Linseed Lapin, They Called Him
So Brandon in my office was telling
us one day (as we in educational publishing talked about evaluation and
assessment) that one of his teachers, Mr. Lapin (“Linseed Lapin, we called
him,” because that’s how he smelled, and he was oily, I don’t recall if Brandon
said) used to toss all the term papers down the basement steps. The ones that
landed on the top step got A’s, the next step, B’s, etc., “a perfect bell
curve” down to the F’s. “It probably wasn’t far off the mark,” was his
justification. Ol’ Linseed may have a point, and if I had the energy I’d create an elegant segue and move into a rant about standardized testing and how it’s ruining kids and education and the
world, making us further in the debt and thrall of corporate control, but
angels, Miss O’ just isn’t up to it.
Text Wranglin’
Losing my mind…depression. Emerged
on Saturday morning, yesterday, as from the aftermath of a big, violent storm, a week since bottoming
out and clawing through my emotional debris. So I spent said bottom day, last President’s Day
holiday, with the blessed, blessed app, Text Wrangler, which resurrected old
poems and plays from yonder days so I might transfer them to updated Word docs.
We interrupt this reverie about
poems and plays of yore to beat ourselves in the head for even LOOKING at
Facebook today.
Very right-wing former student
posted THIS gem on Facebook:
Student: Anytime I watch a
documentary on the Third Reich I still get flabbergasted at how an entire
nation can be turned into such a cult of personality.
For starters, “Anytime I watch a documentary on the Third Reich…”? Jesus. That’s
quite a hobby. And then I waited for the Reaganites to hypocritically weigh in
by accusing Obama of being Hitler. And…it took about twenty seconds.
Responder 1: When you have a leader that spends
years selling you a ticket to the promised land, it's understandable. Sounds
somewhat familiar
And there it is. To which I had to
say:
Miss O’: Um…Jesus? Mohammed? Buddha?
And...waiting for the predictably
“reasonable” voice to point out that religious leaders are not “political”
leaders…in three, two, one:
Responder 1: I understand what you're saying Lisa
and good point, however they were all religious leaders not leaders of
countries where laws were mandated for you to follow or else.....
And I go in for the kill:
Miss O’: Tell it to Iran. And the GOP.
And…scene. They make it so easy. Miss
O’s work of saving the world today? Done. I’d go back to read about how Obama’s
health care initiatives for all citizens are the equivalent of the Anschluss
(all the while marveling as Responder 1 forgets those abortion restrictions and the
anti-gay platform points based on “Jesus”), but who has that kind of time for
morons who deny climate change while watching Third Reich television shows for
their porn?
Possibly that sounds unfair.
[Insert sitcom laugh track.]
I’m feeling cranky. And I need a rest from politics, for once.
Here’s the list of stuff I
accomplished this week, in addition to wranglin’ all that text and aside from my job.
Letter
to Cullen
Letter
to M’Liz
Take
out of the freezer the compost and take to Library for community pick-up
Go
to the store—eggs and half and half…maybe pasta, chicken, feta…
Fruit…vegetables…apples…maybe
cider and oranges? Why not?
No
drinking for two months: Detox to save me from my depressive state, and in
memory of ones I’ve lost to the disease that is alcoholism.
Go to Rebecca Behrens's book launch for "When Audrey Met Alice" at Books of Wonder
Brunch
with Luthien and Ryan, Saturday
See "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me"
Love my boyfriend
Breakfast with Jodi at Alpha Donuts, Sunday
Mama is tired.
Overheard in my
office, a colleague on the phone:
“So do you wanna put her down?” Sounds of choked-back tears.
(Note: Sophie, the subject, had been his late mother’s cat. -ed.)
(Note: Sophie, the subject, had been his late mother’s cat. -ed.)
Kids, it’s been a goddamned long
winter, and yet, globally, one of the top warmest in recorded history. Things
are not exactly looking UP is what I’m saying, and I felt I needed to RESCUE something.
Adventures in Text Wranglin’: Thanks, Free Mac App
Here are a few of the texts I
rescued, because I know you were just HOPING for a treasure trove of Miss O's creative writing. Maybe one of the pieces will speak to you. (Ha, ha. So I offer you delightful reading alternatives in several photos.) Most of the pieces are in a form called haibun,
which has a title, a paragraph story, and a short poem (usually haiku) to
close. I learned about this form in a
workshop with my friend, poet Jean LeBlanc, about whose work I have blogged
before, should you care to read more about her: Are
You There When You’re There.
