Roses are red, violets are blue...that's what I thought poetry was.  Okay, perhaps a little more evolved, but still I expected triteness and I get enough of that in commercial songwriting.  I had no idea what modern poetry was and had never taken the time to find out until several years ago when someone very close to me gave me a copy of an interview with Jane Kenyon which included her poem, "Let Evening Come." 

Jane had been caring for her husband who had cancer when she was diagnosed herself.  "Let Evening Come," was written as a sort of response.  This poem changed the way I write songs.

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn.  Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass.  Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down.  Let the shed
go black inside.  Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid.  God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

                   --Jane Kenyon  (May 23, 1947-April 22, 1995)

I was introduced to this poem before Jane died and in her death it was the only one I could think of.  "God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come."  I would hope my response to death would hold even a fraction of this gracefulness.

I'll be honest and tell you that Jane is not necessarily one of my favorite poets.  I'm drawn more to the likes of Denise Duhamel, Marie Howe, Daisy Freid, and Louise Gluck.  However, Jane Kenyon opened the door, and for that I will always be grateful.

Pop culture doesn't necessarily age well.  This book proves it when you try to reread it.  The self-consciousness with which Dave Eggers writes, however, stays somehow genuine to me.  Maybe that's a testament to true sincerity or maybe it's a testament to great writing--maybe both.  I don't know, nor do I need to.  This book entertained me and broke my heart and made me laugh out loud and made me want to write a novel right then.  The voice Eggers writes with made me feel like I was involved.  I'd loved characters in books before, of course, but this was different.  This was retelling of a familiar person's facts of life.  For me, it was a subtle shift in presentation from what I was used to, and it all of a sudden made even more things possible.  I loved being that excited about a book.

Amazon gives the following synopsis: 

At the age of 22, Eggers became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of labor, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-year-old brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor, decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters, and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings between making his brother's upbringing manically fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him.

The book itself--the writing--is just off the wall.  It includes a list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of this Book," there is a pen and ink drawing of a stapler, a mail-in offer, and a terrific 20 pages of acknowledgements--all before you really get to the story.  I'd never seen anything as conversational and representative of the goofy thinking of my friends.  The voice Eggers uses to write with here was that of my friends.  I knew him without even knowing him.  For example, when his older sister Beth is getting married and they bring out the boom box to play the processional, Dave starts thinking, "No, Beth, don't do it.  Don't do it."  And, then, against the will of the better angels, someone presses 'play' and KISS's rendition of "Beth" begins blaring.  This could've been real for any one of my friends.

Dave had his little brother saying things back to him like, "You're just saying that because I'm black."  (They were not a black family.)  So, it was hilarious and awkwardly horrifying that an 8 year old was defending himself with sentences like that.

But, with all the laugh out loud moments for me in the book, they were tainted with the knowledge of the circumstances which brought them to that place at all, and that's when it was heartbreaking.  Eggers is a kid himself trying to raise his little brother and his Mom and Dad are dead.  And it was remarkable that this writer could keep me going back and forth between such polar emotions.  That's why the book worked for me. 

I almost didn't read the book because of the title.  Honestly.  How arrogant.

In the end, though, I decided that the book is titled, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," simply because it is.

Lucy was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma when she was nine.  This is a rare cancer which caused her to lose half her jaw.  She spent twenty years having plastic surgery trying to reconstruct what she'd lost to the disease.  Lucy was a brilliant writer who studied at Sarah Lawrence and Iowa (both prestigious programs), which made her especially capable of communicating her experience of living in a society which forms impressions of us based on our appearance.  There were so many times in the reading of this book when I wanted to take her hand and tell her she was so much more than her face.  But, having my own paralysis of my foot, I knew well that it wouldn't matter.  Hearing those words and internalizing them are two completely different animals.  When she described certain feelings from her hospital stays, I could literally smell Charleston General Hospital where I spent three weeks for a bone infection and my screaming when they would come in on schedule to flush my bone again, and where I had all my subsequent surgeries.  When she talks about the times after operations, I could feel it again.  When I read this book, it was the first time I'd ever had some of my medical experiences put into words.  It was deeply moving and I wept through this book more than I ever thought I would.  Again, though, it resonated with me on a level that would be different for most others.

Lucy's experience was much different than mine, of course, and in no way do I mean to take away from that by inserting myself.  We were on two completely different paths, but the commonalities of growing up physically different than our peers were striking.  I also believe that choosing bad relationships can be a very subconscious way of punishing our bodies for some type of perceived betrayal.  You want to be loved, but only just enough.  You don't feel like you deserve more than that.  So, when Lucy makes poor decision after poor decision romantically, I've always felt like that was so much more about her perceived betrayal of her body than it was her family and friend circumstance.  She was certainly judged for it, but I think it was so much more complex than we could ever know.

