From EngAGE C.O.O. Maureen Kellen-Taylor:
At EngAGE we believe in Poetry !
Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes. – Joseph Roux
. . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are—until the poem—nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. – Audre Lorde
We suspect there are poets at many of our buildings who are devoted to creating poetry. We hope to find more of them and publicize their work over the next couple of years.
Meanwhile we are fortunate to have two classes in Poetry Writing that have been funded in partnership with Poets & Writers Inc. We are grateful to Poets & Writers for its generosity.
Poetry classes at Burbank Senior Artists Colony have been taught by Hannah Menkin for most of the 8 years that the building has been open. She meets with a group of residents twice a week and inspires them to keep translating their lives and ideas and feelings into words. Periodically they hold a group reading that impresses all those who attend. They also display their work around the artists colony.
Morgan Gibson an 83 year old poet, was recently funded to continue his year-long class at NoHo Senior Arts Colony with his enthusiastic poetry writing group. He brought in visiting poets to open up his students to other approaches to writing and subject matter. They hold readings periodically for their neighbors and families.
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.
Mark Strand
Recently Jamie Fitzgerald, Director, and Brandi Spaethe, Programs Assistant of Poets and Writers Los Angeles office, attended a reading by each group.
Burbank Senior Artists Poetry group and teacher Hannah Menkin with P & W staff
P & W staff and poet Morgan Gibson
Thank you, Poets & Writers, Inc.!
Poems by the Teachers
Hannah Menkin
Morgan Gibson
How The Sun-Goddess Rose From Ise Bay and Sank In Lake Michigan
After our wedding we
arrived at dusk at an inn on Ise Bay.
Water seeped into the sky
and the sky into our sleepiness
as rain had come and gone and come again.
Or were we underwater in our room
as fish dozed on the table?
Steamy from soup and tea
we came up for air
to play bamboo flutes
but even the tune was soggy.
So we crawled under quilts.
I dreamed that volcanoes of flesh and blood
rumbled together, rose
through the churning sea
to bloom as islands of Japan.
Before dawn I touched your sleeping face
whispering to see the dawn.
But you swam in sea-dreams far below.
Alone, I walked on
the sea-wall in the spray.
The Wedded Rocks, roped
together, rose
from dark waves as I had dreamed
we had emerged from ancient depths.
And as I held my breath, the sun
bled into the waves.
Old men in white robes bowed
clapping to the rising sun
that spilled the blood of all
the dead into the sea
and across the stones at my feet.
I shriveled in the spray
terrified of holiness
dissolving me in the sea.
An old man clopped towards me
on wooden clogs
pulled tight his robe against the light
and smiled to me as I bowed to him
and to his aureoled balding head.
We clapped
to the goddess sun.
Blinded by her bloody glow
of love-light pouring through the waves
I lost him, lost all
human sense
gasping in her light.
As vision cleared to sight
I wiped my eyes free of the
mist of myth.
The old man hobbled away.
I hurried back to the inn
before the sun could consume
all she had created and we had spoiled.
* * *
When the earth had turned to the other side of the sun
she sank in Lake Michigan
as we sat, hands joined,
on the beach near the cross
where Father Marquette
carried ashore by Indians had sighed
“Here I shall finish my voyage.”
The sun was only the sun to him
sinking as he sank from the world
to rise to his only God.
My father, another Reverend
half-way to heaven above the beach
watched from a hospital window
the sun set
taking the world’s blood with her
to sleep underwater
till she rose again from Ise Bay
as Jesus rose from flesh to heaven.
The Sun and Son join like Wedded Rocks
and all their followers, east and west
north and south
receive their double light till they are one
in love of all the colors
as we are one on body’s earth
in mind of sky.
Thank you, Maureen Kellen-Taylor and EngAGE for providing poetry writing programs for your residents. We always enjoy visiting the workshops and seeing their enthusiasm first hand.