Danika Dinsmore

Author / Educator / Activist

poetry

for Gabrielle Bouliane (1966-2010)

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Gabrielle’s last live reading.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rRwaPkfwo4&w=640&h=390]

The poem below is the best I can do right now… and it doesn’t feel like enough. How, ever, can words communicate what is ripped from the heart. I feel like I should watch this video every day, so that I remember how to live.

for Gabrielle Bouliane
(1967 – 2010)

you disappear on a full wolf moon but not really
in the age of a technology you shaped from, created you
send messages across miles and friends echo
that feisty stance, fiery angel,
oh, poet, gift-giver, love-master, my hours
in your presence are locked, sealed and
delivered  – – my dream-memory
days and nights spent on projects for literary minds
together building a factory to keep those hearts alive
smoke breaks outside the office in rusty Seattle
mother hens to spoiled wordsters all worth
while, our while, through earthquakes and madness
and divorces and spilled salt
we know life turns, tears, surprises for the
girls next door, tomboys and hippies and
drive, you had it, rode long highways, following
a bliss only shadowed by your gracious love

I can’t say good-bye, not here, not now
not with those wide-eyes in mine —

I’ll see you backstage, poet, that’s a promise
and meanwhile, this light you lit, I’ll shine.

August 11, 2009 – 3:15 – Seattle, WA

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I’ve been typing up my 3:15 poems from this year (uh, even though I haven’t even finished typing up the ones from LAST year…) and this one is my favourite so far. If you don’t know what the 3:15 Experiment is, check out our FACEBOOK group or check out the Poets sharing their work on the 3:15 Experiment site.

August 11

Seattle, WA

I bet          no one but insanity
knows what it’s like to run amok
Big eyes from the galaxy     upon
him, ghosts from     the recent
past.

If all our moments came back
to haunt us,     where would
they sleep?
Moments moping under the
accelerator, biding time in the kitchen
recipe for repetition
undisciplined action

Spectators
They think the only direction
to go is up.     Could be
right, so late in the game
But she’s not taking
any chances.  All edible agents
are drawn and quartered, distributed
w/out much fanfare.
placing the lower quarter of an
idea in his mouth, he declared
all originality sin.

3:15 AM – August 8, 2009

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I decided to share this 3:15 Experiment poem not because its one of my favourites or for its fine literary quality, but because it is such 3:15 language… that and I don’t remember writing it!

I remember writing, I recall my hand moving by some force, but I don’t recall any of these words (and some I’ve had to interpret as they were illegible), where they came from, or to what they were referring – other than the fact that my husband went bike-camping on Mayne Island and saw views of islands.

This is something that continually fascinates me about the experiment, that I could actually physically write, but not be conscious while doing it.

August, 8, 2009
Vancouver, BC

I have frozen in this
finite heat.  the islands,
the islands have mass and must wait.
temptation.  the islands have both the
call and response.  we were there.
come.

Witnesses may always refuse –
then we’re stuck hungrily
hiring the land.

I started on land & ended on air
I swallowed the clues
ingested     as my own DNA

The island lines up
my timing near-perfect

Bring her in.  Bring them
all in.
time for a game
a test of time.

milquetoast

The pieces are mulled over
the den gone.  Civilized votes any
confidence
a circular witness : a time beast

The water comes.  The room is
occupied.  We have the presence
of salt to slow them down.

And eyes on the backs
of our heads.

My favourite thing about it is the random word “milquetoast” that appears in the middle of the poem. In my journal I had started a new page and written that at the top, then drew a line underneath it.

You can still JOIN in the madness… there are 20 days left to participate in the 3:15 Experiment.

The 2nd Official 3:15 Experiment Anthology
The 2nd Official 3:15 Experiment Anthology

HOW TO DO THE 3:15 EXPERIMENT:

* Begin at 3:15 AM on August 1st (so set your alarms on JULY 31) . Continue each day until August 31.
* You may write any length, style, form, content, voice, rhythm, etc.
* DO NOT EDIT your work. This is raw stuff, baby. That’s part of the experiment. You are welcome to edit, collage, break apart the poems later for whatever purpose you choose, but please SHARE THE RAW STUFF with the rest of the group here or on the website once the experiment is over.
* (Optional) Do not read what you have written until the month is over, except to skim the work to make sure everything is legible.

