tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86952962939715333122024-03-18T22:01:13.851-07:00ONE BAD POEMThank you for visiting my poetry blog! Also see my author blog at www.bethanyareid.com (formerly A Writer's Alchemy). Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.comBlogger346125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-63082237210205381332023-07-04T13:23:00.000-07:002023-07-04T13:23:00.937-07:00<p><br /> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFaL9T9PcTJIEXw-kLutDbxH1YqF84XuMJIAZPwGdsyo1g1gtsUBCX23T7PdRouTydonwQGQPAKGYJwmoWZe_XHzOJJNGz2q9IsKHbk2AlM7nofOp9ijNe9G7Pg5g6dXV7uo2fYf4IsAkLI4HPbyjkChYPH3-TY0OoR6_3Aek9gBeI4g2vaPR96aZdMpI/s6016/pexels-pixabay-89778.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4016" data-original-width="6016" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFaL9T9PcTJIEXw-kLutDbxH1YqF84XuMJIAZPwGdsyo1g1gtsUBCX23T7PdRouTydonwQGQPAKGYJwmoWZe_XHzOJJNGz2q9IsKHbk2AlM7nofOp9ijNe9G7Pg5g6dXV7uo2fYf4IsAkLI4HPbyjkChYPH3-TY0OoR6_3Aek9gBeI4g2vaPR96aZdMpI/w438-h293/pexels-pixabay-89778.jpg" width="438" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><p style="text-align: left;">With a new book coming out -- and about 30 poems to retire from my send-out notebook -- it seems a good time to retire some other poems as well. </p><p style="text-align: left;">I wrote this poem toward the beginning of my one-bad-poem years, in 2005. I've always been fond of it, but it's gone out a kajillion times (well, 12 or so times) and no one has ever begged to publish it. So, enough's enough and I'm publishing it here. </p><p style="text-align: left;">I've always loved mornings best, and fresh beginnings, and this poem dwells on such small things. </p><p style="text-align: left;"><b></b></p><p> </p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Unbruised</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">If death is what makes</p><p style="text-align: left;">life precious, will we in heaven</p><p style="text-align: left;">stop loving so</p><p style="text-align: left;">what we no longer fear losing? </p><p style="text-align: left;">When life stops</p><p style="text-align: left;">being a miracle,</p><p style="text-align: left;">will the bloody brilliance</p><p style="text-align: left;">of a beating heart</p><p style="text-align: left;">no longer astound us?</p><p style="text-align: left;">In heaven will we savor</p><p style="text-align: left;">the taste of strawberries,</p><p style="text-align: left;">the scent of coffee,</p><p style="text-align: left;">the slap of wet sheets</p><p style="text-align: left;">on a clothesline?</p><p style="text-align: left;">Will sleep, that small death,</p><p style="text-align: left;">still be allowed us, or will </p><p style="text-align: left;">waking, constant,</p><p style="text-align: left;">irrevocable, gild nothing,</p><p style="text-align: left;">no morning clamor </p><p style="text-align: left;">of crows, no dew?</p><p style="text-align: left;">Will the newborn's curled fingers</p><p style="text-align: left;">and yawn be lost to us?</p><p style="text-align: left;">When we fall, what stains us</p><p style="text-align: left;">if not the death of the grass?</p><p style="text-align: left;">Wearing that white robe,</p><p style="text-align: left;">won't the thought of your knees,</p><p style="text-align: left;">unbruised, unbleeding,</p><p style="text-align: left;">make you long for the earth</p><p style="text-align: left;">in all its flawed beauty? </p><p style="text-align: left;"> --Bethany Reid (2005)</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">For news of my new book, THE PEAR TREE, 2023 Sally Albiso Poetry Award winner, watch my main blog, <a href="https://www.bethanyareid.com/" style="text-align: center;">https://www.bethanyareid.com/</a>. </p></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-40568511750546874602022-07-01T17:42:00.001-07:002022-07-02T13:16:31.801-07:00His Book of Bread<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><o:p></o:p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeTm39O1N-LpV0Ifjm57sVgw4bbYQNM8-j0pQo6DNx6IyZd4Ff6I3ptJtiKEPzOvBRDnEg_-gcPgvi0-HH9l__It95j8oZ02qnNZCJfTe38hMf1MWFYYYX7xOmhV17G9b2Lcj02mHQP-M6BCiuHGyqGsa_Lw3q1DqR45YP4IzylkqJuwPzrLXkq7AF/s4032/DB1D3B0E-08FF-415F-8D1F-4146D731C63B.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeTm39O1N-LpV0Ifjm57sVgw4bbYQNM8-j0pQo6DNx6IyZd4Ff6I3ptJtiKEPzOvBRDnEg_-gcPgvi0-HH9l__It95j8oZ02qnNZCJfTe38hMf1MWFYYYX7xOmhV17G9b2Lcj02mHQP-M6BCiuHGyqGsa_Lw3q1DqR45YP4IzylkqJuwPzrLXkq7AF/w300-h400/DB1D3B0E-08FF-415F-8D1F-4146D731C63B.heic" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">I promised myself that if this poem “came back” after this flurry of submissions, I would share it here. So, even though I had two of my older poems picked up recently, this one is now yours. </span><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">It was written probably in 2005, toward the beginning of my One Bad Poem years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">His Book of Bread<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">“Those who cannot love themselves...eat a terrible bread.” —W. S. Merwin<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">On the first page, his mother<br />hands him a thick slice of bread<br />warm from the oven, her fresh-<br />churned butter melting<br />into it. The book remembers bread<br />but also all he’d like to forget, <br />bedwetting, crooked teeth.<br />Bread holds together<br />whatever plot there is.<br />Married, he becomes a man<br />with grip-lock lids<br />on the garbage cans. He cuts <br />the crusts from his daughter’s toast.<br />He grows older. The daughter<br />grows up. His wife never shares<br />his essential hunger. <br />He moves from whole grains<br />to whatever’s marked down.<br />In the later chapters, <br />he suspects that more chaos<br />would have made a better story, <br />like a living yeast<br />that makes the bread rise. <br />But now he’s on the final page.<br />Wind rattles the shutters. <br />In the sky, a new moon<br />chews white clouds. <br />He sets the book aside. <br />The room fills with the aroma of bread. