Journey in Words-Journey Inwards

Morgana on the Sparkly Rock

2012-01-10T07:18:00.000-06:00

After the painting Morgan Le Fay by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys

Her hair is the color of the spots

on the leopard skin draped

across her like a sari.

Serpents and winged dragons

are dyed into a horizontal pattern

around the gold hem of her dress.

Once when I was a little girl

I took my mother’s 70’s green velvet

tablecloth, a pewter lamp shaped

like a genie’s and an old book

my grandmother had given to me

that was printed in 1893,

and I went into the woods

behind our house

to do magic

to be Morgan Le Fay.

I safety-pinned the tablecloth

around me like a cape

and I found the place where

the sparkly rock rose from the earth

like the sword from the stone.

My hair was dishwater blonde

and cut by my mother, so always

a bit crooked, my bangs

like the slanted edge of a pan flute.

This painting was in the big art book

in the living room bookshelf—

above the Ray Price, Jim Reeves,

and Roy Clark albums. It was wide

like an album.

I had looked at Morgan so much

the book automatically

fell open to her.

A cauldron blazes in the background,

the fire shadowed against

the brown wall, stark—like the artist

etched it with a nail.

The old book was called Little Lady Val.

On the cover was a picture

of a very proper young lady

with golden curls, her arm

firmly clasped by a boy in blue

showing her the way.

I stood on the sparkly rock

with these two women

and hurriedly—so I wouldn’t be caught—

I began to make my life.

--Shaun Perkins

The Hypnotist by Lars Keppler

2011-07-11T08:04:00.000-05:00

I didn't pay much attention to the cover of this book as I was reading it. It's only now that I'm pasting the picture on here that I realize that it's pretty gruesome. You'll have to read to see what made the blood splatter. (It's not as bad as it sounds . . . well, not really.) Anyway...suspenseful though it goes a bit crazy toward the end as many mysteries do. Why do authors always think we want a crazy-ass ending like in a blockbuster movie?

Best Thing: Equal number of male and female characters who are well-developed (though not always believably so)

Worst Thing: Unbelievable (but not so much that it makes you stop reading) . . . plus, I just saw a picture of the authors--a Swedish husband-wife team who look like models. Yuck.

The Raising by Laura Kasischke

2011-07-08T19:27:00.001-05:00

At first I was afraid it was going to be a vampire story, and so I was glad it definitely wasn't. I enjoyed the combination of characters from the academic world--most of the book is set on a college campus--and the subplot with a professor in death studies. I learned stuff while reading this book.

Plus: Suspenseful; well-developed characters

Minus: Somewhat unsatisfying resolution (I always want evil people to be punished appropriately.)

Mayes County Storytellers hosting story session at festival

2011-06-02T07:07:00.000-05:00

MCS Storytellers: Betty Perkins, Roxann Grissom, Louise Evans, Bev Hart, Shaun Perkins, Deb Evans

By Valerie Kimble

Storytellers from Mayes County are scheduled to perform 3:00 p.m. Friday, June 3, 2011 at the Spirit of Oklahoma Storytelling Festival at Seminole State College. Produced by the Territory Tellers, the statewide, nonprofit, arts organization whose mission is to promote the art of storytelling, the festival is in its fifth year and draws tellers and listeners from all over the

United States

“Storytellers from all over Oklahoma, Texas and California will tell for two full days,” said Valerie Kimble, for the Territory Tellers Publicity Committee. “There will be concerts, circles, swaps, exhibits, free ghost tales, and workshops. Last year, listeners from all over the region and as far away as Georgia attended.”

Choogie Kingfisher

Beverly Hart, Pryor, and Choogie Kingfisher, Salina, along with Tulsans Darla L’Allier and Connie Neil Fisher will be telling a story during the MCS story circle, which is hosted by Shaun Perkins, Locust Grove. this story circle is from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Friday, June 3.

“Oklahoma is known for its storytellers: Will Rogers, Woody Guthrie, Te Ata and many more,” said Kimble. “So we have a wonderful storytelling tradition in this state.”

“The Mayes County Storytellers are proud to be part of this,” said Shaun Perkins, co-founder of MCS and Territory Tellers’ liaison/webmaster. “We have been a part of the festival since it began, and we hope more people from our part of the state will continue to get involved with it.”

Darla L'Allier

For more information, the schedule of events, or to print a brochure, visit the Territory Tellers website. Register for the festival before May 20 for discounted rates on a festival pass. Concert tickets are half-price or $5.00 for seniors and students. Single program tickets will be sold at the door. Stories are family-friendly, but not intended for small children.

“Come on down to Seminole State College anytime on Friday or Saturday, June 3 and 4 to hear some wonderful stories,” said Perkins, “And to hear from folks from our part of the state, be sure to see us Friday afternoon.”

Connie Fisher

Shaun Perkins: Online Articles

2011-05-28T07:35:00.002-05:00

Education (Lessons Plans, etc.)

How to Memorize a Poem

Creating an Anti-Brochure for Ayn Rand's Anthem

Decoding Classic Fiction with One Question

Hypotyposis: A Shift in Teaching Philosophy

The Labyrinth of Teaching

NE Oklahoma teachers can learn about digital storytelling this summer

Making a Creature Field Guide for King Lear

Gardening

Hope for a Sunny Oklahoma Flower Garden

Pairing Wild and Cultivated Flowers in the Garden

The Wonders of a Gourd Pergola

How to grow a healthy lawn (audio!)