TIPS: Do not use a felt tip pen unless you don’t care about ink stains on your bed. Many a poet has fallen asleep in the middle of writing. If you can help it, don’t even get out of bed! The point is to ride that dream state, that precarious point between sleeping and waking and sleeping.

(This is the first year I have broken the “optional” rule and shared poems during the month. )

from 3:15 – August 1

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This year was a first in all my years of participating in The 3:15 Experiment… I spent the wee hours of the first day of the experiment in the hostpital. Nothing serious, but I didn’t get back home until 2:30 AM, so had just gotten to bed when 3:15 AM hit:

August 1, 2009
3:15 AM Vancouver, BC

Awake at 3:15 this is not
how I wanted to start how I
wanted to feel     infected
3 hours in the emergency room
for a box of penicillin.  the bent ear
the booby-trapped chair.  two
nonagenarians. one forgetful
and the other deaf. she told
the same stories every hour    he
couldn’t hear so he repeated them
every hour    every our     repeated

what island, dear? How many
times have we gone to Cuba?
What is that sport our grandson plays?
That’s how I’d like my taxes spent.
Lousy Americans did wrong by Cuba.

our cat should have been in the
hospital – he had heat stroke
and child protection services took
Sally Anne away. screaming.
Bipolar lies kidnapped possessions
waiting room after hours a
midnight ride.

You can still join the Experiment. Feel free to JUMP IN at any time…

Pick a Challenge, any Challenge

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August is a fine time to work your creative mojo. Everyone’s doing it! And they’re doing it in the form of challenges and experiments. Below are a few that I recommend.

Please let me know if there are any more out there in the coming month/s and I’ll add them to the list.

The 3:15 Experiment

Anyone who follows my blog with any regularity knows that I participate in the annual 3:15 Experiment every year. Basically, a shifting menagerie of poets (and prose writers, actually) wakes up at 3:15 AM EACH morning during the month of August and writes. Our goal is to write while riding a 1/2 dream state. Magic happens. We have a Facebook Group now. Join us.

August Postcard Poetry Fest

Started by Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers, the Postcard Poetry Fest challenges you to send 31 postcard poems, one for each day of August. They START it NOW if you’d like to participate… and I’m not sure you still can, but you can go to their website or FACEBOOK group and ask.

The rules say that on July 27th (tomorrow!), you write an original poem right on a postcard and mail it to the person on the list below your name. Starting on August 1st, ideally in response to a card YOU receive, keep writing a poem a day on a postcard and mailing it to successive folks on the list until you’ve sent out 31 postcards. I’ve never participated but some year I think I’ll write my 3:15 poems on postcards. That would be fun.

10 shorts in 10 days

This is a little invention of my friend Tod McCoy and myself. It happens irregularly (whenever we feel like lighting a fire under our butts). We write either 10 short films or 10 pieces of micro fiction in 10 days. This August we’re writing short scripts. Anyone out there is welcome to join us. There is no official website and no official place to post them, although if you’d like to post them on your blog and send us a link, that’d be swell.

We’re starting on AUGUST 10 and running until August 19. The rules are simple: Write a short script (or story) per day. Badda bing, badda boom. In the past our short scripts have run about 3-6 pages (in standard format). If you wonder what I mean by micro fiction, check out any one of my 56 Flavours stories, most of which were written during a 10 day challenge.

The 3-Day Novel Contest

This contest has been running for 30 years. It wins. I’ve only participated once, but had a blast doing it. Some day I’ll dig out the novel and rewrite it. It happens over Labour Day weekend (Sept 5-7 this year). They also have a Facebook page. If you want to officially participate, and for a chance at fame and fortune, you have to register, which involves $50. If you just want the challenge of trying something new and don’t care about official registration, I suggest forming a group and holing up somewhere in a 24 hour coffee shop together. Oh, yeah, the object is to write a novel in 3 days.