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">—Bethany Reid<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-18163117455245555282022-03-11T18:37:00.001-08:002023-07-04T13:32:34.208-07:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kcBqu7Is6wSd7HUy3_gejUTKQj_CLMPIGyfxhfdJii7v22uxDACahJn1Xph-0VPkn5dWn4uUdCHgkorA0g3U7Sap2J3mN0Oczoek3pxBhnDjedxpfYkvN5JvMoBd-LukcDkN1q47-CXu7qYDeRSEccv0jN15VyE2-JFZS5YXIAM5noDIQi8ud62mTI4/s1500/F3926EF7-17EE-43A5-9F99-DEF40F8CBE23.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kcBqu7Is6wSd7HUy3_gejUTKQj_CLMPIGyfxhfdJii7v22uxDACahJn1Xph-0VPkn5dWn4uUdCHgkorA0g3U7Sap2J3mN0Oczoek3pxBhnDjedxpfYkvN5JvMoBd-LukcDkN1q47-CXu7qYDeRSEccv0jN15VyE2-JFZS5YXIAM5noDIQi8ud62mTI4/w337-h506/F3926EF7-17EE-43A5-9F99-DEF40F8CBE23.jpeg" width="337" /></a></div><br />A few years ago, a friend of my older daughters' contacted me and said she wanted to do some writing and would I help? We kicked around the idea of a small class built around her, then I said, "Just come over one night next week and we'll write." <p></p><p>Thus began about four months of Thursday evening visits. We would sit in my writing cabin and I would give us a prompt and we would both write. In those busy years of ages 9-13 or so, she had been a frequent visitor at our house, and always a favorite. It made me happy to hang out with her. </p><p>One evening I asked her to list several words. I listed some, too. We wrote them on index cards and then drew them, and wrote a poem using the words we had picked. This is what I came up with. Oh, and it's relevant that she was planning her wedding at the time.</p><p>No idea what it all means, but it was fun. </p><p><br /></p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p><b>Little Exercise with Wine and Sunset</b></p><p><i>Wine </i>and <i>sunset, </i>reduced to words</p><p>on a page. What's <i>love</i></p><p>if you've melted like Dorothy's wicked <i>witch </i></p><p>into an amalgam of cells? </p><p>(Put me in a <i>bucket, </i>my darling, </p><p>carry me with you.)</p><p>See these <i>ligaments, </i>piping </p><p>like tiny green <i>frogs </i>in the dark? </p><p>Where's your brilliant sunset this time?</p><p>Will your <i>wings </i>melt</p><p>into a puddle? Will you taste of wine </p><p>when I kiss you? </p><p>Will I? </p></blockquote><p></p></blockquote><p></p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-76175249632526575482022-02-14T17:04:00.003-08:002022-02-14T17:25:52.915-08:00<p>This is a little experiment I carried out I don't know how many years ago. It has hung around in my send-out book for an eon -- time to call it a "Failure," another F word. </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhx6IfTY1rWmHkwVa0XYtniy6PGt2h6nEueuLhvtrMejonHYMOu46XjvkMBIjucS35lAmC2gk9iYTzOgdbaFwERX_Rh1k458iHArtQhpCEhokBiTC9UzTjRfoNcD_HJ9WLJU4d-Y1edAy7KWfmFixDApFOJTTkD2UH9k3adkWeoalyLhKeb9v7fuviv=s6000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6000" data-original-width="4000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhx6IfTY1rWmHkwVa0XYtniy6PGt2h6nEueuLhvtrMejonHYMOu46XjvkMBIjucS35lAmC2gk9iYTzOgdbaFwERX_Rh1k458iHArtQhpCEhokBiTC9UzTjRfoNcD_HJ9WLJU4d-Y1edAy7KWfmFixDApFOJTTkD2UH9k3adkWeoalyLhKeb9v7fuviv=w266-h400" width="266" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />The F Word</span><p></p><p>Follows from forbidden,</p><p>foreboding, forgiveness</p><p>of foresight into any fool's fortunes,</p><p>our forsaken formidable fun,</p><p>the foreshadowing foreshortened</p><p>forever, forthright, forested or un-,</p><p>unfurled, unfolding, unfathomed,</p><p>foretold or left forlorn,</p><p>what fevers are bodied forth,</p><p>formulaic, forked</p><p>and forded, found or dumbfounded,</p><p>flooded, no foreplay</p><p>forged or foregone. </p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-76103734703887875912022-02-04T20:38:00.001-08:002022-02-04T20:38:53.595-08:00The Pretense<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhC6uxoRctYaoGxasNqeVR8goY5YRtm7gZJLbHBT5-0BVT6dV-Gi-IY5mv-Bd8z8VOG1WyE9tjGLDaMKo08wtqQydi8XZRwlR12rIt5JLph6QDWttv4sGsvYYbPz72SBKu_wHKAvuPu-copZ-jtBgYGBBAhNTeS7f5eMUXNsKWl6tsJk8l5Fe21rmsn=s1500" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1125" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhC6uxoRctYaoGxasNqeVR8goY5YRtm7gZJLbHBT5-0BVT6dV-Gi-IY5mv-Bd8z8VOG1WyE9tjGLDaMKo08wtqQydi8XZRwlR12rIt5JLph6QDWttv4sGsvYYbPz72SBKu_wHKAvuPu-copZ-jtBgYGBBAhNTeS7f5eMUXNsKWl6tsJk8l5Fe21rmsn=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br />I think I wrote this poem about 20 years ago. I've always liked it but it is now officially out of my send-out book. <p></p><p><br /></p><p><b>The Pretense</b></p><p>As a child you ran across fields</p><p>pretending to be a horse--</p><p>and years later you see </p><p>how the world still spins </p><p>on pretense. Your boyfriend</p><p>thinks he's a cowboy,</p><p>and your best friend struts</p><p>across the room like Barbara Stanwyck</p><p>in <i>The Lady Eve. </i></p><p>Your boss thinks he's George C. Scott</p><p>playing General Patton</p><p>and that man slouching</p><p>across the parking lot just now,</p><p>Humphrey Bogart,</p><p>who was always pretending to be</p><p>someone else. Your own role</p><p>in this lifetime, you know,</p><p>is to stop being Catherine</p><p>in <i>Wuthering Heights,</i></p><p>suffering and in love</p><p>with the wrong person.</p><p>Your role is run</p><p>to the top of the hill</p><p>on a spring afternoon, </p><p>a whinny rippling from your throat.</p><p><br /></p><p>--Bethany Reid</p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-37414899437490384872021-10-29T14:47:00.002-07:002021-10-29T14:47:21.889-07:00The Military Application of this Poem<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1MVL9q3CmgJkR9uFx_M4ibhI0d9oApxzsE3QQLM4Da9kQnG6AhXABZKqaJNn-v7qVRDAG3fd_ronRlUuhNOHMCNJsiRJkHSDRAMDye-DpGP70sXP9vFI3BLyeY2XXAFixeVNWxi-7ILI/s390/D79AB71D-5EFC-43C0-A113-C402EA6C472C_4_5005_c.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="390" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1MVL9q3CmgJkR9uFx_M4ibhI0d9oApxzsE3QQLM4Da9kQnG6AhXABZKqaJNn-v7qVRDAG3fd_ronRlUuhNOHMCNJsiRJkHSDRAMDye-DpGP70sXP9vFI3BLyeY2XXAFixeVNWxi-7ILI/s320/D79AB71D-5EFC-43C0-A113-C402EA6C472C_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"><br />I wrote this poem maybe in the fall of 2005, one of the first poems in my one-bad-poem blitz (which lasted for five years!). I’ve sent it around to poetry journals for ages now and no one’s ever nibbled. <br /><br />If I remember right, in 2005-06 I took some time off from the college and volunteered a couple hours a week in Emma's first grade classroom. I was also active in PTA, and the PTA president liked to joke that if the military had to sell cookies to raise funds for weapons, they’d think twice about them. Another seed was something my husband said to me when I shared a poem with him. “Too bad there's not a military application for poems. Then you could make some money.” <o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">Looking at the poem now, I can see that it’s rather perverse. Sorry. