Someone who is a Better Writer than the Matron

Today, the Matron -- after taking off three days -- was going to write a searing, witty post about family and work and the so-called balance women are supposed to strike.

Instead, she's weeping in her coffee over this poem, and offering these stunning words to her readers today. Just beautiful. She hates to admit it but reading this? Lots of work to hone her own artistic skills; this is majesty.

Acidic commentary tomorrow. Today? Look out the window and be happy you're alive.

Antilamentation

by Dorianne Laux

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook, not
the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication, not
the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punch line, the door or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don't regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the window.
Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation.
Relax. Don't bother remembering any of it. Let's stop here,
under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

Please, Pass Her the Book Instead!

While on her daily four mile constitutional with Satan's Familiar, the Matron heard this lovely story on public radio -- a tale of poets trying to get their Word, out. Local poet Todd Boss came up with the idea of animating poetry in an attempt to make the genre more popular.

Why, the Matron thought this a wonderful idea! Anything to get prose popping for more people (did she mention she's fond of alliteration?)! Sure, yes -- animated poetry. Poetry coming to the big screen, soon!

She could not wait to get home and see her first animated poem.

Uh. Maybe not so much.

Say it ain't so, Matron! But why did this feel, well, creepy?!! Excuse her while she heads on over to the bookshelf for some old-fashioned ink.

Speaking of which, anyone who has not read Kate Walbert's A Short History of Women is missing THE best book of the year. Perfect. Book.

Survived, Sustained

The Matron is pleased to report that she survived the briefest of forays into the wilds of Wisconsin. Wilds? Okay, the lake in which she dipped her toe is part of a sprawling collection populated by one cabin after another. She was exactly six minutes from espresso and a store (which is why she survived it).

Still, nothing suits an urban girl more than a return to the city. Just to see that cityscape, with all its promise ahead!

As part of reorientation, the Matron immediately locked herself in her bedroom and prepared for a return to full-time work and parenting by reading Sylvia Plath.

Here's where you think: "what? the mother who stuck her head in the oven?"

But she didn't kill her chlidren and that's more or less a Matronly goal, too.

The Matron's spirit is always buoyed and sustained by Plath because of language -- words, beautiful staggering sorrowful, words. Nobody can sling 'em like Sylvia.

Here's one of her favorite poems b Sylvia Plath. Nearly every line gives her chills.

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue,

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night long your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ears.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.

You Too Can be a Community College Teacher

The Matron just HAD to share this with her readers!  This is one of her all time favorite John Cheever stories, read by the fabulous Richard Ford.  

Chills, girlfriends!  

Do you have a link to online literature you love--a story or reading or other experience?  The Matron is teaching Introduction to Literature, online.    She's open (uh, desperate?) for ideas to snazz up her class.

Enjoy the ice and rage that is John Cheever. . . . 

Give this to Your Beloved, Tomorrow

Valentine poetry for the mortality-minded, existentially angst-ed among her readers! This one's got it all.


Colours

When your face
appeared over my crumpled life
at first I understood
only the poverty of what I have.
Then its particular light
on woods, on rivers, on the sea,
became my beginning in the coloured world
in which I had not yet had my beginning.
I am so frightened, I am so frightened,
of the unexpected sunrise finishing,
of revelations
and tears and the excitement finishing.
I don't fight it, my love is this fear,
I nourish it who can nourish nothing,
love's slipshod watchman.
Fear hems me in.
I am conscious that these minutes are short
and that the colours in my eyes will vanish
when your face sets.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko translated from Russian by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi

Humanity is Upon Us

Today, the Matron took Elie Wiesel's memoir about the Holocaust, Night, as reading material for her time on the treadmill at the gym. Yes, she's wacky that way.

This was a mistake, as it is difficult to weep, rail, and gasp while running. But she did.

And she finished the book in 45 minutes that refueled her desire to serve the greater good and set self aside, always. Sobering and astounding.

The impact of the book was so powerful, perhaps she'll take a volume of Freud, tomorrow, and eradicate her hypochondria.

She Knew Him, When

A few years ago, the Matron met a poet named Greg Watson through a mutual friend.

Greg is the Matronly Prototype and Reminder that one never knows where talent hides. Take that grocery bagger? Could be the next classical pianist in training. The 20-something with a day job as a preschool teacher? Singer-songer writer aka Billy Joel's Piano Man, at night. (and wow that video now looks pretty chee-z even if the song STILL gives her chills)

Then there's Greg, who works as a security guard at the Mother Ship of the Great Unwashed Minnesota Masses -- The Target Center. So there's Greg, playing Shift Supervisor to thousands at concerts and tractor-pulling events.

