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Morton Marcus: Good evening everybody, this is Mort Marcus again and this is the Poetry Show. And before we begin tonight's proceedings, let me say the KUSP thank Stapleton's Natural Foods grocery for providing support that helps to

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make the following hour programming possible. Stapleton's Natural Food grocery specializes in organic and commercial produce at 415 River Street in Santa Cruz. And the beautiful singing of Vivaldi in the background introduces us to

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what will be the subject of tonight's program, which is women's poetry. And as many of you know, out there, this is International Women's History Month, and I've decided that what we should have is some poetry here. And we're going to

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have women's poetry read to you by three wonderful practitioners of the art of poetry from Santa Cruz, who will read their favorite poems and- by other women poets, and will discuss poetry with us, and the women's movement, and what it is like to

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be a woman in 1987, and anything else they want to talk about. And I would like- 1988, thank you very much. That was Claire Braz-Valentine correcting me. As you may well realize, this is not my normal voice, and I am down with the wonderful crud

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that is invading Santa Cruz County, so I might not be too sharp tonight. There are those out there who think that I am not sharp anyhow. [Laughter] But I do hope that I'll be able to get through, I've already lost a year before the program starts.

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Anyway, the poets reading tonight and talking tonight will be Claire Braz-Valentine, Anita Wilkins, and Maude Meehan, and it is wonderful to welcome you all to the show. Now, Maude, why don't you say good evening first.

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Maude Meehan: Good evening. Morton Marcus: Say it again? Maude Meehan: Good evening. Morton Marcus: Okay. And could you sit closer? and Anita?

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Anita Wilkins: Good evening. Morton Marcus: Okay, and Claire. Claire Braz-Valentine: Hi, Mort, nice to be here. Morton Marcus: Ah, that's interesting. Say it again,

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Claire. Hi, Mort. That's good. Okay, we're gonna have to have everyone sit pretty close, because these mics are rather unfortunately direct. And

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that one seems to be drooping, Claire. So you can actually lift it if you want, and see if it gets to balance from over here. Okay, this is a woman's reading hour, and I hope that we will hear from- some of your own poems. But who would like to

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lead it off? Claire Braz-Valentine: I'd be glad to, Mort. First of all, I'd like to say it's really an honor to do this in honor of International Women's History Month and to do it with Anita

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and Maude. And as I was preparing the works that I was going to read tonight, I was just happening to think about how far women have come throughout history and the long road that we still have to go, and how sometimes I become

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irritated when I hear a woman of great accomplishment preface a statement by saying, "I'm not a feminist, but-" and then they begin to tell of all their successes. And the fact was that none of the doors to women in the workplace or in education or

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creative arts were open until women actually pushed them open. And I think it's a special kind of vanity that doesn't allow a woman to recognize the fact that it's the women that have come before her that have fought so hard to open those doors for

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her. So, I'm prefacing my reading with the words, "I am a feminist and-" and I would like to read my first poem written by a wonderful poet who lives in Santa Cruz, we're very fortunate to have her here. Her name is Adrianne Rich and this is a

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short poem called: AN UNSAID WORD She who has the power to call her man from that estranged intensity, where his mind forges alone, yet keeps her peace and

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leaves him free. And when his thoughts to her return, stands where he left her, still his own, knows this, the hardest thing to learn. And after reading this poem, I'd like to follow it up with one

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that I wrote. I was in a workshop about five years ago in which- poetry workshop, in which the class viewed a film of Adrianne Rich, reading her poetry, and then there was a discussion afterwards about Adrianne Rich and her life,

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which led a man in the class to turn to another man and ask the words, "Just what is it these women want?" During that week, I also read a magazine article which pointed out that one fifth of the nation's poor were women over sixty-five. And I wrote

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this poem, and it's called: AFTER HEARING A FEMINIST POET READ HER WORK, A MAN IN THE ROOM TURNED TO ANOTHER MAN AND ASKED THE QUESTION: JUST WHAT IS IT THESE WOMEN WANT, and of all the poems I've ever written, this

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one has been published actually the most. She lives with me every day, this woman. She has a thousand names. Years before, she baked pies in a warm kitchen, waiting for her man to come home from the mines, the sea, the crops.