Dropped Pages: solar strings

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This was a poem dropped from Her Red Book. I still might include it in another book.

solar strings

dust is beautiful
it floats in the stratosphere
above the cumulonimbus
and diffuses the waves
making the sky blue
azuring the eyes
of the nomadic poet
who learns the names
of constellations
like pop songs
singing them in her head
without sound
with only light
electromagnetic rays
that bounce around the nape of her heart
because in the middle world
there is a such thing
as sunshine

Jump on The Monday Night Poetry Train

The words “middle world” did not appear in the original poem. I borrowed them after hearing this wonderful post on TED. If you have 20 minutes to spare, this will curl your brain:

Richard Dawkins Speaks on our Queer Universe.

dropped pages: girl moves to woods

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I’ve been very absent around here. Life got away from me for a while. Just finished my gig on the Nickelodeon film and our house renovations are down to the details. No more drywall! Woop-woop!

The following poem isn’t really a dropped page as I don’t think I’d even considered it for any of my books. In any case, here it is, written 10 years ago while living in Seattle. It still doesn’t quite work, but I like the sentiment.

girl leaves suburbs, moves to woods, builds log cabin

words connect her to earth plant
her among cousins
just running around she prefers
life lived out
terraced jungles that grow physical
something strong that breaks from classic
nuclear TV dinner says joyful
is someplace arrived
twleve years toiled with the ground
soft resilience behind eyes loves
to learn but heart
vulnerable to anything except stellar grades and
curved words as relatives
family radius reaches
thinly towards self
a holiday, a liberation, a domicile
where she can build
strong ceramic pots
in which to keep them

Collaborative Poem on Qarrtsiluni

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My comrades in collaboration and I have a poem up on Quarrtsiluni:

Arriving at Form : : 3:15 AM

What a great word “qarrtsiluni.” Apparently it’s an Iñupiaq word that means “sitting together in the darkness, waiting for something to burst.”

We’re still working on an audio collab to go with it. We’ve all made recordings of us reading the poem (we’re in different cities) and are playing around with it in our spare minutes.

Dropped Pages: On the Night She Signed up for French Lessons

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This is an odd little poem that was dropped from Her Red Book.

(I’m not sure how the title relates… I think I literally signed up for French Lessons that evening.)

~ ~ ~

On the Night She Signed up for French Lessons

The heat getting to her
she was hallucinating
one postcard from Gualala and she’s got
the Pulitzer Prize

Never mind the extra weight since she’s turned to
chocolate cigarettes from Holland
putting back everything she’s ever stolen
a glance
a minute or two in the executive chair
with her eyes closed

Funny thing was
every time she stepped out of the kitchen she was startled
by a man sitting at the diningroom table
turns out
it was only her raincoat and a potted cactus

She sees familiar names in NY magazines
and thinks I’ve got to get out of here.

It’s going to be a slow accent the kind you build
over time moving steadily north
she’ll practice first by ordering food or asking directions
she says
nobody really notices you anymore
except when you’re pinching fruit

~ ~ ~

Hop on The Poetry Train

found poem found

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This is for Paul, because he cared enough to ask if I was still around.  🙂

We’ve been renovating our house since the end of December. We have to have it finished by the end of this month because a bunch of people are staying in our house… so that’s part of the reason I’ve been away. I’m also working as an on-set tutor for a Nickelodeon film, which means an 11 hour day once I get home. It’s a really great gig, fun cast, upbeat crew. How refreshing.

Paul, I was looking thru some old files and found this poem for you. They’re found lines, but I can’t recall where I found them.

Concrete Designs on Things Less Tangible

spring cleaning for ghosts of past lovers

my sword of Damocles

we are all fragile vases containing the same big air

the news headline at breakfast:

trade made for player to be named at a later date