And you SHOULD care.
And you SHOULD care.
Herewith some of Miss O’s writing.
Be kind.
Here's a haibun:
“At least one person is dead.”
At the top of the morning hour from
the all-news AM radio station, this declaration begins my day. What time is it?
7:00 AM. By this time, I think to myself, I believe it is safe to say that
indeed at least one person is, in fact, dead. Probably more than one, given the
size of the population of the world today. As I scramble my eggs in a dab of
bacon grease, butter the crisp pumpernickel toast, and sip my hot French roast
coffee, and later rock gently in my old wooden rocking chair against the cold
tile kitchen floor, I try to count up the possible dead since, say, 5:01 AM,
and marvel that someone got paid to write that best-guess copy. “No word yet on why they were killed.” I
guess not.
beside
the gritty stoop
flopping
greens clumped in black dirt
so
suddenly, daffodils
~~~
Here’s my first tanka (a five-line poem), and my only tanka, discovered in my head on a spring walk to work in NYC after the workshop in short form I took with Jean LeBlanc at Sussex County Community College in the spring of (I think) 2008. (You can find a book of her teachings on Amazon: The Haiku Aesthetic: Short Form Poetry as a Study in Craft. )
A Tanka
Tulip with bulb attached,
tossed onto Seventh Avenue;
I replant it.
“Make it live!” the crazy man says,
“you’re beautiful.”
~LO’H, 2008
~~~
A few more haibun:
45
YEARS WITH BERNIE AND LYNNE
In the too-small suburban kitchen
Dad bends over the open oven door, a hand reaching across to the wooden cabinet
for a hot pad. Mom’s rear end unavoidably bumps his as she sloshes out a pot in
the sink, signaling the start of the duet, “My God, honey, why can’t you get
out of my way?” Their marriage, from our angle, is a fast dance about feeding
up. “Have I told you lately how much I hate this refrigerator?” Mom says to no
one in particular, reaching low into the back for a relish tray/container of
potato salad/head of lettuce. Dad says, “Look out, it’s hot,” as he brings into
the too-tiny dining room the large round casserole filled with buttered sweet
corn/corned beef and cabbage/green beans and ham. “Go ahead and start, guys, I’ll
be right in,” Mom says, shutting off the timer and reaching for a pad to pull
out the tray of biscuits. And we bow our heads.
Bless
us, oh Lord,
and
these thy gifts—
how
does one not smile during grace?
~~~
This next one was an accident. My friend George was driving out to visit our Bread Loaf School of English teacher and friend Ed, and his wife, Deborah, who was in the last stages of Alzheimer's. George asked me, "Do you have anything for Ed?" And I sent this.
ARRIVAL for Deborah and Ed
Walking into the inn from the
porch, her peeking face is a balm of undisguised wonder and terror, a mirror of
my own feelings as I stand in the lobby of Bread Loaf, my new graduate school. Behind
her is a lean, tall man with a mane of roguish white hair; sun-weathered crags
surround amused eyes that wink meeting mine. His long arms would enfold her
even as his hand merely touches her arm. He must be a professor, I think, and
she his wife, though somehow their love seems sweetly young. Strangers to me, their
faces include me in a conspiracy of embarkation and in a rush I love them.
only
a screen door
separates
them from the path
into
green mountains
~~~
~~~
[In the anthology Voices from Here: The Paulinskill Poetry
Project, Andover, NJ]
P.S.
Here’s Ed today:
Deborah Keniston with Ed Lueders, The Barn at Bread Loaf, ca. 1991, LO'H |
~~~
Another one. My "friend" in this is Jean.
IN THE ANTIQUES STORE IN LAFAYETTE
We both have a penchant for
photographs, the old ones where the subjects pose stiffly in sepia, wearing big
bows, impossible collars, vacant stares against ornate furniture. In this shop a framed
tintype catches my eye, unpeopled, hand-tinted in gold and blue, a chair by a
kind of fireplace, with the words “Scotch stove” etched into it. I almost buy
it. The price, though, $22.00, seems steep. I don’t know how I arrive at what
makes a price too high for someone’s lost memory. My friend stares at other photos
on the wall—a few girls in a garden, two women in their Sunday best—and she
says in a kind of low moan, “I’m so afraid that one of these days, I’ll look up
and see my family.”
on
the green peg board
grandmother’s
embroidered words
in a
guilt frame
~~~
~~~
[Also in the anthology Voices from Here: The Paulinskill Poetry
Project, Andover, NJ]
NOTE: When I sent the above poems
to Jean LeBlanc, who is the editor of Voices
from Here, and she asked to publish them, she also asked that I include a
biography. In the Text Wrangling on Monday, I ran across these options, which I’d
forgotten about.