Book Reviews

Never Out of Style: A Good Book

Sweeping and Subtle Moments: Books by Two Contemporary Poets

The Poetry of Joy Harjo

The Mythic Lives of Teenagers: The Outsiders

Treat Him Like a Dead President: David Bowie

Local Interest (Oklahoma stuff)

Brief Tour of Diners in NE OK: Locust Grove

NE Oklahoma Writers everyone should know

A story about the firewheel, Oklahoma's state wildflower

Exploring Oklahoma's Labyrinths

Four important NE Oklahomans everyone should know

Saline Courthouse full of stories of Oklahoma's past

Stories behind names of some NE OK towns: Mayes County

Oklahoma Natural History Museum

Best Local Diners in Northeastern Oklahoma

Storytelling

Healing with Story: Healing the Storyteller

The Power of Story: Facing Prejudice

Stories as Keys: Talking with Tim Tingle

Once Upon a Time . . . at a Storytelling Festival

Oklahoma storytellers tell the best lies

Mayes County Storytellers spread the love of story

Girls Not Ghosts (audio)

Poetry & Short Stories

Seeing Purple in the World

The Position of the Stars (audio)

Black-Eyed Susans

Writing (How-To)

Reviving the Poet within Us All

Create Your Own Sherlock Holmes

Journey in Words: The Hero Pattern as Writing Guide

Journey in Words: The Writing Year with the Hero’s Journey

Journey in Words: The Call to Adventure and the Refusal

Journey in Words: Supernatural Aid and Crossing the 1st Threshold

Journey in Words: Belly of the Whale

Journey in Words: Road of Trials

Journey in Words: Meeting with the Goddess

Journey in Words: Apotheosis

Journey in Words: Benefit and Atonement

Journey in Words: The Return

Crafts and Miscellaneous

Craft Ideas for Older Children

Harvey Pekar, "American Splendor" Creator and Comic Genius, Dies

Chinese UFO Sighting Sparks Controversy and Stories

5 Best Guys in the Buttoned-Up Vest

Shaun Perkins: Online Resume

2011-01-23T14:49:00.001-06:00

ONLINE ARTICLES
I have written a variety of articles on various topics: education, entertainment, writing, gardening, and more. Here is a sampling of those articles:

Interview with Mark Spitz, David Bowie biographer

Interview with Tulsa musician Chuk Cooley (page 22 in The Current)

How to create a gourd pergola

Interview with Tim Tingle, Choctaw storyteller

The Hero's Journey as a writing guide

Oklahoma's labyrinths

AUDIO & DIGITAL STORIES:
Some of my original stories and articles are posted in audio format online.

Girls, Not Ghosts, audio story based on actual events in Oklahoma

How to grow a healthy lawn

Cedar Creek (a true Oklahoma story)

Ida Red (Okiefied folk tale)

WEBSITES I CREATED AND/OR MAINTAIN:

Journey in Words

Territory Tellers (I am the webmaster for this site.)

PHS site (My website for my high school classes)

PHS Podcasts (a podcast site where my students post their work)

Mayes County Storyellers

Poems in a Minute!

2011-01-16T18:21:00.003-06:00

BOOK ME!

NANOWRIMO: The Correspondence of Ms Holmes

2010-10-30T11:16:00.001-05:00

This year for National Novel-Writing Month, I am writing a novel, and so are some of my junior students. We are signed up in the Young Writers section of the Nano website. For the first time, I am going to write about teaching. I have usually avoided the subject that takes up too much of my life. But here goes . . .

To follow my progress or to read the novel as I'm working on it, please go to the Ms Holmes website.

Experts123 Question about Poetry

2010-07-09T08:30:00.002-05:00

You know my answer is better than the #1 one, so Like mine please so I can move up in the ranks:

Question about Poetry

Index of My Online Articles

2010-07-07T14:15:00.006-05:00

Shaun Perkins: Online Articles

Education (Lessons Plans, etc.)

How to Memorize a Poem
Creating an Anti-Brochure for Ayn Rand's Anthem
Decoding Classic Fiction with One Question

Hypotyposis: A Shift in Teaching Philosophy
The Labyrinth of Teaching
NE Oklahoma teachers can learn about digital storytelling this summer
Making a Creature Field Guide for King Lear

Gardening

Hope for a Sunny Oklahoma Flower Garden
Pairing Wild and Cultivated Flowers in the Garden
The Wonders of a Gourd Pergola
How to grow a healthy lawn (audio!)

Book Reviews

Never Out of Style: A Good Book
Sweeping and Subtle Moments: Books by Two Contemporary Poets
The Poetry of Joy Harjo
The Mythic Lives of Teenagers: The Outsiders
Treat Him Like a Dead President: David Bowie

Local Interest (Oklahoma stuff)

Brief Tour of Diners in NE OK: Locust Grove
NE Oklahoma Writers everyone should know
A story about the firewheel, Oklahoma's state wildflower
Exploring Oklahoma's Labyrinths
Four important NE Oklahomans everyone should know
Saline Courthouse full of stories of Oklahoma's past
Stories behind names of some NE OK towns: Mayes County
Oklahoma Natural History Museum
Best Local Diners in Northeastern Oklahoma

Storytelling

Healing with Story: Healing the Storyteller
The Power of Story: Facing Prejudice
Stories as Keys: Talking with Tim Tingle
Once Upon a Time . . . at a Storytelling Festival
Oklahoma storytellers tell the best lies
Mayes County Storytellers spread the love of story
Girls Not Ghosts (audio)