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Now that she has lived longer than all of them, her brothers, her man, her sisters, she does not wait anymore. She forgets sometimes; when she wakes in that shabby room, she turns quickly on the lumpy roll-away bed to face a clock that isn't

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there, trying to remember something important, then she remembers there is nothing to remember. She has no clock, no television, no telephone. The radio stopped three months ago, it died slowly. For two months there was static, she listened

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to anyway in her old blue robe sitting by the window. She pretended it was a code and someone was trying to reach her, then the static died too. She leaves the knob turned to the on position just in case she will wake one morning to music again,

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maybe that would be good. It's good to wake to music, it reminds her of something. She has a refrigerator, empty, she leaves it plugged in, the sound is nice. The motor comes on when it wants to, when it's had enough of itself, it shuts off.

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She admires that motor for it's good sense. It is empty of food but the shelves are full, the paper plates, that's what she puts there. It's a habit, you know? Clear the table, put the leftovers in the refrigerator, it's a ceremony, no matter there

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are no leftovers, no matter for that, it's her business. The food comes in a blue van at two o'clock weekdays, weekends are not good. She tries to save the bread from Thursday and Friday. Sometimes, she forgets. She waits a long time by the window.

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She sits in a chair at a table as old as her hands. Saturday she cries when there is no bread wrapped in a paper napkin and stored in the refrigerator she admires. She has no clock, but on Saturdays when there is no bread, she cries somewhere

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between 2:30 and 2:45. Once the van got a flat tire and they found her crying, it didn't bother them. She was glad for that. She guesses there are other people crying too, she isn't sure but she guesses that. Sunday she does not cry even if

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she forgot the bread from Thursday and Friday. She will try to pray on Sundays, she will hold her father's bible on her lap, her eyes cannot read the print but she will hold it just the same. She will even be dressed on Sunday. She realizes

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sometimes her dress is inside out or backwards, that doesn't bother her, except she worries she will die that way: die some Sunday with her dress on backwards, sitting on her bed with her father's bible on her lap. She will be remembered that

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way, crazy with her dress on backwards. They will tear the mattress, she knows it, always she thinks of that: women found dead in slums with mattresses filled with money, they will roll me off first onto the floor, not even shut my eyes yet

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or wash me to get to the mattress. Of course there is nothing but old rags stuffed in the holes, nothing here but this woman who has not been called by her first name in twelve years. The first name is always the first to die. It is thousands of

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names, I told you that. It is more names that I can count or you would read, but I want to list them and give them as my answer. Just what is it these women want? Agnes, Maria, Rose, Louise, Margaret, Bertha, Josephine, Joanna, Elizabeth,

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Lydia, Mildred, they are the reasons. Who is it we fight for? Why aren't we happy? What more could we possibly hope for? I tell you, Laura, Miriam, Stella, Grace, Wilma, Agatha, Emmeline, Florence, Bella, Blanche, Harriet, I tell you these

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sisters die because they listen when we told them we would take care of them. They listen when we told them they didn't need job training, they didn't need education, they didn't need retirement or medical coverage, that's what we want, to remember

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them, remember them every day of our lives, and never, never become them. Morton Marcus: Very good. Thank you very much, we will be back to Claire Braz-Valentine. Before we move on, I would like to say

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that I have been trying to get a minority poet to join this group, and I just could not find anyone who would come on the show. Phone calls were not returned or people were just out of town, so one of the things that's going to happen tonight

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is that the poets are going to be reading poems from other cultures. And also actually, I know that Claire plans on reading one by a wonderful local poet by the name of Lucille Clifton, who could not make it tonight because she's out of

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town. Anyway, Maude Meehan, I'm sure you have got poems and poems because you know the movement inside and out. Maude Meehan: Thank you, Morton and it's really a great pleasure to be here. I just came from a large women's seminar in Sonoma

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County. And the focus, this weekend was entirely on our mothers, our daughters, and our grandmothers, and we discussed a great deal about reaching back for our grandmothers because most of our great-grandmothers and many of our grandmothers

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came from very distant places. And they're- our grandmothers are almost our only link with the past. And in the past few months, I've been researching the lost history of women, and our history has been lost, and it has been mythologized or

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erased. And so I've been looking into the wives of the- the wives, yes, the wives, and the early lives of the Native Americans, and the Filipino, Japanese, and Chinese picture brides, the Latina, the pioneer women, the black women, who were

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brought to this continent as slaves and constantly struck over and over by the terrible isolation and the never-ending ache of separation from their mothers and sisters, their children, their family, the very roots to their being. And I

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found a quote by Alice Walker that was in "Fundamental Differences." And she said, "To acknowledge our ancestors means that we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to god or gods. We