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">The Military Application of this Poem<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif">The military application of this poem <br />is top secret. It falls like a bomb,<br /><br />like twenty bombs, each bigger than the last. <br />The military application<br /><br />of this poem is sealed in a manila envelope,<br />catalog of every imaginable weapon.<br /><br />This poem is a bayonet, a stealth plane,<br />a gas mask, a tank, a Humvee,<br /><br />a grenade launcher, a grenade<br />that explodes in your hands.<br /><br />The military application of this poem<br />must be protected at all costs. <br /><br />After reading it, tear it into <br />the smallest possible scraps. Eat<br /><br />the scraps. Like other poems,<br />this poem didn’t begin as a warrior, <br /><br />wanted nothing less. But here it is, <br />irritable and hungry, demanding, <br /><br /><i>Where is my funding?</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"> —Bethany Reid<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-59173306174250549462021-03-20T09:44:00.001-07:002021-03-20T09:44:10.205-07:00Alternative Plot<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0vRGhaGTDM-aonTZAzfWwxVnwg1f6BVpOQYSYO09phhnh8ma2t5yrDiulmQiTovd4M3E4xbH1N4K4TtWWNIjlJSH9oUI5wOpOVWaUyDHYT8hILeF-LRn3NIKBZXDVf6JaBU2bL2TyTE/s2048/pexels-cottonbro-4821033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0vRGhaGTDM-aonTZAzfWwxVnwg1f6BVpOQYSYO09phhnh8ma2t5yrDiulmQiTovd4M3E4xbH1N4K4TtWWNIjlJSH9oUI5wOpOVWaUyDHYT8hILeF-LRn3NIKBZXDVf6JaBU2bL2TyTE/s320/pexels-cottonbro-4821033.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Several years ago I played around with a series of poems about the elements of fiction. Only a few of these (notably, "If Plot Is What Happens," which appears in <i>Body My House</i>) had staying power. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not sure what was up with this one -- it's rather slight (a short, short story), but I played with it as a one-sentence exercise and sent it around. And now I'm posting it here. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Alternative Plot</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Or it's like fishing--</i></div><div><i>with each crisis the line</i></div><div><i>drawing tighter, and at the climax</i></div><div><i>the fish is caught</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>but the line breaks,</i></div><div><i>all the tension unraveling,</i></div><div><i>the fish lost and nothing</i></div><div><i>for the children's supper. </i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks for reading!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>[<span style="background-color: #e8e8e8; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); color: #1a1a1a; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "segoe ui", roboto, oxygen, cantarell, "helvetica neue", ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Photo by </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); color: #1a1a1a; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "segoe ui", roboto, oxygen, cantarell, "helvetica neue", ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://www.pexels.com/@cottonbro?utm_content=attributionCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pexels" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">cottonbro</a></span><span style="background-color: #e8e8e8; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); color: #1a1a1a; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "segoe ui", roboto, oxygen, cantarell, "helvetica neue", ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> from </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 26); color: #1a1a1a; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "segoe ui", roboto, oxygen, cantarell, "helvetica neue", ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-gray-jacket-and-blue-denim-jeans-holding-black-dslr-camera-4821033/?utm_content=attributionCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pexels" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Pexels</a>]</span></div>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-79274113498311051012021-02-15T16:32:00.002-08:002021-02-15T16:32:46.534-08:00Halloween?<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKpqiqNhXDECFc6WcI7txL5h7nmjBhycJf6Ib0gj4Sz9hMO5Zy-zO0kvH7MAWU4k3w4QwTQqwMWyLxxdlK_rwhUtfwNhC7H0ID6ImKMQW8af6qsuyOgfjgr_jWAc2xjzt682K35BRm3o/s4032/IMG_4738.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKpqiqNhXDECFc6WcI7txL5h7nmjBhycJf6Ib0gj4Sz9hMO5Zy-zO0kvH7MAWU4k3w4QwTQqwMWyLxxdlK_rwhUtfwNhC7H0ID6ImKMQW8af6qsuyOgfjgr_jWAc2xjzt682K35BRm3o/s320/IMG_4738.JPG" /></a></div><br />This poem -- I just don't know who the poet was when she wrote it -- it doesn't quite sound like me. But, yes, I did write it, and it's been in my send-out book (mostly being skipped over) for years. So now, it's yours. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><p><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sweeter Than That </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />In the house where you grew up, heaven <br />was everywhere, though secret. One day<br /><br />you were certain to stumble across it, <br />a hidden panel in a wall, a door at the back <br /><br />of a closet, a bookshelf swinging aside <br />like in a Nancy Drew novel. Every October <br /><br />the Halloween goblins and ghouls <br />whispered their alternative story of the afterlife, <br /><br />one with skeletons and dripping flesh, <br />candied apples, popcorn balls, peppermints. <br /><br />Your friends lived in town and got all the best candy.<br />Beside their fake wounds and orange hair, <br /><br />how could your heaven not look bland? <br />But think of those Sunday afternoons <br /><br />when your mother insisted you nap,<br />the hush in the house almost too much to be real, <br /><br />like a further proof that the world beyond <br />this world was everywhere, and sweeter.