And when he's done? He writes poetry that's so good, Garrison Keillor picks this poem to be on Writer's Almanac:

Now

I told you once when we were young that
we would someday meet again.
Now, the years flown past, the letters
unwritten, I am not so certain.

It is autumn. There are toothaches hidden
in this wind, there are those determined
to bring forth winter at any cost.
I am resigned to dark blonde shadows

at stoplights, lost in the roadmaps of leaves
which point in every direction at once.
But I am wearing the shirt you stiched
two separate lifetimes ago. It is old

and falling to ash, yet every button blooms
the flowers of your design. I think of this
and I am happy, to have kissed
your mouth with the force of language,

to have spoken your name at all.


Goosebumps! Chills! She is that taken with this poet! The best part? ALL of his work is that good! It continues to amaze her, how much talent there is in the world, unrewarded, how much art we aren't seeing.

Now, the Matron isn't much of a pitcher. In fact, she cannot even find the time to pimp her own darn blog. (feel free to do that for her whispers the pathetic attention seeking child stored in her belly) But she thinks that there's nothing lovelier and more personal than giving poetry as a gift--a wildly inexpensive way to hand over the world, isn't it?

The book is The Distance Between Two Hands. The genius is Greg Watson. The vehicle? You can find the book on Amazon and at marchstreetpress.

Close to Home

The Matron actually does believe in talent--especially the hidden kind! Is there anything more delightful than stumbling across the essay that stuns? Or how about the time she walked into a new friend's house, only to discover the entire structure FULL of incredible art.

Insert New Friend's Shrug: "Oh, I paint a little when I can find the time."

Indeed! Well, thanks to that south-bound bladder, the Matron recently encountered Talent--sweet and pure and inspirational--in her own tiny 'hood. In an attempt to teach Satan's Familiar the beauty of poop in the Great Outdoors, the whole family was out for a walk--when all of a sudden, the Matron had to PEE. NOW.

At dusk on a gorgeous August night, they hustled over to the nearest house of folk they knew and liked well enough to knock on the door and say: "She has to pee right now that's why she's running past you, upstairs, thanks!"

Being that this was summer--August and all and dusk and a beautiful night--that pit stop led to a bottle of wine on the deck ( and more pee later), and the sweet ease of conversation, the kind where nobody has to be anywhere soon or get up in the morning, and the children race around outside in varying stages of stealth and pursuit, feet wet and hearts racing with the safe thrill of chasing stuff--and each other--outside in the dark, night.

In the midst, as a means of wrangling for an overnight with Stryker, 12 year old, Henry, who resides in the house was called upon to play his guitar. Now, the Matron had heard about Henry's successes. She knew of Lesson, Conference, Concert and Calling. But she hadn't heard him play in a couple of years.

She was floored.

How does a 12-year old boy play classical guitar with the emotional complexity and acumen of a seasoned veteran, an adult? The only analogy she can draw (at the moment) is to ask if you can imagine a 12 year old girl singing like Billie Holiday. The kid is ready for Carnegie Hall -- at 12! Now, she knew, theoretically, that those kind of children existed. But that night she got to see one in flesh and blood. (and ponder again her son's choice of yo-yo as his Art and most recently, the declaration that he would attend Yale on a Dance, Dance Revolution scholarship.)

So the Matron attended a free concert. She imagines the neighbors, perched on their own decks and porches, caught by beauty and surprise as music struck out into that already stunning August night.

Henry's neighbor was there --a grandfatherly sort who has been pretty much adopted by the family to fill that role. Now, the Matron knew he was a retired historian, a man who made a living with the hit and miss rhythm of an adjunct. But beyond that, he was more or less kinda like her, all: "Who's driving the boys to baseball" and "Can the boys play at your house because my head will explode?"

So when the parents were all like, "Forget Henry -- Steve wrote a book!" the Matron was taken aback. Actually, horrified, in the way she every single time someone else succeeds where she has failed, twice. Isn't SHE THE ONE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING A BOOK DEAL?

Once THAT was out of her system, she was able to scrape herself off the ceiling and be stunned, yet again. Talent! In the flesh! In the blood! Her backyard!