Poetry & Short Stories

Seeing Purple in the World
The Position of the Stars (audio)
Black-Eyed Susans

Writing (How-To)

Reviving the Poet within Us All
Create Your Own Sherlock Holmes
Journey in Words: The Hero Pattern as Writing Guide
Journey in Words: The Writing Year with the Hero’s Journey
Journey in Words: The Call to Adventure and the Refusal
Journey in Words: Supernatural Aid and Crossing the 1st Threshold
Journey in Words: Belly of the Whale
Journey in Words: Road of Trials
Journey in Words: Meeting with the Goddess
Journey in Words: Apotheosis
Journey in Words: Benefit and Atonement
Journey in Words: The Return

Crafts and Miscellaneous

Craft Ideas for Older Children
Harvey Pekar, "American Splendor" Creator and Comic Genius, Dies
Chinese UFO Sighting Sparks Controversy and Stories
5 Best Guys in the Buttoned-Up Vest

Summer Rain: July 6, 2010

2010-07-06T20:00:00.002-05:00

After several days of hot weather, today it rained in the middle of the day. I went out on the porch, which has a tin roof, and sat for a while listening to the rain and the other sounds around me. This audio is of me doing some random talking, several birds calling, and the rain softly clicking on the porch roof.

Writing all Over the Place

2010-07-03T08:59:00.000-05:00

I have been branching out with my writing, finding new places to publish and new topics to write about.

Suite 101
I am mainly doing book reviews and educational articles at this site.

Examiner
Here I am focusing on storytelling news.

Associated Content.
I have just started here, but I would like to do more audio reports and poems on this site.

Thanks for reading!

Old Martha: Where Stories Begin

2010-04-02T07:03:00.000-05:00

I created this story for Oklahoma's centennial in 2007. I tell it with the beat of a djembe.

The little girl swept the ashes from the fireplace and went outside to get fresh wood. Her back ached and she was hungry, but she knew she had to get the chores done. There would be no fun for her that day. It was chore day. When she was bending over the woodpile, she heard a sound—it was like the beating of her heart, soft, regular, rhythmic. And she felt it in her heart but it was outside her skin. It was coming from the woods beyond the house. Though she knew she would get in trouble for not finishing her morning tasks, she put down the firewood and she walked across her backyard and into the woods.

An old man lay sick in bed, though he didn’t know what ailed him. He had been coughing and he felt feverish. He had no one to take care of him anymore. His children were all grown and gone and lived far away. His wife had died a few years before. He lived on the outskirts of town and could have asked someone in the village for help or to get a doctor or just to make him a meal, but he was too proud to ask for help. He lay in bed and tried to go back to sleep but he had slept too much. When he heard a sound, he thought it was someone knocking on his door, and he got out of bed as quickly as he could. He didn’t want whoever was there to go away. But when he opened the door no one was there. And now the sound continued though the door was open. He shuffled around to the side of the house and though he was sick and fatigued, he kept moving in the direction of the sound.

The boy was sitting on the last row in the schoolroom. He had finished his arithmetic early because he was good with numbers, and now he looked around at his classmates. Most were still working, but some had finished like he had. He wished he could talk to them, but the teacher forbid it. They had to remain quiet for the rest of the class period. It would take forever. He wanted to talk to someone. He wished he could be outside playing football with his friends. He wished he could be outside doing anything. Math was okay, but he wanted to be moving and free of the classroom. He suddenly jumped in his seat when he heard a sound like someone dropping their textbook on the floor. He looked around though and no one else seemed to notice. There it was again, louder this time. And again. What was that sound? And why didn’t anyone else notice? Before he knew it he was on his feet, and when his teacher was bent over helping another student, he slipped out the door to follow the sound.

The woman sat at her desk trying to concentrate on the papers in front of her. She was supposed to have the papers all in order and the contract ready to go by the meeting, which was in less than an hour. But she had lost interest in the papers and instead was only daydreaming. She sighed and sat up straighter and tried once more to finish her work. She was having trouble lately believing in the work she did. A sound like the thud the elevator sometimes made when the door wouldn’t close properly filled her office. She ignored it and kept working…or trying to. When the sound continued, she got up and walked out into the hall where the elevator was. The door was open but not stuck. The sound continued. Without thinking about it much, she left her important papers behind and walked to the elevator and got in.

Then little by little, the sound filtered its way into the lives of more and more people, and all of those people followed the sound, following it as it rose and fell and deepened and mellowed and grew louder and louder. They followed the sound through the streets and paths and cities and towns and down rural roads and dirt paths until they came to a forest that they walked through and into a clearing where an old woman sat on a tree stump beating a drum.

Welcome, Welcome lovely ones, she said. Please come in and get close for I am about to tell you a story.

Who are you? The little girl who had left her fireplace chore asked.

I am Old Martha. I am the Keeper of the Stories. From the first spinning place, my drum came to be, and then I came to be. The drum is the first world and the heartbeat of the world, and I am the caretaker of that world. And so are you, my children. My job is to pass these stories on to you so that you can help me keep them and you can be the caretakers of your life and the world around you.

My stories are for those who need some fun in their lives. My stories are for those who need healing. They are for those who seek connection with one another. And they are for those who seek purpose in life.

Gather close. Get comfortable. And I will be begin.

Once upon a time…..

Sea of Love

2010-02-12T19:25:00.005-06:00

Come with me, my love, to the sea, the sea of love.
This Al-Pacino-Ellen Barkin movie from 1989 can grow on you.
John Goodman sings and knocks back the Budweiser. Pacino drinks too much Scotch and looks good sweating.