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remember them because it is an easy thing to forget that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love, and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrows, is always a measure of what has gone before." And my daughter in

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law, Rebecca Newsome-Meehan, wrote this poem about her grandmother, and I'd like to read this, it was in, "Moonjuice IV." MAMA DORA

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It is winter in Georgia, with pressure in my thumbs, rub and kindle my grandmother's neck. She lies on her side, ample body balanced on angle, tries to hold her head up. I tell her to relax, pull all the pillows, let me rub, let me rub you, Mama

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Dora, soothe your pain, let my hands love you while I'm here, while you're here. The skin on her neck is soft like the satin comforter upstairs where I would sleep on visits as a child in summer, long, hot, humid nights when a sheet was too much cover.

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Sounds of the crowd cheering in the ballpark, I'm too young, want to, not yet. Spotlights glare between full trees, through my eyelids, I see. My hands move down to her shoulders. I can feel bone way down. I pour lotion, her skin

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becomes slick like the wet scales, body of the goldfish I used to feed in the fish pond, side-yard. I would give a handful of oatmeal, then sneak in later after the noon dinner, dishes are dried, back in cupboards, the folks are fanning

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on the front porch. I take more, more oatmeal for the fish. Her muscles are tight under the shoulder blade, I press my palm harder. We would swing harder and higher, build up speed until the chain shook, cousins loaded on the long swing playing train.

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She had appeared at the screen door, "y'all slow down now, I mean it," and she did. We never fell off. I hold her arm up, stroke with long motions. She calls the dangling part her flap, "Rub my old flap, sugar." We laughed, planned food for

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tomorrow, like yesterday for today. So many tomorrows she's seen, growing up on the plantation, shelling pecans, cooking cracklin bits for the hounds. Ninety-one years, things she should have done, meant to, never did, so many years. Mama

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Dora has watched six brothers, three sisters die. Her parents, her child, her husband. With pressure, my thumbs rubbed and kindled her hand, the flesh is loose and moves fluidly over the bones.

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And a year later, she wrote for my grandmother. I open the gate, walk out past g azing cows, trees contour g assland, sky, the earth, so upple underfoot, gives easily. come to see out, ocean xpanse, be reminded there is

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ore, more than tears and fear f loss, time as a consequence, small bird flaps its wings to over above one place. She will ass. 1887-1979. I feel your resence. Look at you, so ranquil. I bend to kiss your orehead, it is cold. You know

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'm here. We'll be with you gain, sense you in wind. Morton Marcus: You say that's your daughter in law? Maude Meehan: Yes. Morton Marcus: This is all new to me. Those poems are- the

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first one is just incredible, really beautiful stuff. Has she been writing a lot? Maude Meehan: And no, she hasn't, but she's going to start again.

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Morton Marcus: Good, you tell her to definitely do that. Maude Meehan: I did, I did. Morton Marcus: Yeah, I mean, that was wonderful. The different things she was mixing in there and the language was

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just so clean, very nice. Maude Meehan: Yes. Morton Marcus: Well, that's great, the way we started off so far, I think we're getting that international different

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generation feeling. And so, we're going to go to a third poet right now who is Anita Wilkins. And also some people are going to be reading from anthologies. If you could also name the books in the anthologies you're reading from

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because people out there might be interested in looking for them and pick them up. Anita, welcome. That's the way I start. The, "um," is the way I start. Anita Wilkins: I said this about anthologies because I have in my

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hand, an anthology, "Women Poets of the World." And I wanted to read a poem out of there by a Japanese poet, a contemporary Japanese poet, Tomioka Taeko, called, "Life Story," and it LIFE STORY

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has- I wanted to start with this one in my reading because it has a very strong sense of history in it. But it's a little like Virginia Woolf's "Orland," f you're familiar with that, whe e a character move- one charact r starts at some point i

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history, and moves down throug history, changing sexes, changi g gender, as he or she goes. It s called, "Life Story," and I think it's a very interesti g poem to hear coming out of Jap n with its traditional role f wome

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Daddy and Mummy, also the midwife, all the fortune tellers bet it would be a boy. And so inevitably, it decided to be a girl and burst the placenta. And because everyone was disappointed, I agreed to turn

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into a boy. And then because everyone praised me, I turned into a girl. And then because everyone persecuted me, I turned into a boy. When I got older, I fell in love with a boy, so there was nothing

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for it, but to turn into a girl. And then everyone except my boyfriend commented on the fact I'd become a girl. So for everyone except my boyfriend, I turned into a boy, but I was sorry for my boyfriend because he felt left out, and he said,

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if I were a boy, we couldn't sleep together, so I became a girl. Meanwhile, how many centuries passed by? This time, the poor fomented a bloody revolution and were controlled by a single

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piece of bread. And so then the Church in the Middle Ages came along, saying, "There is love, there is love." I walked down the alleys, distributing secondhand clothes and rice balls.