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-44031662222585312842021-02-12T08:55:00.001-08:002021-02-12T08:55:58.353-08:00How to Write a Poem about Peace<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_19v8sI7ynIVyGQtSS7XaYs5Xfz6YbD3u4M3hCn8kETrjLPprwIiFn8uihpYtDs2wnVVQWPhu0TkgsB6Xm11SL8O0jt7PBdx5VnrJj88JlSNj6lB1VI_XK7NY07_mmaFIOSvztecAukA/s2048/909D59F3-EEEC-4746-9485-E98F1AA80AC8.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_19v8sI7ynIVyGQtSS7XaYs5Xfz6YbD3u4M3hCn8kETrjLPprwIiFn8uihpYtDs2wnVVQWPhu0TkgsB6Xm11SL8O0jt7PBdx5VnrJj88JlSNj6lB1VI_XK7NY07_mmaFIOSvztecAukA/s320/909D59F3-EEEC-4746-9485-E98F1AA80AC8.heic" /></a></div><br />It is Peace Poetry Postcard Month. My friend Carla Shafer (look for her at Chuckanut Sandstone), hosts this exchange and I've been taking part since the beginning, which I think makes this the 4th year for me. I love POPO, the larger and funded August poetry postcard exchange, but there's something about contemplating peace every day each February that works to bring me more peace. And God knows we need it just now. </div><div><br /></div><div>So here's a poem -- or a later version of a poem -- I sent out three years ago. </div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></b></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;">How to Write a Poem about Peace<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br />Begin by opening your notebook.<br />Sit for a long time. <br />A thoughtful waiting will teach you <br />not to be bored by what looks <br />to others like boredom. <br />Not only poetry but peace, itself, <br />happens like this.<br />You build your belief in it<br />moment by moment.<br />Peace comes to you the way a sparrow,<br />coaxed by your stillness, comes.<br />It hops into your hand.<br />And so, too, the poem begins. <o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="all" style="break-before: page;" /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p></div>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-34896013178533107372021-01-26T11:23:00.004-08:002022-02-15T08:27:54.080-08:00Returning Another Poem to the Wild<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCuL76xnuWAXw12zYNLq9_YFzOtGzVESkC79KlUZonIj5Dv3hy6qkm72zzLoprTSuVa3acUF52hq2di073S6Eg3vxzeY1p67ntL6ypNPNJz2g0LRwnfmvzi3XwQONZFlvNx9qq9cXjgvY/s1600/yard1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" sda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCuL76xnuWAXw12zYNLq9_YFzOtGzVESkC79KlUZonIj5Dv3hy6qkm72zzLoprTSuVa3acUF52hq2di073S6Eg3vxzeY1p67ntL6ypNPNJz2g0LRwnfmvzi3XwQONZFlvNx9qq9cXjgvY/s320/yard1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My dad's shop -- one of those places where work got done.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I must confess that I have been wildly unfaithful to my send-out goals. Yes, yes, I know that someone else may think I did fine in 2020:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>32 poetry submissions</li><li>18 creative non-fiction submissions</li><li>32 fiction (novels and stories) submissions</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But my goal was 200. So, in 2021 I decided to start my send-out on January 1st ... except, I didn't. I immediately got bogged down and discouraged. I felt as though every poem in my send-out book needed to be revisited and revised. I tinkered, without much result. January 6, 2021 (infamous day), waylaid me, and I sank into a pattern of doing no work at all toward sending out anything. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then, on January 20, with the Biden/Harris Inauguration, something shifted. The phrase "the first 100 days" recurred in newscast after newscast. Listening to a <i>New Yorker</i> podcast, I was struck by what hard work President Biden has in front of him. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And I heard this little voice in my head say, "It's hard to send your work out, but it's not <i>that </i>hard." </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So I've been working -- madly -- on my send out. I've rewritten poems that I thought stale (I seem to now be writing a series of poems beginning with "She wears a mask of .... ") Inevitably, there are a few poems that I'm culling from my notebook. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This poem has been "out" to twenty journals, at least, and has existed in various incarnations. It takes me back -- 36 years back! -- to when I was living in an apartment with my friend Pat Wilson (who had a whole row of hardback copies of Danielle Steele), and taking undergraduate courses at the UW. Professor Dunlop, as I recall, told me that <i>Great Expectations </i>was Dickens' best novel. No, I'm remembering that wrong. Professor Van Den Berg told me it was, and Prof. Dunlop, when I repeated this news to him, dragged me across the hall with him so he could argue with her. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In any case, reading the novel was extracurricular -- on top of my other classwork, and actually going to school, and waiting tables four nights a week, not to mention my romance with the man I would eventually marry. Even so, I carried the novel with me ... everywhere.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Great Expectations</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That winter I was reading <i>Great Expectations</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">by Dickens, less a book and more a house</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I had moved into. I fell asleep reading it,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">carried it with me, forgot it everywhere,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">found it again, squat god accusing me of my sins. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I remember so little of my own life in those busy days,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">but I remember the ruined wedding cake</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">and Estella, the jilted Miss Haversham,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">the ruin of Magwitch. Pip himself.