Danika Dinsmore

Storyteller

poetry

Thought About You

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Okay, a singularly unoriginal title for my experiment.

The last writing workout was writing about loss. I had wanted to write a poem for a friend on the anniversary of her death, so I experimented by writing snippets, thoughts, images, mememories of her out on cards over the whole weekend and then collaging them into a poem.

At one point I had gone out for the evening and forgot that I was “remembering” Gabrielle over the weekend until the next morning, then felt guilty for forgetting. So that’s in here, too.

Thought About You

For Gabrielle Bouliane, One Year Gone

I’m done baking and remember you.
Remember that I’m supposed to be remembering.

I want to say I’m sorry for every minute gone by,
but that is mortal guilt and not for angels or sunflowers.

Your candle lit in the livingroom and I must leave the house.
Someone once told me
never blow out reverent candles,
but snuff them with metal.
I hear you laugh through my superstition.
Motorcycle lipstick, coming down at me love.

Is it better to leave a candle nub or burn it to the end?

I think about my old motorcycle,
wonder if I’ll ever be that daring again.
I bet you ride sharp and clear like a sting.
I bet you leave star dust, kicking into cosmic gear.
I bet your kiss could wrap humanity,
and we’d all grow suddenly hungry.

Oh, Gabby, I’m afraid
the world has gone crazy.

I wish there were more of you
of your voice    of your word
I can hear your tone your eyes your stance
I can hear the waves of you on stage
I can hear you working next to me,
cranking through ideas.

First day on the job at The Poetry Factory,
you spilled a coke on the new Mac keyboard
and it didn’t work for a day.
But it was just us, and we could laugh it away.
What isn’t done in the sticky hours isn’t what strikes us down.

Oh, Gabby, the only thing I fear
more than this crazy world
is not living in this crazy world.

To be alive is to get uncomfortable,
to get up on stage and tell the world
I’M DYING and you’re all coming with me,
my friends, my beautiful beautiful friends.

You caught us with our genius showing,
a challenge dancing in the wind.

You came into this world gifted and aimed,
and I can’t help wondering
what target would you have hit
in your Golden Days?

Weekend Workout: Writing About Loss

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I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds it challenging to write a satisfying poem about a loved one who has died. What words can fill the space the person held?

In honour of dear friend and poet Gabrielle Bouliane, who died of cancer one year ago today, I wanted to write something to/for her this weekend.

This workout is something I’ve never tried before, so I’m experimenting with it. I’ll post the results after the weekend.

Instead of sitting down to write a poem or letter or story in one go, eeking out inadequate language for a heart-ripping loss, I’m going to keep Gabrielle in my thoughts all weekend and carry several index cards with me wherever I go. Any time a thought or vision or image or anecdote comes to mind, I’ll write it on a card.

It doesn’t matter if I’m at the library, in a movie, on the bus, or at a party – the thought, image, etc gets written on a card.

On Sunday night or Monday morning, I’ll go through my cards and form the poem (or whatever it turns out to be) from there.

Unintentionally, the first few things I wrote were addressed to her, so perhaps I will stick with that.

The first thing I wrote on a card was:

You were so you, more you than I me. When I cry to you, you don’t suffer my foolishness.

~   ~   ~

There’s a TOAST in honour and memory of Gabrielle happening at 10 PM in Austin, TX. So 8 PM here on the West Coast. Here’s the FACEBOOK INFORMATION about it.

Monday Potes on Tuesday: Retro-Pome

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I’ve been wanting to write about the birds for weeks. We have character birds in the neighborhood. They are my confidants. But alas, the poem has not unwound itself from the glue-sticky of fresh wordness. So, I am posting a retro poem.

If you can call the early 90’s retro.

I was flipping through an old poetry chapbook I printed 16 years ago and found this funny little piece.

The idea of the poem was to write 3 stanzas using all the the same words, but in a different order each time. I notice that I stayed with the same 4 commas, semi-colon and tab space, too.

But I did take one small liberty. Can anyone spot it? It’s not as hard as you might think. If you do, I will mail this chapbook to you. It feels like freshman Danika Dinsmore poetry, but at the same time, I am surprised at my own young poet mind.