But the best thing about the movie is its love of poetry.For the most part it's a typical police drama with a career cop drinking too much and putting his foot in his mouth way too often. He's lonely. Ellen Barkin is sexy and very 80's ruffled looking with her smirk and tough voice. But it's the poetry. The killer likes it. And the cop exists because of it.

Goodmnan says of the killer, "She's a poetry-lover." Pacino says, "More like a poetry-hater." The killer finds victims through poetic ditties in the newspaper personal ads. So a serial killer associated with poetry. Okay. Even crazy folks can feel the poetry bug.

Best scene in the movie happens before Barkin even appears. Pacino and a bunch of other cops are sitting around his dad's apartment trying to come up with a rhyme for the personal ad they are going to use to set up the killer. They have a bunch of typical meathead ones, and then Pacino's dad, played by William Hickey starts talking from the corner and everything gets very quiet. He says:

I live alone within myself
like a hut within the woods.
I keep my heart high upon the shelf
barren of any goods.
I need another's arms
to reach for it and place it
where it belongs.
I need another's touch
and smile to fill my hut with songs.

After that, the father says, "Frank's mother wrote that when she was in high school. It was 1934.
She was a goddamned beautiful person. Go ahead. Use it. She'd like that."

2nd best scene:

Barkin's character believes in poetry and not mincing words. She says this to Pacino at their date after just meeting him:
"I don't believe in wasting time on this kind of stuff. You know what you know and you go with it. You're just not my type. I believe in aniamal attraction. I believe in love at first sight. I believe in this (snaps fingers), and I don't feel it with you.

Later he meets her at the market.

She knows he didn't write the poem. He confesses his mother wrote it, which is why his father fell in love with her. THAT's what gets her.

He tells her, "You know my definition of poetry: Precision in life. knowing when and how to make your move. Say your piece, like you the other night with me. Ah that was poetry in motion. Beautiful. Beautiful."

This is my favorite movie about poetry that is not about poetry.

Prologue: This and Then That

2010-02-09T06:52:00.002-06:00

It was too hard being in this body. And when I decided to leave it, I knew you would understand. You were the opposite of perfect, and so we were just alike—two extremes. You were nothing like me, and because of that, you knew everything about me. I hid my beauty behind your scars, and we made a whole.

When I look in the mirror I don’t see what Jerrold or Brandon or Mark see. They can’t stop gushing over my “big green eyes” and my “hoochie-mama curves” and long brown hair “with the gold streaks like rays of the sun.” I didn’t invent any of it—what they said or what I am. I don’t use highlighter. I wear very little makeup. We were alike in that way, and so we were different.

Aunt Faith tells me that I just have to wait, that I just have to grow up because in a few years everything I’m worrying about right now will all be gone, will all mean nothing. Isn’t that what your parents told you, too? Do they actually think we’re going to buy it? Who gives a damn what things will be like in three or four years. I’m sixteen now and have to get up every day with this body. Every day I go to that school and listen to the same crap and avoid the same whistles and touches and jealousy.

I had a dream about the two of us. I never told you about it. You were the perfect one in the dream. You had the flawless skin and the beautiful straight hair, and I was the one with the pimples, the burn scars on my neck and arms, the frizzy hair, the glasses, and the big butt. I didn’t like being you. But funny thing, you didn’t like being me, either. We got into a fight in the Homeland parking lot after school. I wrapped a thick strand of your hair that was mine around my hand and yanked until it came away like a long length of silky yarn.

I woke myself up because I was holding your hair in my hand, even though it was my scalp that was burning with the shock of that removal. Even awake, sitting up in bed, I could feel the loss. My scalp was tight and sore, and rubbing it only made it worse. My hands were wet, and I turned on the lamp next to the bed and couldn’t believe the blood on my fingertips, the blood already drying under my fingernails.

Wherever you are, I wonder if you are dreaming. Are you the person you used to be in your dream? Or are you me?

Sometimes I sit in class and cannot hear a word that is being said. I look across the room at where you used to sit, and am still surprised that someone else is sitting there. It is so easy for us to replace ourselves.

*This is the opening of yet another young adult manuscript that I have half-finished.

Fundamentals of English: 2nd Hour

2010-01-31T08:12:00.000-06:00

Crickets
Sing in the walls and behind the books.
They have gone through the set
Of encyclopedias, made a nest
In #23 Pumps to Russellville
And eaten their way through
The rest of the set.
They have learned so much
They can’t stop singing about it.
They want us to know about
Poland and how glaciers
melt and the population
Of Leningrad and the parts
Of a chrysanthemum.
All of their knowledge sounds
Like an irritating noise to us,
But to the lone cricket
In the corner of the room,
It is the song of wisdom

Walk Across Town

2010-01-26T07:01:00.002-06:00

I was 13-years-old, just out of school for the summer and eager for every day to start, waiting for the dirty hot sweatiness of an Oklahoma June so I could head to the creek on my bike, plunge in and let the sun dry my skin. But in mid-May, the weather was still only lukewarm, and I put a T-shirt and overalls on before starting off for the newspaper office where Mom worked.

When I pulled my bike out of the garage, I noticed the back tire was flat.

“Oh well,” I thought. “It’s not that far to the other side of town. I’ll just walk.”

I had gone on that walk countless times before. Sometimes I went just to bug Mom, maybe bum a dollar or two. If I offered to get her some ice cream at the Dairy Boy just a half a block from the newspaper office, she would let me keep the change. I had a favorite route I liked to walk, and at first, everything went as usual.