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I remember how I felt when I came to the end --</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">this fat book that I had now been driven out of,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">orphan left to find my way through the marshes alone,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">nothing to guide me but the miasma</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">of my own flickering and inadequate flame. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">-Bethany Reid</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The first few days on this new goal were ... sort of brutal (the first two nights, I submitted work at 11:00 p.m.). But then I began imagining a staff of aides, running here and there, bringing me fresh paper, opening notebooks, refilling the ink for me, listening as I read poems aloud to test the lines. And here we are at day 6, with 10 submissions behind me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #800180;"><b>"I sometimes pretend I'm not me, but I only work for me." -Naomi Shihab Nye</b></span></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So that's what I've been up to. Thanks for listening!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-78271800731591063572020-09-29T09:10:00.007-07:002022-02-15T08:23:09.066-08:00Your Drenched Body<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOI_-CH337BTjrJ_EVL2B3ZRJIS7wfrb7osXndaeX8vnnFzPCmcPhXvoJjYJ7oyS_3oh_tzHUywH2oLOcKAfUAFyo2t2hTOyZMffYO0wk8dj6gusrsBdhZalskQrHnGdvzSA7HiNgQQw8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1920" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOI_-CH337BTjrJ_EVL2B3ZRJIS7wfrb7osXndaeX8vnnFzPCmcPhXvoJjYJ7oyS_3oh_tzHUywH2oLOcKAfUAFyo2t2hTOyZMffYO0wk8dj6gusrsBdhZalskQrHnGdvzSA7HiNgQQw8/" width="320" /></a></div><br />[image from pixabay.com]<p></p><p>Once again I'm doing a MASSIVE send-out of poems, and retiring a few that have, over the years, grown too slight. </p><p>What is it with that? I once considered these poems "good enough" to be in my submit notebook. They've gone out (generously!) to numerous journals. But now I can't seem to find any depth in them. They're like old shirts that have gone thin with too much washing. I hang the poem out on the line one more time, and I can see right through the lines. </p><p>Okay, so here's this. </p><p><i><b>Your Drenched Body</b></i></p><p>Marriage is the barrel they give you<br />to go over the falls. You're in this<br /><br />together. You hunch your shoulders<br />and hope for the best, heads thumping <br /><br />against the staves. If you're lucky, air<br />cushions your drenched body,<br /><br />if you're lucky, the barrel <br />holds, doesn't shatter. In old film reels<br /><br />that's you -- bobbing and flying.<br />What you know of your partner<br /><br />is so slight, only the hand holding yours<br />in the barrel's dark as you fall. </p><p><i>-Bethany Reid</i></p>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-70589477175918199402020-05-01T07:38:00.002-07:002021-01-26T11:39:08.663-08:00Where a Poem<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I haven't been sending out poems regularly -- last year I submitted work maybe three or four times, total. But this year I have a goal to reach 100 submissions, and after working for four days straight, I'm already at 17 (and 2 acceptances!). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So I'm working with my "circulating" file, and I'm going to retire a few poems. Here's the first one.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Where a Poem<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />Where a poem will come from<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />this morning, I don’t know.<br />I’ve searched through books, sifted<br /><br />through a stack of loose papers, <br />rubbed together two old poems, <br />hoping for a spark. But all <br /><br />the poem wants this morning <br />is silence. I have to wait for it<br />a long time, pen in hand, <br /><br />notebook open like a snare,<br />before the poem, of its own <br />volition, comes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div></div>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-57466703244774516642018-12-05T14:32:00.001-08:002018-12-05T14:32:07.964-08:00Lullaby<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm retiring this poem from my send-out book. I wrote it -- oh, about one million years ago -- during the one quarter at Everett Community College when I was invited to teach a poetry class. As I recall, my daughters were small, 8, 8, and 2 at most. It was an evening class, which was always a hassle to negotiate with child-care, PTA meetings, and homework time. Then, my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer, and ... so forth.<br />
<br />
I missed a week or two of classes (it's a blur), but when I was in class I gave my students poetry prompts and I wrote with them. Long story short, I wrote 10 poems that quarter and it eventually morphed into my one-bad-poem practice.<br />
<br />
So, here's the poem.<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lullaby<span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span><br />
</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Swing
the baby in her red chair<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>on the blue swing. Swing<br />
<br />
vine maple, swing Doug fir, swing cedar<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and gray clouds. Swing the
gate<br />
<br />
on its broken hinge. Swing salal<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and Oregon grape, swing
dogwood<br />
<br />
and snowberry, mosquito and crow.<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Swing crow’s caw, swing<br />
<br />
the scream of a stellar jay, the bounce<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of a flicker. Swing rooftop<br />
<br />
and street, children swinging away,<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>swinging longer, later,
higher,<br />
<br />
their dizzy world reeling, <br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>metal a blue squeal.<br />
<br />
Swing what you’ve got, swing<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>all you’ll let go. Mother,<br />
<br />
