot of white people. Not that I’m white, but that’s not the point either. I may as well be.<br />
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Tracy is black. My neighbor on the left, Betty, is black too. Her neighbor on the other side has a couple of backyard dogs who bark all the time, and I think Betty's happy that my Bella's not a barker. (So am I.) Directly across the street from me are a pair of small red brick homes owned by a church and run by Rev. Barbara, whom Betty calls "the lady preacher." Rev. Barbara is black as well. The two homes she runs are halfway houses, safe places where she helps struggling women get back on their feet, or perhaps on their feet for the first time. "Preaching's not in the pulpit," Rev. Barbara told me when we first met. She also told me that my house, my winter writing cottage with the palm in the front, was once a halfway house too. I didn't ask why it wasn't anymore. I'm grateful to have it. Though I'm broke and can't afford to finish furnishing it, I'm grateful it's mine. I've been writing in a way I haven't in years. I wake up most mornings and the poems come flowing out of me. Sometimes gushing, like water bursting a dam. I have to stop what I'm doing—checking email, peeling an orange, measuring coffee—and sit down and let them come.<br />
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A lot of what's coming has a religious tinge to it. Not by choice. When you’re a writer, sometimes you just open the gate and you’re as surprised as anybody at what comes sauntering through. The religiosity of the South has felt both comfortable and comforting to me since I've returned. I didn't know I was missing it, but now that I'm here, I realize I like being swaddled in it. I haven't lived in the South for 17 years. And I’ve never lived in or near the deep South, alongside black folk, since I was a child. Rev. Barbara calls me "Sister Elizabeth." She's not being ironic. When Cornel West says "Brother So-and-So" or "Sister Such-and-Such," do Yankees know that it’s not a put-on? It's the ingrained religiosity of the South, particularly of black Southern culture. It’s a religiosity that takes one look at you and takes you in, whether you want to be taken in or not. Its rhythms are musical, like a good sermon. It fearlessly abides in concepts such as righteousness. It says "brethren" without embarrassment. When it greets you for the first time it marches across the yard, with arms outstretched, and hugs you in the middle of the street.<br />
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So maybe it's not surprising that I'm finding old-timey religious language tinging my poems. Words from the Bible, like <i>behold</i> and <i>firmament</i>, <i>serpent</i> and <i>sinner</i>, <i>resurrection</i> and <i>mercy</i> and <i>prayer</i>. Oh, did I forget to mention I'm an atheist? An atheist drawn to the flame of religiosity, who thrills to the growl and trill of gospel music. Yes, I'm the stranger that sojourneth among the believers. I breathe their air. Their words mix with mine. In Ruth Ozeki's first novel—which is in part about a blues-obsessed Japanese woman’s encounter with the ungentrified South—a character jokes about "hybrid vigor." I know something about being hybrid myself. It's too soon to say whether these new poems are vigorous or not, but for now the gate’s staying open. Whatever comes through, I’ll embrace. Brother Line. Sister Stanza. Your heathen sibling awaits.<br />
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You can read some of these tinged-with-religion poems them <u><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.flipsnack.com/elizabethanngordon/6-poems-from-early-2017.html" target="_blank">here</a></span></u>.Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2388692241274953251.post-8851706581901319952017-02-09T11:18:00.004-05:002017-05-18T11:52:14.880-04:00Something About Secrets<div id="cp_widget_9cab0c9e-3695-4075-a4d5-71e3fea99497">
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I remember it was on a school bus. Was I in middle school? Maybe. But wait, I didn't take the school bus in middle school, so it must have been elementary school, when my family had first moved to Tennessee from Florida. No matter. The bus was bumping along a narrow, wooded road on a steep hillside. The road followed the winding path of a creek that lay like a dark ribbon of shine in the ravine below. We were all in shade and I was a little bit scared. Sometimes the bus's right wheels went a few inches off the pavement, and I imagined how easy it would be for us all to go tumbling down the ravine into the murky glimmer of that creek.</div>
<a name='more'></a>It wasn't my first time on this bus, but it and the route were new to me. The cluttered dark woods of East Tennessee were new to me, too. I hadn't come to love them yet. On the inside I was still a Florida girl. I knew treeless Atlantic beaches, a yard bordered with yucca, a canal lined with paper birches that was the wonder and pleasure of all the neighborhood children. The water in that canal rose and fell with the tides and held silvery little fishes. Everything was sunshine bright. Shadows were scarce.<br />
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Tennessee gave me moss and decaying logs, shy salamanders, blackberries and their thorns, the perfume of leaf mold. A girl—her name was Theresa, I think—lived in the darkest part of the bus route, in a small frame house across the road from the creek. She often wore thin, tight-fitting cotton shirts in faint plaid patterns of blues and grays. Shirts with silver snaps instead of buttons. She had a crown of thick black hair that parted down the middle and waved on either side of her face, defying gravity. A trick my own tresses, disappointingly lank, never learned. Teresa had a momma, too. A serious-looking woman who sometimes appeared garbed at the bus stop in what I later learned was called a housedress. And she had a much younger sister, a pale waif of a child whose wispy yellow hair was nothing like the dense dark waves shared by Theresa and her mom.<br />
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One day, when the bus dropped Theresa off and the blond toddler ran across the yard to greet her, I heard murmurs as the driver pulled away. Snatches of words, hushed and knowing. Story was that Theresa's little sister was not her sister at all, but her niece. That Theresa's older sister, whom I'd never laid eyes on, had gotten pregnant in high school and that the grandparents, Theresa's momma and daddy, had decided to raise the girl as their own child.<br />
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The story disturbed me. Not in a dramatic, knock-you-in-the-stomach kind of way, but uncomfortably, like cold dampness that creeps into your skin and hurts when it reaches bone. I was rattled, worried. I thought about Theresa's teenage sister, playing sister to her own daughter. I thought about the stern woman in the housedress, pretending to be her own grandchild's momma. I thought about the little girl, playing with her plastic bucket and shovel in the dirt, and imagined a dust storm whirling around her head. Invisible only to her. And I thought about Theresa, the same age as me, living inside a secret I understood was more dangerous than any ravine.<br />
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Of course, my family had secrets of its own. But at age nine or ten, whatever I was then, I was ignorant of them. Overhearing those whispers on the school bus was my first direct acquaintance with something a family hid, or tried to hide, from the world, from each other. I remember it like a storybook: a meeting in a dark wood, the surprise, the narrow escape. Decades later, dark woods and deep ravines no longer frighten me. But secrets? If I let them, they still put a chill in my bones.<br />
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Read my new short play, "Wake," inspired by this experience <u><a href="http://www.appalasianwriter.com/p/short-plays.html" target="_blank">here</a></u>.Elizabeth Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052162150437938818noreply@blogger.com1