MY BIOGRAPHY
Originally from
Virginia, Lisa O’Hara lived briefly in Sussex County before settling in New
York City to work as an editor. She remains a regular visitor to Sussex County
and its environs via the Lakeland Bus Line. If it’s 6:00 PM, this must be
Byram!
MY REAL STORY
A pitbull without
the lipstick, Lisa O’Hara kicks serious corporate ass for the McGraw-Hill
Companies in New York City. Her connection to Sussex County is tenuous at best:
suffice to say, free alcohol, good drugs at great prices, and the allure of bus
fumes along county roads never fail to entice.
HERE’S ANOTHER WAY
OF LOOKING AT THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LISA O’:
“I write my poems
doggy-style,” says self-made New York City poet Lisa O’Hara. “I learned my
craft in the backwoods of New Jersey, and still call Sussex County home, because
that’s what it says on my tax returns.”
AND FINALLY:
“Holy
mother-fucking-christ-almighty, live in Sussex County and die free, slaves!” So
sayeth poet and editor Lisa O’Hara, who is middle-aged, female, loveless,
childless, godless, and middle-aged. And alone. Oh so alone...
(Might be a fun assignment for you
English teachers out there.)
And now for something completely different. And I have absolutely no memory of
writing this:
A Fitting Ode to Pants
Of course I had to size up to
eighteen—
Catastrophe against my womanhood:
Slim hips, toned gut, and nubile
ass unseen
For years and years; it’s sure
they’re gone for good.
I once dropped forty, size fourteen
returned.
Two years slipped by, the waist
became too tight;
My vanity of female size unlearned
When button popped and belly flab
took flight!
Then, sixteen was admission of
defeat—
The winter that I caved is but a
blur.
Gone was denial along with my
conceit,
The vain thing that I’d been, I
knew not her.
Now eighteen pants: contain these
robust thighs—
My beauty liberated in your size!
~LO’H
11/21/09
NYC
Or this:
Why I Hung Up
Brenda couldn’t stand my telephone.
The white plastic lozenge—with earpiece, voice box, and green-illuminated
push-button dial all in one cradle against my face—not merely perplexed her. It
annoyed and vexed and exasperated her. She tried to cajole me out of it, while
on the phone. “You know, Lisa, there is such a thing as a cordless phone—it’s
the latest invention” and “I can’t stand picturing you walking around the house
pulling that ridiculous cord” were regular downbeats. How to explain this
touchstone, my phone? When our friendship ended one day, appropriately, over
that same phone, I was surprised by my lightness, the comfort of that click.
Patty washing the greens,
Patty washing the greens,
phone cord stretched taut to the kitchen
sink,
telling her mother the news
telling her mother the news
[P.S. I still use this phone in New
York City. Yes, I do. (I also keep a paper card taped below it with handwritten phone numbers in case of emergency. And shouldn't YOU?)]
I do remember writing this next
one, and shared it with my play lab, whose members were indifferent to it,
probably because I began weeping copiously, and unexpectedly, about the loss of my
house on Spriggs Road in Virginia, the real subject of the poem.
Ode on an Envelope
A Poem for Louise
and Don Cleveland
First of
all I wonder if I ever wrote you back.
And
second, as I can’t find one metaphorical bone
in my clichéd
body, I can only apologize for
getting
your hopes up for a fine poetic tribute:
Still I
want to thank you for the opportunity of your envelope.
So
timely, to be lying as it must have done
on my
kitchen table,
within
handy reach of the telephone
and a
nearby pen, unfazed
by the
tangle of white phone cord—
outdated
aspect of an old contraption—so
that I
might record the ruminations of friends,
and
reminders to myself,
of who I
was and what was doing
among
phone friends
some
short time after June 5, 2003,
which is
what the postmark indicates
across
the impressive likeness of Duke Kahanamoku.
And here
I must apologize, Don and Louise,
for not
knowing who in the world you might be.
The
envelope’s contents no longer inside,
I can
only conjecture: a bridal shower, perhaps?
Maybe a
graduation party. Louise,
did you
send me an invitation, maybe on behalf of a kid I taught?