I.
the day is you, is meat
not feet, you are up my what: hunger
take a poem offering, a blood poem,
because it’s what keeps my appetite
at your parade      this is a love been
so full of moves you are always
its table

II.
my appetite keeps because it’s blood
at your feet      this parade moves up
a poem that is love, not
a full table you are offering, it’s
always you what my hunger is, you
are of a poem meat, so take
what the day is: been

III.
this is not a love poem, it’s a
blood poem because that moves,
my offering is what it’s always
been: appetite      you are
so full you take up the day,
you are a parade of meat
is what keeps, hunger
my feet at your table

Weekend Writing Workout: Ways of Looking

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At some point in my A.N. posts I may have introduced this exercise before. But I wanted to bring it up today in honour of Tina Schumann being nominated for a Pushcart prize for one of her Ways of Looking poems.

But first, let me take a moment to toot Tina’s horn because she probably won’t do it herself. She was a student of mine years ago and has been quietly, diligently making her way across the poetry landscape, leaving her verbal Inukshuks. Her manuscript “As If” won the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize and it’s now available from Parlor City Press.

“Ways of Looking” is one of my favourite exercises (but then again, I always say that, don’t I?). It’s based on Wallace Stevens’ poem “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” I approach this exercise various ways, but the basic idea is to write a series of fragments, each looking at an object from a different point of view (which could mean a different mood, season, time of day, attitude, etc).

And For those PROSE WRITERS out there, don’t you fret. I’ve got a version of this exercise for you, just scroll down the page. (although I encourage you to do the poetic exercise as well. Poetry encourages economy of words)

These two delights are from High School students I worked with in the past. I’ve used this exercise with students as young as 1st grade. They all understand that you can look at objects in different ways. Sometimes I have 1st graders write different ways of looking at their best friends and its a hoot.

Six Ways of Looking at the Clouds

1
Clouds block me from the sun
So that my fingers reach the moon.

2
I see the clouds in the white sea,
The sea with black tears.

3
That you feel like you, the real you, yourself,
is because you are always on the clouds,
Traveling around with no money but a piece of paper.

4
You rewrite and rebalance the chemical formula
With the clouds on your stomach.

5
The apple, his heart, and even the watch shrink
But me on the clouds.

6
I put all my pants and hang my skirts in the clouds
so that everyone can see them but me.

~Vicki Han (15)

4 ways of Looking at the Snow

1
A ball of Johnson’s baby lotion
is falling romantically

2
The snowman gave me
a boastful smile

3
The road is white,
The sky is grey,
and I’m on my way

4
After car tire’s visit,
The road became
Yucky-black asphalt demon.

(Esther Lee, 14)

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

For all you prose writers out there, there’s a few ways you could use this exercise. One would be to take an object from your story and write about it from different character’s perspectives. Time each piece of writing, perhaps 5-7 minutes per character.

Another way of doing it is picking one character, but looking at the object from different points in the story or the character’s life.

For example, my character Brigitta looks at the Hourglass of Protection differently at the end of the first book than at the beginning. So I might write for 5-7 minutes about the hourglass from her perspective at the beginning, middle, and end of the first book, to help me understand her perspective at the beginning of the second book (which I am currently editing).

EVERYONE – always feel free to share your work if you try any of these exercises. Put a link in the comment section!

Monday Potes: ReFound

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For kicks and giggles I randomly opened an old journal to see what I would find. I found the original version of a poem from my book Every Day Angels. Because my kicks and giggles quota is down, I decided to edit the original journal poem again, to see what I would come up with. My only rule was that I couldn’t end or start with the same lines.

I ended up with something completely different.

HERE: mysterious one HRB is the version that ended up in Every Day Angels

BELOW is the version from today.