love vertigo—<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>swung, swayed<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and sung. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-74633209925660613332018-04-14T10:26:00.004-07:002021-01-26T20:31:29.618-08:00Grace Paley<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of my projects this year is to wade through my 2008 "one bad poem" notebook. Today, I found this poem, and (of course) tinkered with it.<br />
<br /><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">Missing Grace<br /><br />Didn't she have a busy, useful life? So<br />much more than mine--protesting war,<br />marching for Civil Rights.<br />The sort of old leftie I most admire.<br />The last summer of her life,<br />I rose each morning to sit at my desk, pen<br />in my hand, feeling small.<br />What could I do that would make the slightest difference?<br />Late in the afternoon, I'd take my notebook<br />to the garden. My children were young,<br />they are young still.<br />They don't care for poems.<br />Grace Paley visited me sometimes that summer--<br />in my imagination, I mean, though<br />she was real enough. She patted my hand,<br />told me not to worry so damn much.<br />That the children would grow up<br />in spite of me. She told me to write,<br />that writing was enough for today.<br />The world's not fixed up so great just yet,<br />she'd say, and<br />There's plenty left for you to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p></blockquote>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-64369921566685788222017-12-25T12:03:00.001-08:002021-02-01T13:14:06.001-08:00Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Merry Christmas <i>and </i>Happy Holidays. I don't have a barn poem, but here's an old one that I've sent out multiple times, and rewritten quite a lot. I decided recently to turn it into a sonnet (as it's an homage to a Shakespeare sonnet, or started out that way), but it <i>just won't work. </i>I am retiring it from my send-out book. I hope you enjoy it.<br />
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<i>Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Let
me not to the marriage of true minds<br />Admit impediments.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> – Shakespeare, Sonnet
116 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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If true marriage must have impediments,<br />then let us admit them. Let us climb up<br />
our impediments, like step stools<br />one pushes to a bathroom sink for a child<br /><br />brushing her teeth. Let us make<br />scaffolds out of our impediments, and scurry<br />over the top, like soldiers rushing a castle. <br />Doesn’t marriage, even of the truest minds, <br /><br />require climbing? Marriage waits for us <br />
in a room above marriage, a room where bodies <br />
are discarded, or lifted up. Above, above--</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">let that be our theme. Marriage isn't simple, <br /><br />not a bee in a flower, stamen clutched within petals. <br />True minds in marriage aren’t true as in “honest.” <br />Imagine them true the way a beam, invisible<br />beneath a roof is true. They hold. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5102ZN%2BRViL._SX308_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5102ZN%2BRViL._SX308_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sonnets-Signet-Classic-Shakespeare/dp/0451527275/ref=tmm_mmp_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Signet Classic edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets</a>
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Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-54098494614464598412017-06-26T10:53:00.002-07:002021-01-26T11:37:51.542-08:00Paperback Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><div>Paperback Love</div></span><br />Propped in bed,<br />cricked neck, dog-<br />eared paperbacks<br /><br />thumbed and tattered,<br />read once, twice,<br />the pencil of an earlier <i>thou</i><br /><br />down the margin <br />as back to back <br />with our paperbacks we fit<br /><br />ourselves in the page<br />where sleep gets made,<br />hip and knee, elbow,<br /><br />teeth, lip, tongue.<div><br /></div><div>-Bethany Reid</div><div><br /></div><div>Have to say, I actually kind of love this poem. I wrote it ages and ages ago -- before my daughters were born, and they're turning 28 this year! But it's been out to numerous journals and was never picked up. My editor and I culled it from my 2018 manuscript. So, here it is. For you. </div>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-10344750785554840222017-05-05T08:53:00.002-07:002017-05-05T08:53:27.688-07:00The Measurement of Peace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am retiring a few poems from my send-out book. They may not be bad poems (or baaaad poems), but I won't be sending them out any longer. This one is from my peace-postcard file, written in February of 2016.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>The Measurement of Peace </i><br />
<br />
I am reading the book of Exodus<br />in the old Testament, all those measurements<br />for the Ark of the Covenant--<br />and asked to write a few lines about peace,<br />I imagine its dimensions, how deep it is<br />and how long, what it will hold, what can sit<br />on the Mercy Seat, who will pick it up<br />and carry it slowly, processionally,<br />dancing into our future.Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-88118561033185697742015-04-15T12:33:00.003-07:002015-04-15T12:33:59.195-07:00And for years after...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A prose experiment inspired by <a href="https://awritersalchemy.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/ted-kooser-the-wheeling-year/" target="_blank">Ted Kooser</a>, and by my friends Paul and Kathryn (and our conversation yesterday about why a sentence would begin with <i>and.</i>)<br />
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<br />And for years after she died, I would wake in the night, shocked with a clarity stark as a lightning strike: Oh, <i>her, that </i>girl, <i>she </i>died.<br />
<br />