I left the house and crossed the street, immediately coming upon two neighbors, Charlie and Jerry. Charlie was in his 40’s but he lived with his mom and Jerry, his mentally-retarded brother who was in his 20’s. They spent their days gathering pop bottles and aluminum cans and riding their bikes to the fishing hole behind the concrete plant where my dad worked.

“Howdy, Shaun,” Jerry said loudly. “Take a look at my new cotton-pickin’ fishin’ pole.”

I studied the pole appreciatively and made some oohing and awing sounds. “What are ya’ll up to today?”

“Goin’ fishin’,” Charlie said. “If we get some good ones, we’ll bring ‘em by and give ya a look-see.”

“Well, good luck and stay on the right side of the street,” I yelled as they rode away. I didn’t mind looking at their fish, as long as Jerry didn’t gut them while I was standing there. He had a tendency to BB-gun sparrows out of the trees in his front yard and step on their heads before twisting their bodies off. But he was a harmless man-child.

“Okey doke,” Jerry hollered back and waved, guffawing at something funny Charlie said or at a thought that angled through his head.

Four blocks later and I was going down Presbyterian Hill, named after the beautiful church that sat atop it. At the bottom, a truck slowly chugged up on my right and honked. I looked up from my pop bottle survey of the ditch and saw Dad in one of his concrete trucks. The mixer was spinning, so I figured he was going to pour a load somewhere. I waved and kept walking. The mixer’s gears shifted with a crunch and the sound faded away behind me.

At the corner grocery store, I cashed in the pop bottle I had found and bought some bubble gum from Mr. Yates.

“Glad school’s out?” he asked as he handed me my change.

“Sure am,” I said. “Now it just needs to get hot enough so I can stand that creek water.”

Through the glass door I could see my aunt moving rototillers into order in front of the Otasco she and Uncle Lawrence owned. As I came out of the store, she called my name and good-naturedly advised me to stay out of trouble.

I crossed Main Street and started down the alley behind Phillips Propane. Fresh gravel had been poured and my bare feet began to sting. I tried to walk faster and hop just a little to ease the pain. A car turned into the alley behind me and I moved even faster but didn’t turn around. Suddenly a yellow car pulled up alongside me and slowed to match my pace. The window rolled down.

“Hey there. How you doing?” a middle-aged man in a blue business suit asked.

Unable to be so impolite as to ignore him, I mumbled, “Okay,” and looked away, kept walking.

He was silent for a minute, his car still creeping along beside me. With one glance, I noticed a beer can resting between his legs. He had short brown hair and a wide, round white face. The radio was softly playing some slow country song. The back seat of the car had one of those bars across it and several suits hanging on it.

“You wanna screw?” he asked, smiling, then added, “I’ll pay you for it.”

I stared at the trash can at the end of the alley, understanding what he was saying, not believing it. A few more yards and I would be in the brightness of the gas station’s parking lot. I could hear people there laughing. The car moved an inch closer to me. I walked faster, something other than my mind moving me stiff-legged away. I jammed my fists into my pockets, thinking, just a few more feet, just a few more feet.

The man turned down the radio to say something else when a milk truck sighed into the alley behind us (yes, yes) and the car carefully drove away from me, its tires spinning gravel up at my knees.

I left the alley and crossed a parking lot, then an abandoned field, and finally arrived at the driveway of the Mayes County Chronicle. The front door was open and I could see Mom leaning over a paste-up board and smoothing the hair away from her face.

I stood in the ditch watching her, looking at my dirty feet and hands, clothes, skin, hair, legs, and listening to the steady, violent crunch of tires on gravel.

7 Weird Things About Me

2010-01-16T20:45:00.001-06:00

1. I used to make bug cemeteries in the back yard when I was a kid.

2. I used to drive a taxi on the graveyard shift when I lived in the city--and I never had a problem except with talkative drunks.

3. My son and I, my sister and her husband, my brother and his wife, my mom and dad, and my aunt and uncle all live on basically the same big piece of land out in the country. We call it the Compound.

4. My son and I once painted a tree full of all different kinds of birds on the dining room wall when I was married. When I moved out of the house, the ex painted over it.

5. I like eating popcorn and white bread. Together.

6. I used to enact scenes by myself from The Playboy of the Western World when I was a pre-teen. I remember in particular using the ironing board as the pub bar.

7. I love finding things in the ditch.

Alive End: Preface

2010-01-08T08:13:00.001-06:00

I wrote the goodbye letter to Sleep and mailed it. I thanked Sleep for the good times and the bad and indicated that maybe I would see it again sometime but that I didn’t seem to be able to use it just then. Even when I get so tired and my body feels like an anchor sinking to the ocean’s depths, I can’t bury that hook into Sleep.

So, Sleep, go find someone else.

Go next door where the creepy neighbor man comes out between our houses and talks to our dog when everyone else (except me!) is sleeping in the darkness of the night.

When Mom pulls me off the couch and steers me toward my bedroom, I think I will be able to do it. I let her lead me and I think the whole time, I am so sleepy, I am so sleepy. Lela is so sleepy and she wants to close her eyes. And I get in bed, and . . . my eyes open, and I’m staring at the ceiling and listening for the sound of Norman crunching the leaves between our houses in his nightly talk with Jinx. Mom sleeps soundly and quietly. The house makes subtle noises--the frig ice-maker cracking and popping and the furnace firing up.