Published by Turner Press, the book, Historic Photos of St. Paul, is just that -- a panoramic view of a city, from 1840-1970ish. The Matron allowed herself the luxury of paging through this lovely text, cover to cover, and she highly recommends the experience. Why? There's something unsettling--humbling and humanizing--about seeing an intersection as a patch of dirt and following its progress, uninterrupted, to a major urban hub. How far we've come! This book made her wonder what her world will look like, when she's not here.

The book is stunning! Talent, unfurled! Why, she's so proud of Henry's Adopted Grandfather-Neighbor, that she has tapped him to be . . . . .


The First Ever Matronly Interview

But before she begins-a nod to the Minnesota Historical Society and the Ramsey County Historical Society because she's certain that the pictures she found on Google Images are nearly entirely from them! She could only find TWO from the actual book online. Isn't she gifted? So Copyright God - these pictures belong entirely to someone else.


What was your great challenge writing this book? (clever question, honey!! go right for the tough stuff)

There were several challenges. The first was how to tell the story of St. Paul's development over more than a century, in only 200 images with a limit of 75 words per caption. The next was finding appropriate photos--in some areas there were not many to be found. I wanted to make sure to adequately cover basic urban themes, such as transportation, work, entertainment, immigration and city infrastructure. In addition to being informative, the images needed to be visually interesting. Then I had to convince the publisher that I needed to replace many of their initial choices with images that would do a better job of illustrating the development and diversity of the city, its downtown, neighborhoods and people and the institutions they built. Finally, sometimes it was a challenge find out enough about a photograph to create an interesting story to go with it, particularly if there was just a name written on the back.

Your favorite three photographs?

It's hard to decide which are my favorite, so I'll chose ones that are my East Side home base and that illustrate the sort of information I wanted to offer readers. There an 1870s shot (p.23) looking at downtown from Dayton's Bluff that's great because it allows a person to compare this old view with today. I love how the horse-drawn vehicle is coming up the hill and the railroad in the distance is shown on pylons to raise it above the extensive wetlands. Next, I choose the 1915 Johnson High School girls basketball team (p.99) because it may surprise many readers to see that women's sports flourished long ago and it's not just a recent phenomenon. Finally, I have always loved the photo of the two Railroad Island residents (170) proudly showing their baked bread. It illustrates the neighborhood, its ethnicity and deals with an important aspect of everyday life.

This is one of the Matron's favorite photos!


The Swede Hollow photo that was one of your favorites was picked to include one of the legendary St. Paul communities, in this case an area where poor families lived. You can learn a lot from looking closely at this image, including the row of outhouses that extend over Phalen Creek and the less than linear arrangement of the residences.

The Matron was struck by the complexity of garb on turn-of-the-century children. Was the fully loaded girl on page 69 from the upper class? In the photograph's earliest days were the uppper crust its primary target?

I didn't look into their background, but the clothes would indicate at least middle-class. These may well be Sunday clothes and a Sunday afternoon drive. I doubt the girl would usually dress this way. Mother may have been along to take the photo, but at the time, not a lot of families had their own cameras. The photographer might have been a professional, hanging out around the park. If the family owned the horse and carriage, they were well to do. If it was rented, middle-class.

Can you guarantee that photograph on page 163 won't be repeated?S now in May!!




Anything for you, darling. This seemed like a fun-photo to reinforce the supposed Siberian-like nature of our city. The photo also shows a bus, one of the many photos in the book that show the many forms of urban transportation.

She notices an African-American face first on page 167 and from then on, the book refreshingly diverse. Do historic or archived photographs themselves serve as a template of Minnesota diversity? Were the earliest photos exclusively Scandanavian?

You are right that after Hallie Q. Brown there is more diversity shown. However, you missed the earlier image of the African-American mail carrier. But on your question---there are not a lot of early photos available for early African-Americans. Those that exist are often portraits and don't show the sort of action I was trying to find. The photo of the Red River Ox carts on page 10 also shows early diversity, since the drivers were Merits--mixed blood French and Indian people who developed a culture of their own.

Thanks, Steve! Welcome to the ranks of people better-published than the Matron. Her hat is, off. And here is a picture from about 1935, taken from her very own front yard.

The First Annual Matronly Holiday Lecture

Is there a song? Sick of myself? The Matron thinks so, but she's so tired and self-involved she cannot remember it. Lord of the Flies, Day 3, was yesterday.

But even as she toiled and hauled, the Matron was bothered yesterday--bothered by a book.