I highly recommend this as a writing exercise if you are having muse issues. Take the original (hand written / in journal if you can find them) from years back, another lifetime ago so that you are in a new place, wiser, more experienced, more cynical, whatever. Write an entirely new poem from that place.

the field

I was up all night
(she said)
turning pages
pulling weeds

we drown or swim or let the tide
take us somewhere new
we are ships
even in (the) afterlife

I dreamed it was the
end of my world (she said)
and wrote it down

knowledge is a kind of rotten fruit

little deaths
are what save us
from wanting
too much

smells like tornado weather
(she said)
high above the plains

for a thirsty world
touch   is matter
not minutes

or anything anticipatory in the mail

but I exist in books
(she said)
and

things on earth are definitive

squirrels die in trees
magpies gather in roads
we run out of gas and ink

the sun admits clouds exist
the foot
a path

it goes or doesn’t go
(or becomes something else)

my hands are tied
(she said)

we don’t imagine pain
but imagining there is something else
keeps us here

I think I’m going a little crazy
(she said)
and did

no plan
just dizzy in the sea

***********************

I don’t know which I like better. The one in EDA has some lines that are not in the hand-written version and I’m not sure where they came from. The one I wrote today doesn’t flow as much as the other – it’s more fragmented. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it just reflects something about my state of mind.

Here is most of the hand-written version. You can see that it was written in fragments even then.

Weekend Workout: Unfinished Business

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Your weekend writing workout is the PERFECT exercise for the New Year. It’s called “Unfinished Business.”

When my father died one of the things I found most depressing was all the projects left undone. Big things, small things, broken things, unopened things . . . but the truth of the matter is, none of us ever leaves this life a completed checklist, inbox empty, all correspondence returned. At some point we’re going to have to let it all go, so why not practice now and lighten your cosmic load.

I feel like I’m dragging myself into this new year, and strangely many of my friends are feeling the same way. So we’re practicing the art of letting go of stuff that’s holding us back and down. Whatever’s left unsaid and undone, that’s been haunting you for weeks, months, years, STILL has a piece of you – your mind and energy – if you let it. And if there’s nothing you can do about it, or you choose to do nothing about it, then the healthier decision is to let it go.*

(One of my favourite quotes on this comes from dear friend Mauri Bernstein who said, “2010, just jiggle the handle and let it go.”)

So in whatever form pleases you in the moment – letter, poetry, flash fiction, collage – create a piece about letting go of some piece of unfinished business, or heck, even ALL your unfinished business if that’s possible!

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

the clouds, the pink bricks. of beauty.
who is going to finish the touches of them?
I am no bowed box. I’ve scattered myself up
but good. especially now since the world
has wound itself so tight.
I’m in Germany. I’m in Lapland.
I’ll soon be in outer space.

have you ever followed the crazy jet paths
of flocks of birds? if I don’t do it who will?
and if they go uncharted,
will the world be a darker place? See,
this is what the brain does,
lies prone to in the “insomniac days.”

youth is a wind. and my firecracker heart
is now melancholy for it.

what’s unwritten, undone, has won.
so I say, into the great open mouth,
that just leaves now, and then, then . . .

*Another good practice after you have done the “letting go” is to replace it with a positive thought. i.e. You let go of the fact that you stopped going to the gym and replace it with thoughts of loving yourself unconditionally.

Monday Potes – Dropped Pages

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“Dropped Pages” is a series of poems that were, for whatever reason, left out of my books. I can never really finish tweaking them or being totally satisfied with the results. This one was left out of Her Red Book

On the Night of the Flood of Ghosts

For M.L.

He says we’re those kind of friends
some day
one of us will be at the other’s funeral
She pulls the death card
scythe and burning vardo

in Texas flooding takes their friend’s home away
and homes in Russia and the streets of Prague
as Nigerian women sit
on the dock at Texaco and threaten
to remove their clothing

from around themselves
everything breaks

She taps the deck
the further we get from heartache
the more we can love the ghost of it
recalling the decree of separation
that left her a Toyota Corolla darkroom
equipment piano and one cat named Quincy

all night They turn over old loves
now with new loves              lost
in the tarot deck         seeking advice
from kettles and feathers and stones

She says         handling the pain of His Heart
despite the cards
Let’s everything around Us grow wild

 

Monday Potes: more 3:15ness

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More middle-of-the-night workings from this year’s 3:15 Experiment