I stare at the ceiling and think about Jesse and the taxi driving by me in the alley, the feel of night air on bare skin, dogs barking on the alert in everyone’s back yard.

I think about that first night of saying goodbye to Sleep, how I got up and pulled on some jeans over my pajamas, zipped on a black hooded jacket and slipped on my tennis shoes, then sneaked out the front door. It was about 2:30 in the morning when I started out. I didn’t have a single idea in my head except to wander the neighborhood and try to make myself sleepy.

But when I came home two hours later, I was still not sleepy. My shoes were muddy, and the knees of my jeans were wet and ripped. And I was thinking of that prayer of laying me down to sleep and how it was a prayer about dying. If I die tonight, God, take my soul. How morbid is that? Who wants to say a prayer about dying every night of their life? And then I wondered what it would be like to die every night of my life.

Dear Sleep, I think I’m beginning to know.

*This is the preface to the next manuscript I'm going to start revising. If you would be interested in reading it chapter by chapter, comment below and I'll make a site for it. Thanks!

Poem of the Day: Tenuous

2010-01-03T15:50:00.002-06:00

The way of this life is a tenuous one.
My son flirts with joy at a cherry popsicle
in the afternoon and that evening
must stand his ground in the backyard, when
he tells his new friend Stuart,
I am not a baby. You think I'm a baby.
The way of this life is a tenuous one.

Stark midnight opening its door to us
breathes as vital as the fear, lasting long past
Halloween, lingering in his room like the scent
of human waste, pushing him out of bed, blind in the hall,
to our room where he approaches the bed,
places one careful hand against my arm, as if to say,
I have come in here. I am here now with
stark midnight opening its door to us.

The routes away from the house are a lure,
marked and unmarked, clear and unclear;
the honeysuckle lining the chain-link fence
can trap him or hide him. He can suck the juice
or crush the blossoms under his boots.
The driveway leads to cracked pavement
that he can skip away on and follow
in a crooked line that never turns back on itself.
The routes away from the house are a lure.

No burn from the summer sun is as lasting
as the yellow yarn he glues into the shape
of my name on a piece of thick cardboard
and leaves, an unknowing jewel, on my chair.
There is a room for these things or there should be.
He is hot to know what butthole means
and why he can't say it. What is a "bad hat?"
How come Madeline doesn't like Pepito?
The unused water in his plastic pool fills with webworms.
No burn from the summer sun is as lasting.

As the moon no longer reaching his bedroom window
haunts the Rose of Sharon bushes
that make a hedge by the patio, it also sweeps
the ground into equal patterns of tree and person
so that no one can lose herself out there,
out there where planes glitter, semis squeal,
and a cat searches for the witless mouse
beneath his bedroom window. Snow White
figurines gather dust behind his dresser, and
the mouse lies, a stiff curl in the fall leaves, as dead
as the moon no longer reaching his bedroom window.

The way of this life is a tenuous one--
stark midnight opening its door to us.
The routes away from the house are its lure.
No burn from the summer sun is as lasting
as the moon no longer reaching his bedroom window.
The way of this life is a tenuous one.

Montie Jean Poem 1: Microwave

2009-12-31T17:22:00.000-06:00

She didn’t want the damn thing. She TOLD Jack
and Leigh, I got no use for that damn thing.
They set it up on the table she kept
potted plants and grocery sacks on, and she
ignored it for two weeks before warming
up some dinner rolls. She pushed start; her heart
fluttered at the sound of the glass cracking.
It’s that twisty-tie, Jack said on the phone.
She has a drawer full of them and ketchup
packets, rubber bands, odd buttons, pencils,
coupons, decks of cards, scissors, dominoes,
her husband’s upper plate with exposed wires,
silver and pink, flat, unused for nine years,
firmly stuck to a package of mustard.

The V-Word!

2009-12-31T08:44:00.001-06:00

A friend’s recent Facebook post about considering values to embody, rather than resolutions to make, for the coming year took me on a search. In the search, I found a wonderful list of values, enough for every day of the year, if one is so inclined—everything from abundance to depth to zeal.

The list of 374 values is on Steve Pavlina’s website. Pavlina is known for his work in personal development and his book Personal Development for Smart People. His blog has a great variety of reading material. One is How to Cook Brown Rice, right next to How to Make Money from Your Blog. The list of values is one of the treasures, however.

Sometimes naming specific values is hard to do. I kept thinking of actions or resolutions when I was trying to frame which values I wanted to come up with for the year. I commented to The Facebook friend, Jennifer Wilson, a personal life coach, with three that called to me: calmness, cooperation, and creativity. I was primarily thinking of my job as a high school English teacher in picking those three, but they are values important in all areas of my life. They make me happy.

In fact, I like this list of values so much that I plan on using it for some class assignments. The ideas are just germinating, but I’m thinking of PowerPoints and stories and poems and newspaper articles and all kinds of writing/visual projects we could do with these. As I write, another idea occurs to me. I’ve been trying to create a blog that gets some notice and readership. I’ve been focusing on poetry and other writing, but maybe I should try a teaching one.

I suddenly have grand visions of making a side-living (such a thing?) by creating a site like Carol Hurst’s children’s literature site, which I used to read all the time when I was teaching that subject.I have always been good at making lesson plans and assignments. What if I started a site with ones I could share with other teachers? I could even offer a service of creating lesson plans for a teacher who wanted a specific unit.

So . . . I’m off again! Cooperation and creativity are soaring. But I somehow think I should have chosen “focus” instead of “calmness.”

