Thank you

You, my supporters, have given me a precious gift this holiday season: time to write. Already I have used it to write a grant to the Money for Women Fund. To prep the grant I had to reflect on a novel I'd like to finish and choose a sample to send. I return happily to this project, re-entering the vision, which is profound, and the craft, which is sound. I see now what to do to shape into a ship readers can ride...oh who knows how far or to where. My job is to build it well and launch it. You have freed me to do my job, but I know I had to free myself first.

My first gig of 2015

CAP--Caling All Poets--is a long-established reading that usually has a very large audience. I've wanted to read there since first meeting the event a few years back. It'll be a good show and I hope a lot of people will want to buy Love Cohoes. I'm almost sold out of the first edition of the book. Your support will help me buy a case of the 2nd edition ($770) from the publisher, CDD Books. Then I'll have plenty to sell at readings, which cover the costs of getting to and from, with perhaps a little surplus. Some readings also offer a small payment, which is nice.

Thank you for your support. We're making steady headway toward the goal of $26,000.

Waiting to hear from Williams College

I'm in the running to be an evening performer and/or workshop leader for their Stand up Williams day. This would be huge, and a real honor. I'm told a student who saw me win the Literary "Death Match" held at Williams in September I think it was saw me there and proposed that they invite me. I will let you know!

Esther tells me . . .

...I'll need to update the little thermometer soon. Yay.

The working sabbatical is already working. At a feature in Northampton Mass. the night before last, several great things:

1. my 30 minute set got a standing ovation, the first ever there I was told. About 100 mostly young folks in the audience. wow
2. encore requested; encore delivered
3. I came hope with about $350 in book sales, $150 pay for the feature, and $100 check from an individual for the working sabbatical (a single father on disability!). 
4. A Providence RI poet made it a point of getting there (on his way to a meditation retreat). He and his partner took me out after and had many ideas about (high) paying work in their city, plus a one-month everything paid artist's retreat space in Providence that they thought they could help me get into. Will keep you updated on THAT!

It was a really amazing night. I feel I am coming into my own. They loved and deeply heard every poem.

Also got a performance gig in Bar Harbor Maine - contract in hand. And waiting to hear from Williams College, a BIG gig there but lots of competition. Will let you know on that too. 

Thank you

Thank you everyone who has contributed or pledged so far! Though the sabbatical won't officially start until Feb 1st, just the prospect of it on the horizon has infused my writing. I feel clarity about a novel I'd put aside. I hope to finish that before Feb 1st, so the space will be free for new work.

I'll be sharing my work with students on the coast of Maine

Just now I was emailing  the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor Maine about the workshop and performance they want me to do there (in January... I know June would be better but it's all good). We should have a contract very soon soon.

Here's draft of the workshop description. Comments welcome. I thought one or two of the participants might like to "open" for my performance, if they get some lively writing from the workshop.

The Writing of Witness. Most of us have personal experience with injustice in some form – racial, class, gender, environmental. We have been victims, bystanders and perpetrators. To remain silent is to remain victim, bystander or perpetrator. By telling our stories, expressing emotions, naming responsibility and calling for justice we become “the changer and the changed.” It’s been said that slam poetry is “the last soapbox.” What message do you deliver when you step onto yours? 

This morning's morning light

Late November and a bird

calls for a mate

high in a bare tree.

With a parting of clouds

all seems possible: nest, eggs, chicks

hatched in December, fledged 

in the new year,

song and hope taking wing.

Legit

A little over a week into the fundraiser and we've already reached 20% of our goal of $26,000!

Last night at the mostly-music, mostly-collegekids open mic I decided to try a new poem on them -- a challenging one about Michael Brown. They liked it; heard it. I hadn't wanted to perform really, but now that the universe has in a sense hired me I must accept every opportunity to give my best back.

Albany's Hudson River Coffee House - always packed for Tue open mic

"Hey, that's legit," said a young man when I sat down. Yeah.

Three free pears

Yesterday at the grocery store the cashier couldn't get the scanner wand to read the price code on my package of three organic pears. She tried the usual then called the shift manager who went for another package.

"I don't really need them," I told her. The woman next in line was fidgeting and more people were joining the line. "I mean I wasn't even sure I wanted them." She just looked at me. "I mean, It's okay," I said. I hate holding up the line. I'm the type who swipes my debit card as soon as I can. I help the bagger. I bag if there's no bagger. I'm very polite. I was a convenience store clerk long ago, back in the day as folks say now, and I know how the cold faces and the rudeness can wear you down.

The shift manager wasn't coming. "Really," I said "I don't need them." I had apples and bananas. Canned pineapple at home. I'd be fine.

"Oh just take them," she said, and slid the 3 pears to the bagger who set them in a filled bag. And smiled, a little.

I took them, more for the relief of getting out of the store and unstalling the line. More for the symbolism of it . . . three beautiful yellow pears, unblemished, close to ripe. For me, for my sustenance, for free. Had I become the sort of woman people want to give beautiful free pears to? Was this a portent of abundance to come?

After writing this this morning, I hear from head honcho fundraiser Esther. Almost $6,000 in pledges in her mailbox today, from 3 people. We easily got past the minimum on the checking account opened for the Working Sabbatical. (We'd been worried about that.)

I'm moved to tears with gratitude. What a good day. And a nice ripe pear waiting for me among the apples and bananas in the fruit bowl. Wow.

My first post

Can it happen - a year and more of open space in which to write, to let the momentum that's been building build still more? Am I ready? I'm ready. So ready. But lots of work to do yet. Esther is an engine. I feel like the caboose.