As though, most of the time, in daylight at the very least, I could imagine her death impersonally, something that happened to someone else, no one I loved, nothing to do with me. As if she had hired someone to die for her, or to <i>enact </i>her death. Not one of those rich men in the Civil War hiring a poorer man to take his place in the draft. Something more like hiring a body double, or a stunt double for a role in a movie. My cousin, that sweet girl, freshening her makeup in the star's trailer, while her double plunges from the cliff, rams the Mustang convertible into the wall, kickboxes with the villain.<br />
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And after the shock of it, lying there, wide awake in the dark, I would begin to make again my compromise with her death, sinking back into disbelief, and sleep, a leaf very very slowly falling from a tree to the ground. Soothing myself back to sleep. <i>Not her. Not her. Not her. </i>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-51682989122603331832015-04-10T12:24:00.003-07:002021-01-26T11:43:39.769-08:00An Experiment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaPj0eWifbqhAbxzHLQy4AbWAhjXJFx7oweDusgx31Ex-JOlczHMX6PpdZCzl8Tm_dGS7cWQPiCMllX5_iVFFeQW1yns_gxCr1j8AOaLN64-5m7suAQelG8T6swjxqZPW1mLK81-90Es/s4032/IMG_5010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaPj0eWifbqhAbxzHLQy4AbWAhjXJFx7oweDusgx31Ex-JOlczHMX6PpdZCzl8Tm_dGS7cWQPiCMllX5_iVFFeQW1yns_gxCr1j8AOaLN64-5m7suAQelG8T6swjxqZPW1mLK81-90Es/w300-h400/IMG_5010.JPG" width="300" /></a><span style="text-align: left;">Over at The Writer's Alchemy (my active blog), I'm posting a poem by a different poet every day this month. My plan is to use the poems as inspiration, and possibly as actual models, and so to write -- er -- draft a poem each day. I don't expect more than to simply wake up a dormant muscle, to </span><i style="text-align: left;">see </i><span style="text-align: left;">the world through poetry again.</span></div></div>
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So, in the spirit of One Bad Poem, here's one of my experiments. It corresponds to the Tomas <a href="https://awritersalchemy.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/tomas-transtromer-1931-2015/" target="_blank">Transtromer poem, "Slow Music,"</a> posted on April 6.<br />
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Untitled<br />
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Beyond a garden of blossoming plum trees,<br />
the cathedral's wide steps beckon. Narthex and nave,<br />
a burden of old pews, a baptismal font ringed<br />
<br />
by stained glass, sunlight blessing Jesus<br />
blessing the children. Sometimes, out of nowhere<br />
I recall standing as a child at the ocean,<br />
<br />
<br />
digging my toes in, unable to hold my place on the earth,<br />
tide tugging the sand from under me,<br />
a pane of frothing water washing my bare feet.Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-10185464150545544432014-04-05T17:26:00.004-07:002021-01-27T08:50:00.621-08:00New Poems -- or drafts of poems<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDa3r05LEpT2SJPseyZf5uSlb8GJb7qby3sXQVC3nAf49oJgbrbhH-yER_lDMjJH5PiJ9AB79LZ5OqXakUasjOsBfIufUN430H6nvnCGBvCbE5_pycQ4TbvZd8zfJxwlxDjkQVrMAa00/s1600/apple+blossoms.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDa3r05LEpT2SJPseyZf5uSlb8GJb7qby3sXQVC3nAf49oJgbrbhH-yER_lDMjJH5PiJ9AB79LZ5OqXakUasjOsBfIufUN430H6nvnCGBvCbE5_pycQ4TbvZd8zfJxwlxDjkQVrMAa00/s1600/apple+blossoms.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This month -- April, 2014 -- I have a goal to write one bad poem every day, all month long. To see the results, go to my new blog, www.bethanyareid.com.<div><br />
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To read my craft essay "One Bad Poem," click <a href="http://awritersalchemy.blogspot.com/2010/05/one-bad-poem-essay-by-bethany-reid-if.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-22181626831692002912012-06-23T08:00:00.000-07:002012-06-23T08:00:07.401-07:00The Writing Warrior<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwcj0wdX-818tb2iUMl1mE5TLFCNhpUkm7qRYkYwNRNsl23WMFSE4iZPTZTtj2v9MCqeB4lgSFkTxCR1J-D2irVsQ0WMACT601ZYWk2yC10UerfkYKZGW-6zo4DMFzNPTX3fwGQyYPiaY/s1600/writing+warrior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwcj0wdX-818tb2iUMl1mE5TLFCNhpUkm7qRYkYwNRNsl23WMFSE4iZPTZTtj2v9MCqeB4lgSFkTxCR1J-D2irVsQ0WMACT601ZYWk2yC10UerfkYKZGW-6zo4DMFzNPTX3fwGQyYPiaY/s320/writing+warrior.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here's Laraine Herring's book, which you can read more about at <a href="http://www.laraineherring.com/bio.html">http://www.laraineherring.com/bio.html</a>. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This morning I used <a href="http://www.e.ggtimer.com/">http://www.e.ggtimer.com/</a> to time my shaking. Tomorrow I'll use it for the breathing, too. </div>Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-66946235079373876722012-06-22T09:54:00.000-07:002012-06-22T09:54:55.442-07:00Maybe you buy six hundred books on writing..."The beginning always starts off easy. 'I want to write a book,' you say. So maybe you take a class or two. Maybe you buy a book on writing." -Laraine Herring<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk3_cqLI0RctnRVp5kZ8JtpxSIF6pO9mxOkq5HY8dE0cRnuOg9aZDPBj5voOiuw0PPX-ejBKJi7yqAAw87nWrUIcx3XuH2l3stDa_1nesOmxsX01ONXUFrpkqoaesQT2qJV_hzHZOdWig/s1600/books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk3_cqLI0RctnRVp5kZ8JtpxSIF6pO9mxOkq5HY8dE0cRnuOg9aZDPBj5voOiuw0PPX-ejBKJi7yqAAw87nWrUIcx3XuH2l3stDa_1nesOmxsX01ONXUFrpkqoaesQT2qJV_hzHZOdWig/s320/books.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>So I'm blogging about how to begin. What I tell my students is that you have to begin over and over again, sometimes more than once in each session, at a bare minimum once per day (even if only for fifteen minutes). Knowing how to begin is important. Nothing happens without beginning. <br />
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I don't think I can dictate for anyone else how to begin, though I can make suggestions. Laraine Herring suggests breathing, shaking (yes, shaking!), and writing -- each for five minutes. I like how five minutes of practice demystifies the process. Oh, five minutes, I think. I can do anything for five minutes. On day two of this practice, I found the breathing boring. (This fits with what my friend Glenda says about my not breathing.) The shaking? I almost hate to admit it, but it was fine. It was<em> </em>fun<em>. </em>I am all too aware that I'm not in touch with my body. I live in my head. The five minutes of writing? It turned into two journal pages, then an hour and a half on poetry, a million ideas, and now this blog entry. <br />