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Meanwhile, how many centuries passed by? This time when God's Kingdom came, rich and poor were becoming enormously intimate, and so inflammatory leaflets were scattered from a private helicopter.

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Meanwhile, how many centuries passed by? This time, a clique of bloody revolutionaries were genuflecting to the rusty Cross of Christ. The fire of order was visible in the midst of disorder. And so in underground bars drinking and playing cards

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with Byron and Musett and Villon, and Baudelaire and Hemingway, and girls in black slacks I argued about the unique quality of what we call bohemianism in Japan, and we all kidded each other about the equivalence everywhere of love.

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Because Daddy and Mummy, also the midwife, said I was born a genius, I tried to be an imbecile child. Because they said I was a fool, I became an intellectual and build a house behind my parent's one.

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I was finding my strength unwieldy. When living there behind my parents house, I started getting famous. I stepped out in front and walked by myself on the pavement that formerly belonged to Daddy and Mummy.

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I've always been rather perverse. I've suffered for the honor of perverseness but I've become a splendid girl. I've turned into a boy for my lover, and won't let him talk back to me.

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That's, "Life Story." Morton Marcus: Okay. Anita Wilkins: Doesn't at all fit in with any probably our stereotypes of the Japanese woman. Then, I would like to

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read from, "The Country Between Us," a book by Carolyn Forché, which many people I'm sure are familiar with. Carolyn Forché in translating the poetry of Isabel Alegria, got involved in El Salvador somewhat against her intentions and will, and spent

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two years going back and forth and being initiated into the horrors of El Salvador. And one of the poems that came out of this experience called, "The Colonel," written in May 1978. And this poem has been rather controversial, as you will see

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when I read it. It's a kind of straightforward report, she says, of something that happened exactly this way. THE COLONEL What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife

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carried a tray of coffee and sugar, his daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the

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television was a cop show, it was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's leg or cut his hands to lace. On the windows, there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We

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had dinner, a rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, [unidentified] a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish, his wife

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took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern, the parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up and pushed himself to the table. My friend said to me with his eyes, "Say nothing."

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The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table, they were like dried peach-halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a

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water glass. It came alive there. "I'm tired of fooling around," he said, "as for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves." He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the

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air. "Something for your poetry, no?" he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught the scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground. Maude whispers to me, am I going to read, "Return?" And I will

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but I wonder if maybe I should wait [cross talk] a little later because it's rather long. It's her return to the United States after being in El Salvador. Maude Meehan: It's one of my favorite poems.

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Anita Wilkins: Yes, yes. Morton Marcus: Well, okay with that then, why don't we take a break and we will hear the music of Vivaldi again. A very apropos poem as you may or may not know, this Sunday, the ARENA party,

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the far-right party of D'Aubuisson in El Salvador had a tremendous majority and it looks like D'Aubuisson may well come back as prime minister or something like that. So, very apropos poem to read in many, many ways. And the big

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experiment with Duarte has fallen apart, and one of the reasons that I think D'Aubuisson got so many votes is because the left is of course not represented, I'd say any kind of a left, if there are even any left alive, right. At any rate,

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with that, we will be back to our guest poets who are reading their favorite poems tonight in honor of International Women's Month. This is the Poetry Show again, we will continue with our poems

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in a moment but I do have some things to read. First of all, tonight, immediately following the show on "Things Ain't What Whey Used To Be," the Gil Evans tribute, tonight at 10pm, KUSP will present a special one hour tribute to the music of jazz

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composer and pianists Gil Evans. Gil died at his home in Cuernavaca, Mexico on Sunday, but his music lives on and can be heard in this tribute tonight at 10 o'clock on Tim Folger's jazz show, "Things Ain't What Whey Used To Be," so tune in

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right after the Poetry Show tonight for a Gil Evans tribute. And I would urge you to do that, I did not know that Gil had died, and one of my prized jazz record, two of my prized jazz records are all Gil Evans records. And so the great ones