2nd Hour-Fundamentals of English

2009-12-31T07:52:00.001-06:00

Books Half Written: Books to Write

2009-12-30T07:57:00.001-06:00

Since I finished revising this latest manuscript, I have the itch to look at the old pile of them turning yellow in the file cabinet (or worse--perhaps become irretrievable on floppy disks). I did have some good story ideas. Do any of these interest you? Please comment, if so.

Landscape with Chair: About a teenage girl who is into art and painting pictures that always have a different kind of chair in them. She lives in the garage apartment behind her parent's house and has a boyfriend who turns out to be someone who likes to beat up on girls!

Minding My Own Business: A middle school novel about a 10-year-old girl who thinks something fishy is going on next door when a young couple moves in. The husband is a banker rarely there, and the wife is in real estate. Our young heroine discovers a land grab in her beloved old, eclectic neighborhood!

Alive End: A teenage girl develops insomnia and begins wandering the streets at night, discovers a drughouse, meets both a scary boy and a good one (but you know which one attracts her!), and has late-night conversastions with the graveyard cabbie.

The Lux Club: This was the first novel I tried to write, a middle-school one about three girls who lived in the country and had little Encyclopedia-Brown-type adventures. It's been too long since I've read it--I don't remember much else!

Getting it Right: Another middle-school book, an Okie take on the labyrinth/minotaur theme. The heroine loves Greek mythology and hanging out at the salvage yard near her house. However, the salvage man has something to hide, and she finds it in the maze of garbage!

Thunder Season: This is one of the romances I tried to write. A doctor falls in love with the owner of a pro basketball team, who is--of course, an insufferable misogynist, until she reforms him. Har! Another romance, An Innocent Man was about a parole officer who falls in love with her parolee and then helps to prove he was really innocent. Yar! I also wrote a romance about a country sheriff and a restaurant owner, but I don't even remember the name of that one. I tried to be funny in it. I bet it was awful.

Home by the Sea: This one was great fun, written for and about my nephew and his love of the ocean. I subtitled it "A Dream-Jumper Story" because I had great visions of a whole series of these. In them, a person was able to jump into their dreams for a certain amount of time.

There are actually more, but those are the ones that first come to mind. I also wrote a manual on how to survive high school English. I have a comic book about a character I created: Modern MzTerry. Lastly, I have a book idea that I've written a few notes about--the subject really interests me: how poetry appears and is used or discussed in films that aren't necessarily about poetry.

I need more time!

Stop Being Boring: Non-Weather Writing Topics

2009-12-29T07:42:00.002-06:00

On Facebook right now, there is a group called I Survived the Oklahoma Blizzard of 2009 with 722 members. As I search around for something interesting to read, while I finish my morning coffee, I keep finding posts about the weather. Really. Let's all collectively get over it. It's a boring topic--no matter how exciting the experience of "weatheriness" is.

So . . . what are some little-used, much more interesting topics to write about? Here is my personal wish list, in descending order of no specific order:

10. The description of a page that you remember fascinating you from your favorite children's picture book.

9. A serious comparison of a highly-esteemed author to a denigrated one (like Willa Cather and Barbara Cartland)

8. A piece of writing created solely from words found on wrappers and other items at the top of your trash can

7. A description of a new dance you have invented and are trying to whip up some enthusiasm for

6. The results of a poll you took at the post office or bank, when you asked exiting customers if they would like something from the condiment tray to go with their shopping experience.

5. Fake weather report seriously describing the opposite of what the weather was really like

4. Clues you have noticed that indicate Wal-Mart may be going bankrupt

3. No words--just pictures of pieces of driftwood shaped like different Lord of the Rings' characters

2. The transcript of a psychiatrist's session . . . in Lucy's office . . . for 25 cents.

1. The prologue to a book that will make you the next J.K. Rowling!

I just figured out I have some stuff to go write about!

Custom-Made Poems for Sale-Cheap (FREE)

2009-12-28T08:08:00.013-06:00

In the picture, I am at a storytelling conference writing custom-made poems in a minute. The buyer gives me three words or ideas and I go with it--quickly! Want a poem? Add three words or ideas you would like to see in it in a Comment below, and your poem will appear here--as soon as I see the Comment (well, at least a minute after).

POEM FOR JESSICA (12-28-09, 8:46 a.m.)

Snowshine floods the living room, sending
Jynx into a frenzy of morning, morning, morning—
More than dawn, more than night when stalking
Dakota underneath the bed, behind the tree
Flickering continuously in the red, green, blue
Of the holiday. A day happens like a letter
From a lover, a light bulb turned on to see
How beautiful the rest of life can be.

POEM FOR LIZZY (12-28-09, 10:06 a.m.)

The book open on the polished table
Covered the round coffee cup stain
She made when she saw the cardinal
Perch on the sill and look in, collapsing
The distance between the world she knew
And the one where hope awaited her.

POEM FOR TERI (12-28-09, 5:25 p.m.)

Appearing from the unfolded eye of sleep,
The wry fancy took upon itself to stroke
The sense from the day, turning fate
Into a lucky footstep, churning each moment
Into a power that gobsmacked her with its coming.

POEM FOR XAPAMASA (12-28-09, 7:31 p.m.)

I have seen her move one way
Through the darkness and another way
When finding sun, when tapped
On the shoulder by possibility, by
Twinkling water between isles
Of broken twigs and sycamore leaves.
The space for entering is evergreen.

POEM FOR ROXANN (12-29-09, 10:37 a.m.)