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The main thing wrong with saying "I want to write a book" is that it's too big. Recently a colleague told me that she and her father -- many years ago, before his unexpected death -- had planned to write a book together about their teaching. "You should write it," I said. "You can dedicate it to him." She shook her head sadly. "I'm not a writer," she said. <br />
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At the risk of sounding like the ghost-chef in <em>Ratatouille, </em>ANYONE CAN WRITE. Just don't set your goals so high. No, you can't write a book, not <em>this morning.</em> <br />
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Buying a new book about writing, by the way, is an excellent way to procrastinate on your writing. <br />
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This morning write a paragraph. Write a sentence. See if you can stay with it for five minutes. <br />
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And now, for me, breakfast.Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-40125847257394331002012-06-21T08:19:00.000-07:002012-06-21T08:19:26.491-07:00Fearless"The ideal expression of reading a poem is, in many respects, close to the experience of writing it: one goes through uncertainty, flashes of perception, small satisfactions, puzzlement, understanding, surprise." -Kenneth Koch, <em>Making Your Own Days </em>(14)<br />
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</div>Various things (Emma and the Earache, primarily) have kept me from my writing time for a couple of days. Today, however, I was up at 6 a.m., and out in my cabin, writing my heart out. I have decided to -- finally -- take seriously Laraine Herring's book, <em>The Writing Warrior, </em>and the practice she suggests. You should do it, too. Today is day one. <br />
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My goal this summer is to be FEARLESS in my writing (thank you, Margaret, for helping me to articulate this).Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-45727102813174506842012-06-17T13:36:00.002-07:002012-06-17T13:40:35.169-07:00Happy Father's Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOEx15Yg9q6t0P7K1ghJfTpbXbp6Flaywag8J_O5DI6h-BEN_M2fwTNaiyMvmpDnt6nLm_s99k3ndxXBLey-E0YRqbXJBMnBdjMeL7yY6uelauvCBxOhdNQ2gcPCTvgWrE7rgU_NaATE/s1600/dadetc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOEx15Yg9q6t0P7K1ghJfTpbXbp6Flaywag8J_O5DI6h-BEN_M2fwTNaiyMvmpDnt6nLm_s99k3ndxXBLey-E0YRqbXJBMnBdjMeL7yY6uelauvCBxOhdNQ2gcPCTvgWrE7rgU_NaATE/s1600/dadetc.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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I have often heard it said that when someone we love dies, they are always with us -- it's the sort of old saying that I sometimes agree with, and sometimes resent. Yeah, well where <em>is he? </em>as one of my young nephews once said to me.<br />
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Recently, someone turned the saying around for me: When someone you love dies, a part of <em>you </em>goes with <em>them, </em>no matter where. This feels true. <br />
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Yesterday, sleep starved, trying to grade papers, waiting for Emma to come out to the car with her friends after a movie, I suddenly saw my dad, not in that idealized way that I often picture him -- the dad I knew as a child -- but as I'd last seen him. He was wearing his plaid barn coat and he looked tired, too, his face a little sunken, his blue eyes watery. Two weeks ago he visited my mother in the ER in Centralia. "How did he look?" I asked her. "Oh, about the same," she said. "He was probably wondering what was taking me so long." <br />
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Happy Father's Day, Dad.Bethany Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07257219025590003490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695296293971533312.post-45714796153818317912012-06-15T08:21:00.000-07:002012-06-15T08:21:03.879-07:00Notes...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVn94GWUtZHxb9COQIWvadb_INUKP4Kpz4J0a-crvkqeHpQbiGbWKCwd_QmqGGUbBGyc37vbhz4Y-Abub5XTs4L4GX55TVEZ63cxtcilMd-V5tqTUU99qNIY2QRTrR35ClbQq_souRfDw/s1600/bee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVn94GWUtZHxb9COQIWvadb_INUKP4Kpz4J0a-crvkqeHpQbiGbWKCwd_QmqGGUbBGyc37vbhz4Y-Abub5XTs4L4GX55TVEZ63cxtcilMd-V5tqTUU99qNIY2QRTrR35ClbQq_souRfDw/s320/bee.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0rLx0wmIzH1sJc99qNHxI9ii4vmOW6MWDzLHSLFvD08SrkE3M1dG5dyklf58s5Le5li4kcKUaN20i64Es0vgkVncxQenTkhjPIaZ1_FDH8H70_dkB-5qhPGhldMD2uvjeerQsjQTkSY/s1600/beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0rLx0wmIzH1sJc99qNHxI9ii4vmOW6MWDzLHSLFvD08SrkE3M1dG5dyklf58s5Le5li4kcKUaN20i64Es0vgkVncxQenTkhjPIaZ1_FDH8H70_dkB-5qhPGhldMD2uvjeerQsjQTkSY/s320/beach.jpg" width="214" /></a>The spring before Emma was born, our unexpected baby coming six years behind her twin sisters, I bumped into an old friend. I was grading papers at a coffee shop in Edmonds. I still remember how manic and exhausted I felt. My friend walked up to me and laid her hand on my arm and told me that she had heard about the new baby. I remember looking up at her with a frantic expression, words failing me. "Whenever something brings this much chaos into my life," she said, looking directly into my eyes, "it always turns out to be good thing." </div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I remember coming home from night class a couple years later, and finding all the dining room chairs turned upside down or stacked on the table, and Bruce, looking weary, telling me, "She climbs, and then she jumps."</div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I remember the summer she turned ten when she set a goal to swim every day. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She is failing her Humanities class, and getting a D in math. Do I make her go to summer school? Or do I stand by, holding a towel, waiting to see what will happen next? </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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