Aug 3, 2010
Vancouver, BC

measuring the good people of the universe
their birth    their celestial footprint

when she left she became star dust
arriving to see the aftershock
travelling unladen     as a dying wish

granted
we sped past the farmlands
what’s left of them in the urban creep
fresh blueberries blocks from the highway the
super highway the burning desire

sun stroke us down     past the islands
ferry hopping                        past the passengers
en route from their holiday
get away     gotten     the stars      we too
become star dust     memories
it is the only thing to become
when all
is said and done

make me a shooting star
spotted by farmers across the galaxy
looking up after toil     after burn
let me burn up    burn out
light the way

Monday Potes: 3:15 Rides Again

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I JUST finished typing up my 3:15 poems from this August. This may be a record for me. Usually I finish a few months before the next round.

What was so amazing, though, is I barely remember writing the last several poems. As well, as the month went on I obviously had a harder and harder time staying awake (the writing grew barely legible) and the work got a bit more surreal.

Below is one of my favourite poems from the month. I remember I was reading a dystopian novel at the time where they couldn’t see stars. Stars were the stuff of myths. So, without stars, what would poets compare their lover’s eyes to?

Aug 20, 2010 – 3:15 AM
Vancouver, BC

without the stars the life of us
is a very lonely place of singular
miracles spiders without wings but webs
birds without webs but songs     a gravitational
kingdom     a jungle-gym dictionary
cats without scales but purrs and claws
seahorses without fur but delicate curls
you without me but lost me without you
but dreaming without windows
sunshine and sunflowers even a moon
even without the stars your eyes
could be compared to sea
shine to dew on glass
to two moons were there
such a thing without the stars
less poetry about the stars
without stars just vastness
chilly witness    irritable reality
oh stars oh light
oh look the stars are like
your eyes

Gwendolyn Alley’s Middle of the Night Poems

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I know I’m not the only one who has been urging Gwendolyn Alley to publish a collection of her poems. And now she has done it, created a moving story, over years of participating in the 3:15 Experiment, with this collection of poems from the middle of the night for her mother and young son.

I met Gwendolyn at the Taos Poetry Circus in 2000. At that time, The 3:15 Experiment had been running for 7 years and had been growing each year. The Taos Poetry Circus became and annual trek for both of us, and she became part of the cycle of experimenters.

Gwendolyn’s unflagging enthusiasm and dedication drew us closer together and she became one of our core “cognizanti” – co-editing the between sleeps 3:15 anthology and hosting a 3:15 Fiesta in Ventura in 2006. She was a natural addition to our core group, as she has a knack for bringing people together, artists in particular, for a common and higher purpose.

Gwendolyn has done so much for poetry and poets: organizing events, editing the work of writers, encouraging and mentoring writers. It’s about time we celebrate her work.

This collection is available now in limited run chapbook form from en theos press. A printed book will also be available later in the year.

For poets, for mothers, for those who marvel at our connectedness.

READ MORE about Gwendolyn and the “Middle of the Night” launch.

From “Middle of the Night Poems from Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son”

August 1, 2003

it’s 315 time again
i go to lie on my side to write
but the baby is there
i can’t lie on the baby
it’s like lying on a watermelon
large and hard

the baby sleeps right now
no movement–i’m awkward
trying to find a way
to comfortably write i’m strained
as constrained as the baby at 29 weeks
we are alike today in that way
both trying to get comfortable
to get some sleep
the baby can see light
a red glow seeps through my belly
can hear sound but probably not
the crickets outside or
daddy making his going to sleep sigh
hmm mmm mmmm he says

the notebook too is pregnant
uncomfortable it doesn’t
want to open to bend back
to receive anymore
it too is slightly bent
out of shape its spirals
damaged well traveled but
empty of much writing

as i slide down scoot down
slip down off my pillows
losing my great grip on my place
the angle of the pen
the lightness of the ink
indicates betrays its discomfort
the pen is pregnant too
pregnant with poems with desire
to be a useful tool
yet more than a tool of transmission
a tool of transformation
i too am that tool
one of transmission of transformation
the baby in my belly
the pen in my hand

Also known as The Art Predator: you can visit Gwen’s very active blog at: artpredator.wordpress.com

For writing advice, personal or business, visit her at The Write Alley: thewritealley.com