Snails the shape of tiny eyes lifted
From the rocks at the bottom of the creek
As she crawled by, some settling
In the warmer greenness of the deep end,
Some underscoring serendipity by
Clinging to her shorts, shaken free
later when she undressed at the back door.

POEM FOR RIVER (12-29-09, 11:15 a.m.)

Bits of earth release themselves from
The half-hidden edge circled by roots
Of the burning bush drying to death,
Pulled from their darkness by her
Strong hands, hands which will cup
The pomegranates in the place of
Her undoing, in the place of her knowing.

POEM FOR KAYLEE (1-23-10, 2:09 p.m.)

This is the way the story starts:
She folds the sheets into the white rectangle
Of an envelope, sun marking the corner
Of the package that sits on the edge
Of her bed. She walks out to where
The sea composes a letter at her feet.
The connection of the waves and the words
Remind her that everything can be known.

POEM FOR JOHNNY 1-27-10, 6:50 a.m.

Here where pelicans are not
Supposed to be, he considers the advice
Of the broken sticks clattering
To concrete beside his car. Water
Will always rise in this dream,
Beaks swallowing ouroboros
Engulfing itself, shedding to life.

POEM FOR RIPLEY 7-8-10, 6:51 p.m.

Turtledoves sing in the branches
Near her bed, and beneath her pillow
Is the wish that will come true,
The wish of a true princess
On her birthday, to be that pretty,
When she is already that pretty,
Already three, already the jewel
Of her family and our world.

Poem of the Day: Parallel Parking

2009-12-27T13:38:00.001-06:00

Buffy looms under the hosta—grey-striped and almost feral--

as she stalks Cloud. Beyond the garden, the street is empty

until the driver’s ed car coasts toward my house,

stopping beside the neighbor’s red truck

so the student can perform the parallel

park of the evening. She proceeds so slowly

that the cats watching her get bored and spy

a squirrel to chase up the sycamore. The student driver inches

backwards into the space behind the red truck,

so careful, so precise. But the car is too angled,

and she can’t complete it. Her fingers spread in a fan

of exasperation above the wheel. Every weekday evening

around six, another student and teacher come by

in the silver driving school car to attempt the maneuver.

I have found myself cheering them on, reveling in their

successes and almost tearful when the car won’t fit.

*This poem was written when I lived in downtown Bartlesville, in the house in the picture.

The Green Country Greenhouse Experiment

2009-12-27T11:51:00.001-06:00

December 27, 2009

Come to My Greenhouse!

Bug Cemeteries and . . . Imagination

2009-12-24T12:04:00.000-06:00

Finding dead bugs was easy.

Acquiring the right size for the coffin was more a challenge. Mom bought the Diamond kitchen-sized box of matches with the red heads as big as the end of your pinkie. Those boxes were only good for mice or a small bird. But those weren’t the creatures I dealt with—they had blood and guts. Bugs, on the other hand, died without mess—dried up, weightless, brittle. A dead bug was easy to ignore. A bug cemetery seemed somehow suitable for them.

I was ten years old, bored in a small town, tired of Barbies and bordering on frantic to find anything to keep myself occupied. Finding the appropriate size box was a chore, as I’ve already mentioned, digging the hole in the baked Oklahoma dirt, making the grave marker (popsicle stick with cardboard tombstone glued to it), and laying out the cemetery boundaries took up . . . oh, at least a few hours on a long summer afternoon.

Remembering my imagination at work, I have little sympathy for my son Luke and nephew Zac who can’t seem to find enough to do on this summer trip to the ocean at Fort Morgan, Alabama. The ocean! And nothing to do there! Can you imagine?

My sisters, brother, and I—like most of our friends and relatives—could be pretty inventive when it came to finding ways to pass the time in rural land-locked Oklahoma in the ‘60s. We rode our bikes a lot. We rode our bikes everywhere we could get to and back in a day.

Once riding my bike back home after spending the day at Twin Bridges (five miles away across Spring Creek), I got dizzy from the sun and heat and fell over in the ditch. I lay there a few minutes in the weeds, hidden from traffic, then got back up and went on home.

We played army basketball (no rules) with the neighbor boys on the dirt court in our backyard, and we prayed we would survive, as the game could continue for hours or until someone’s wounds wouldn’t stop bleeding, or they broke their glasses, or one of us began sobbing uncontrollably.

We found a dried-up spring, more than ten-feet deep and full of fall leaves, and we staged Dracula scenarios and always escaped his bite by jumping at the last minute into the leaf-cushioned hole.

When we got older and didn’t play together as much, I built my great bug memorial to Forest Lawn and for days kept the house full of dead insects. I sat on the roof and wrote poetry and hid the poems under the shingles. I walked to the Corner Store for a Reeses Cup (they were a nickel then). I had Barbie beauty pageants (Francie always won because even as a child I rooted for the underdog). I went across the street and talked to Charlie and his mental brother Jerry and hoped Jerry wouldn’t kill a squirrel or pull off a bird’s head while I was there.

I listened to the Monkees and Bobby Sherman on my record player and made up songs myself. I had grape Kool-Aid and devil’s food cookies under a blanket draped over the clothesline.

The third day we were at the beach, Luke and Zac both decided they were bored. “There’s nothing to do.”

Miles of ocean shore, shells to find, crabs to watch, sea gulls flying around us, dolphins in the surf, sand castles to build, fish to catch. If we had ever had the money to come to the beach when I was a child, I would have been in heaven.

Think how easy it would be to dig a bug cemetery in cool ocean sand.