After reading this book, I held a very special place in my heart for this troubled woman and often wondered about her and how she was doing.  Then came this in the New York Times:

December 21, 2002  

Lucy Grealy, Who Wrote a Memoir on Her Disfigurement, Dies at 39

By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT

ucy Grealy, the poet and essayist who wrote a noted 1994 memoir, "Autobiography of a Face," about her experience growing up with extreme facial disfigurement and repeated surgery to repair it, died at a friend's house in Manhattan on Wednesday night. She was 39.

No cause of death was announced. Friends said she had been despondent over operations she underwent two years ago.

-b

As I told you last week, I ended up teaching at the Tennessee Young Writer's Workshop last week.  It was a very last minute thing and I had originally thought there was no way I could do it, but in the end, we figured it out.  It basically involved me getting up every morning at 4:45, driving over 120 miles daily and still fulfilling my other obligations.  Needless to say, come the weekend, I was barely moving. 

There had been a time in my life when I'd thought I wanted to be a teacher. 

I even started out with an education major in college.  Of course, it took about 3 semesters before I found out that I don't have that kind of long term patience.  However, I've still found other opportunities to work with kids and adults alike teaching, only I teach for very short times and I'm teaching about songwriting, which I love.  I guess I still get to honor that side of me while not having to do it for weeks at a time.

I'll admit that there was a time on Thursday when all my kids were being total jerks and I really didn't think I could deal with them anymore.  Someone said to me last week, "Not only are you dealing with the teenager ego, you're dealing with the artist ego as well."  That about summed it up--and so you understand when I say there were a few moments that I could've locked them all in closet and left. 

But, at the end of it all, there were a few moments that really made it worth it and also affirmed my decision to not inflict any sort of bodily harm on these young people.

One girl I'm going to call Sandy (not her real name.)  Sandy started the week barely speaking.  She seemed intimidated by the camp as a whole and was having a real time with writer's block.  She was the one I was afraid wouldn't be able to open up.  She was new to the camp, she didn't know anyone and the others in my class for the most part had met at camp in years before.  She was the one with the dramatic make-up, the spiked hair, the black nail polish and the initial tough exterior.

As the week went on, though, Sandy started writing.  And, once she got into writing, she started adding a comment here and there in class.  Then, she started asking questions.  THEN, I couldn't get her to be quiet. 

Sandy wanted to write this really angry song, so I let her.  I told her to use her writing to express herself and if it was angry, then it was angry.  (Yes, it was angry.)  Then she got into co-writing with another student.  Sandy flourished even more.  Then, on Friday, I gave the class an exercise in lyric writing.  The lyric Sandy gave back was beautiful and poetic and really truly lovely.  I think it's fair to say that the whole class was excited about Sandy's lyric.  All in all, it was really fun to watch the transformation over the week.

On Saturday, though, everybody's parents/guardians came to pick them up and we put on a little program for the family and friends of our class.  Each student performed one of their works.  I had Sandy do the song she wrote on Friday.  It was great and she got a terrific applause.  When the program was finished, Sandy raised her hand.  She asked if she could say something and I gave her the mic (a little nervously, to be honest.  This was so out of character for her based on what I'd seen that I didn't know what to expect.)

Sandy began to cry as she held the microphone.  A deep-chested cry and she could hardly get the words out.  "This has been the best week of my life and I just wanted to thank you all."  Everyone cried with her.

You just never know what affect you'll have when you give of yourself.  Sometimes your efforts feel completely pointless and your time feels profoundly wasted.  And you know what?  Sometimes it is.  But, for those times when you actually do make a difference to someone, none of those other things matter anymore.   

 -b

Emo (pronounced /ˈiːmoʊ/) is a somewhat ambiguous slang term most frequently used to describe a fashion or subculture linked to post-hardcore fashion and its subculture. The slang term emo is best known for referring to fashion style^[1] and attitude. Emo may describe this fashion or emo music, or a general emotional state (as in to "feel emo"). It is also, sometimes pejoratively, used to identify someone fitting a particular emo stereotype or category.

'Emo' as a term is now sometimes used in a negative and/or derogatory fashion, and the term's definition is the subject of debate. ^[2][3][4] Emo is now often used to refer to a person's emotion, personality, sometimes both, as well as the musical category.

Sadder still, this really didn't help me much.

-b

-b

-b

-b

-b

-b

I'm going on a cruise with my Mom and my brother.  Neither of them have ever seen anything like the Bahamas so it will be fun.  I will not have a phone, phone access or internet access...I will be inaccessible in all ways.  Hooray!  I will also have people to clean up after me.  Hooray for me...bummer for them based on the way this week has gone so far.

So, Happy Fourth of July.  Be safe.  Catch up with you again next week.

-b

p.s.  I'm going to look at the house before I leave.  Hopefully I'll get inside.  Focus this time, Tiffany.

p.s. again--...Joel, the mission was accomplished.  You are BRILLIANT!