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keep leaving. Other announcements: "Hipsters, Flipsters And Finger Poppin' Daddies Knock Me Your Lobes," pick up on the Easter Bebop drama the Nazz, inspired by Lord Buckley. Deep-souled Simon Kelly is the Nazz, solid-sending

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Charmaine Scott is Mary Magdalene with Jumpin John the Baptist, the Bebop Angels, the Double Hip Disciples Two, Bebop Bands, and a heavenly host of local talent. This Bebop Epic will be laid down at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320 Cedar Street

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Santa Cruz on Easter Sunday evening, April 3rd at 7:30, no bread needed, produced by Don McCaslin, funded by the City of Santa Cruz [cut-off]. Claire Braz-Valentine: Yeah, I told her how much I loved one of

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her poems called, "Miss Rosie." And when Lucille came to Santa Cruz and gave her first reading, she opened it up with this poem and said it was because I loved it so much, and she dedicated it to me and I just- it was one of the high points of my life. And

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I think that this poem is one of the greatest tributes to a woman written by a woman and it's called: MISS ROSIE When I watch you, wrapped up like garbage, sitting surrounded

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by the smell of two old potato peels, or when I watch you in your old man shoes with the little toe cut out, sitting, waiting for your mind like next week's grocery. I say, when I watch you, you wet brown bag of a woman, who used to be the best

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looking gal in Georgia, used to be called the Georgia Rose, I stand up, through your destruction, I stand up. I love that poem and I love reading it. And I know Lucille wouldn't mind me reading it because she knows how much I

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love it. Morton Marcus: Lucille can be sassy with poetry. Claire Braz-Valentine: Yeah, I just love that. I think I'd like to read a little piece of my play on Susan B. Anthony. I have

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a full-length play that's about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It's called, "This One Thing I Do," and it's been performed quite a few times. And there are two soliloquies in it. One of them is continually redone, I just lately heard that

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last year, the second runner up in the Miss California pageant actually used this little soliloquy as her talent piece. So, it just goes to show you that the long arm of feminism reaches into the hearts of all women. This little soliloquy is

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in the beginning of the play. It's Susan, at sixteen years old, who is leaving her mother and her father, to become a teacher. And she's very confused about what possibilities there may be for her in her life.

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It's not that I want to be a man, but sometimes I wonder, you know, about people and their spirits. I sometimes wonder if spirits have gender, if minds have gender. I mean, if I took my brain out and put it on the table, and Bobby Gilbert, who

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lives down the street, took his brain out and put it on the table, would anyone be able to tell the difference? Whose was the boys? And whose was the girls? That wouldn't work, Bobby Gilbert is stupid, his brain would be much smaller, they

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could tell that way. But if women aren't supposed to be able to think complicated thoughts, aren't allowed to go to college, work in business, enter into politics, then how come I began to read when I was three years old? Would God be so unjust as

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to give me a mind to work with then not let me use it? It's not that I want to be a man, but don't you think that would be crazy? And God's not crazy, but I would be if I'm not allowed to use my mind. It's not that I want to be a man. I want to

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drive a carriage. Oh, yes, it's lovely to be picked up on Sundays by suitors and taken for a drive, but I would like to be well-educated, I would like an excellent position in a fine firm, I would like to be able to walk into a bank, I would like

00:33:40.860 - 00:33:59.310

not to wear a corset. It's not that I want to be a man, I want to be a person. Morton Marcus: I can give a little plug here for this show. We've already received a phone call tonight by someone who said

00:33:59.310 - 00:34:14.070

how much they were enjoying the program, and that certainly is thanks to you three wonderful poets. But if I could tell the people out there that on April 5th is going to be pledge night for the show, it is the only night we have this time. We get

00:34:14.070 - 00:34:29.880

one hour to pitch to you and then to let the people here at KUSP know that you want to keep the Poetry Show on the air. So, do remember that, it's only two weeks- is it two weeks or is it next week? I think it's two weeks, isn't it? Yeah. Two weeks

00:34:29.880 - 00:34:44.970

from tonight, Joe and I will both be here and we'll be asking for your support to keep the Poetry Show going and to enable us to have people like Maude and Anita and Claire on the show and to keep these evenings going. So, please do remember your

00:34:44.970 - 00:34:57.000

support is really necessary to keep the Poetry Show on the air. Maude? Maude Meehan: Yes, Morton. I'm assuming you want me to continue?