She just finished If I am Murdered or Dead by Janine Latus. The Matron picked up this book in the offhand, spur of the moment, need-a-beach-read sort of way, the way one grabs a People magazine. The book had a New York Times Bestseller banner on the cover and a simple Google search revealed the book once reached the rank of #27. How bad could it be?

Number 27! Oh My God! She is stomping her exhausted foot, it is that bad!!!

The pedestrian prose isn't the main problem (although let's just say the modest Matronly way with words outshines).

No, what bothers the Matron is that this book simply struts out abuse and self-abasement, prances these sad character traits about and shines them up for everybody to see -- sort of like reality TV. Just like Jerry Springer-- hey! Watch blind Egyptian lesbian with one limb amputated fight over the ex-girlfriend. Just like that.

Latus describes how her father defined his daughters purely in sexualized terms: somebody else's fresh meat for the future. And she saw herself that way, turning over her body like a calling card and entering a marriage in which her husband coerced her into having breast enhancement surgery and then demanded (and got) sex, post-op, in the hospital room. Yup. Emergency appendectomy? Probably a good time for loving, about 10 minutes off the table (because he was that worried about you and you're lucky he loves you so much, even if having sex is pretty much the full-time job you don't like that much).

There's more. Looooooooooooooots more.

And that's what bothers the Matron about contemporary memoir. Mostly, the disease or distress is reproduced in an entirely voyeuristic way and then boom -- the writer is sober or gets divorced or stops shooting up. The reader gets endless debasement and self-abuse. Guess what? We all know that story and, well, it's sort of boring after a few rounds.

But a detailed narrative of reinvention? Self-construction? How someone consciously, carefully recreates their own psyche and self into something stronger? Sorry! Not a lot out there. Alice Koller's classic, An Unknown Woman, might just be the best of the slim bunch. Striking analysis of self and reconstruction which is probably about 20 years old now.

Our cultural disinterest in the mechanics -- just how does somebody change?--strikes the Matron as odd, given our national narrative of reinvention and success. On this Fourth of July, she considers that one of the grand themes of America has been an unflagging optimism regarding personal success. Anything is possible! You can pull yourself out of the grimmest plight, reinvent yourself, start over -- anything goes in America! There's nothing we like more than a rags to riches story.

But. How do you pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you don't have any boots? She'd like to know that trick? How do you go from abuse to divorce in one chapter? From the bottle to AA expert? Hmmm? Details, people!

Without those details of hard word and self-recovery, these transformation seem sort of magical, easy or just the natural progression.

There's another danger to leaving out the real story, the work, a danger which hints at a darker side to the glorious narrative of self-reinvention and success. Those ideals are so deeply wrapped in our cultural psyche that (she thinks, you can disagree) that a sense of entitlement is the flip side, the barnacle clinging to the boat. If you live in a land where anyone can be President and opportunities are endless, don't you want a piece of that pie? If you don't get it, how do you feel? Cheated? Shorted? Or not as good as you should be, really. So entitlement, anger and despair might be the underbelly of the American dream. She's seen those qualities in action and has participated in them, as well.

All this, from one little memoir! That Matron. She really should be an English professor.

Happy fourth of July, readers.

The Best Writing You Haven't Read

Every time I post something by Joyce Sutphen, I get email of the 'where have you been all my life' sort. 'You' being her, of course.

She's every bit as good as Mary Oliver or Sharon Olds. Big literary shoes, bold claims, yes.

Her two best books are Straight Out of View and Coming Back to the Body, both published by New Rivers Press. Although I once heard her read on A Prairie Home Companion, she's an artist who hasn't gotten the acclaim she deserves.

I often think of Mary Dutton, who wrote one heart-shattering book which was published in 1967: Thorpe. How much do I love this book? John and I were locked in mortal combat over naming our only daughter.

Thorpe or Scarlett.

Either way, we were saddling her. Thorpe doesn't fall easily on the ear. Scarlett carries much cultural freight, heavy with both race and gender.

Of course, we gave her the cultural freight and prettier name. And it suits her.

Anyway, I think about Mary Dutton quite a bit. The book's back jacket tells me she was s a housewife, volunteer and sometimes teacher with three children. Took her ten years to write that book.

Sounds awfully familiar.

That was in 1967. Where was her fame? Her acclaim? I hope she enjoyed some small spotlight during her lifetime. Thorpe is every bit as good as To Kill a Mockingbird. Maybe better.

So here's my shout to the under-appreciated artists, the ones with the gift who don't get tapped by fame.

You will thank me if you read any of these three books, too.