No
matter. You sent me this envelope,
and
whatever was in it, for there it is—
my name,
handwritten by you, and your gold
and black
return address label.
Then
flung against the crisp, white folds came a wild
collective
scrawl of blue ink, mine:
here is
Rumi, for one, flowing: “Jars of spring water
are not
enough for me
anymore.
Take me to the river.”
This
wisdom abuts an all-caps reminder,
“DMV—DRIVER’S
LICENCE,” for, I guess, change of address
before
the move to New York City.
But let’s
get some order, if we can.
On the
front: Under my zip code (as was)
is John
Stephens’s idea for our school
modeled
on Gandhi and the Sermon
on the
Mount; left of the house number:
“logos—science
-> adapts us to outer;
vs mythos
-> beyond reality, adapts
us to
inner” was surely Jeanne Clabough,
keeping
me apprised of the big stuff, for perspective.
Here in
the corner of the back by the flap,
now torn,
some RSVPs—to the Wake
for My
House, it must have been,
a house
which was no longer
to be
mine but the state’s
in
twenty-seven short dates
from the
postmark. (Of those few
early
respondents from the list, Clevelands,
I recall
that Jay, who had just turned forty,
kept
remarking, “I’m a geezer”;
Susan
Kats came but couldn’t bring the Band.
Chris, no
surprise, never showed up.
And Terri
is dead
now;
Angelito moved to Bali.)
“Awaken
pert and nimble spirit of mirth,”
I quote
from Oberon, Midsummer, that spring;
“I’m
sitting on my life and not
living
it,” and who was that?
Along the
ragged opening:
“If I
ever have one of those Mormon celestial marriages”:
Was this
Debbie? The right corner’s
“Steve is
my UPS man” is surely Patty,
for she
likes to have a man who does for her.
Then,
turning over once more, I catch,
“It’s
Hillsides.” Is this the school again?
Louise,
and possibly also Don, how to express my gratitude
for this
morning’s visitation,
seven
years and a life change later, flipping
through a
fat, loose-paper-packed
address
book, where one
of the
papers, an envelope, slipped loose,
and
memory with it?
“Gentle
and revolutionary”
I
scribbled;
“practical
and light”
I threw
down;
“The
Sacred and the Profane”
I was
supposed to read.
Today I
read this envelope instead.
And here
is the return, unmailed
to your
years-ago address,
truly
yours.
I hope it
finds you
well and
happy,
whatever became of you.
~LO’H, 2010, NYC
And finally, I came across this last
poem, and on Saturday, February 22, 2014, which was the fifth anniversary of
the death discussed in this poem. Such a loss. (I just spent an hour and a half
catching up on the phone with her older son, Rick, who is 27 now and about to
buy his first house—which he knows she would have loved to decorate for him.)
Art for Our Sake
“I scrapbooked by dad’s heart
attack,” Jen said. “I scrapbooked my mother’s funeral. It’s what I do.” Jen is
assembling the scrapbook pages for our friend Terri’s funeral, “for her boys.”
I hand her my eulogy, printed on the second try, on decorative paper with bold
streaks of Terri’s colors. Jen’s art of the scrapbook even in the grimmest of
occasions had struck me at first as odd, and then I remembered that student
years ago who, upon my reading an Anne Sexton poem aloud, said that poems
should only be about birds and butterflies. I watch as Jen tenderly takes my
pages, imagining how she will arrange her design of grief.
leafless,
blackened birch
lichen-covered,
stiff-twigged,
newly
greened in maple’s arms
Doorway detail, W. 26th St., NYC, LO'H |
Terri took and framed the photos of
the Spriggs Road house (up by the other poem) as a parting gift to me in my New York City adventure,
10 years and counting. I miss her so. Life is loss.
And life is renewal. After a weekend of false spring,
big melting, and blue skies, may I urge you to try your own hand at some
poetry? Or try dipping into past writings? Like Mr. Linseed Lapin up there, I sort of tossed all these wrangled writings down the steps to see where they'd land. No grades, though. What the hell?
Spring tease, Queens, LO'H |
Here’s to the wrangling of the
texts of your own life,
With love as always,
Miss O’
P.S. Here's a wonderful book of poems by a fellow Bread Loafer, Peter Newton, and if you liked the haibun form, his are vastly superior and more beautiful than Miss O's (I promise). Treat yourself to Welcome to the Joy Ride. For spring. For poetry.
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