00:34:57.900 - 00:35:13.460

Morton Marcus: I thought that was expressive, you know, Maude? Maude Meehan: It was. Okay, I've been corresponding with Meridel Le Sueur, and she is a ninety-three year old woman, part Native American who for decades has been a powerful

00:35:13.460 - 00:35:30.560

voice in the struggle for women's rights, for Indian rights, for human rights. And she is an amazing woman and in her book, "The Rights of Ancient Ripening," which her editor calls a look backward and a look inward. Meridel dedicates her

00:35:30.560 - 00:35:46.820

writing to all the women in bedlam and in hell, and the new seraphic woman, to those being born and not yet born, for all the women of the dark earth rising into the light and freedom. She says her motto is survival as a form of

00:35:46.820 - 00:36:07.790

resistance. And the poem that I'm going to read, these are excerpts from her work, "Ripening." And I'd like to begin- I get most of my poems this evening around grandmothers, as I said, I wanted to reach back into our

00:36:07.790 - 00:36:23.630

roots. But those women connections had brought us out of where we were to where we are. Hush, my little grandmother, I am a woman come to speak for you. I am a woman speaking for us all from the tongue of dust

00:36:23.630 - 00:36:41.270

and fire, from the bowl of bitter smoke. This is a song for strength and power. Water is pouring, water is running. Let us all go down and bathe in the water. The water is coming on the four paths of the eagles. Let us all of many colors go

00:36:41.270 - 00:37:01.130

down where the waters come calling, calling to us in rivers of wind and blood. We are a glut of strong thrust, grandmother. Hush, hush, my little grandmother, I am a woman come to speak in tongues of dust and fire. Ay, ay, ay. My bone shine

00:37:01.130 - 00:37:19.040

in fever, I am luminous with age. How can we touch each other, my sisters? How can we hear each other over the criminal space? How can we touch each other over the agony of bloody roses? I always feel you near, your sorrow like a wind in

00:37:19.040 - 00:37:39.770

the great legend of your resistance, your strong and delicate strength. It was the bumblebee and the butterfly who survived, not the dinosaur. And this is a poem that I wrote for my mother's 90th birthday.

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It's called: A GIFT FOR MY MOTHER'S 90TH BIRTHDAY, BURTON HOSPITAL We watched the rains loose down against the window of your sterile room, and listened as you told of childhood summer

00:37:53.210 - 00:38:13.670

showers at the farm, how you ran out a colt unpenned into their sudden soaking bliss. Now you, aged changeling mother, emptied and cleaned as a cracked China cup on the wrong shelf, whisper, "What I would give to feel that rain pelt hard against my face."

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But you had nothing left, so we, conspirators of love, locked the white door and your granddaughter wheeled you to the bath where we unclothed your little sack of bones and lifted you beneath the shower. She held you up, your legs, pale stalks

00:38:31.160 - 00:38:46.820

adangle, and clasped to your wasted body, bracing her taut young flesh to your slack folds. And you clung laughing, joyous as a child to feel the clear fresh rivulets cross down your upturned face.

00:38:49.820 - 00:39:13.640

Morton Marcus: Anita? Anita Wilkins: I'd like to read from an anthology, a book called, "Three Russian Women Poets," and I'd like to read a poem by Anna Akhmatova, who is, of course, considered one of the

00:39:13.700 - 00:39:41.390

major poets in modern Russian literature. She was born in 1889 and died in 1966, so her life spanned an enormously tumultuous period of Russian history. And in this poem, which is taken from a longer poem called, "Northern Elegies," she's had a

00:39:41.390 - 00:39:58.070

little bit to say about having lived in- the life of Russia which she calls: THE GRIM AGE The Grim Age turned me like a river, turned my life into

00:39:58.070 - 00:40:18.540

another channel, and drifting in it, I do not recognize my shore. What visions of things I let get away? [Comment] I'd like to stop here and say something farther about- I think that probably her natu al bent as a poet is very subjec

00:40:18.540 - 00:40:42.330

ive and very personal. And yet s e lived in a time when histor forced itself on her in ve y, very personal ways, so that w ile she writes about love a d about relationships, she lso was forced to face I sup ose the larger issues of histor

00:40:42.330 - 00:40:57.360

beyond her own personal on . So, I think she feels perh ps, and expresses in this p em, the distortion of her natural direction as a poet by he time in which he lived. And hen I'd like to sta

00:40:58.590 - 00:41:17.550

The Grim Age turned me like a river, turned my life into another channel, and drifting in it, I do not recognize my shore. What visions of things I let get away? The curtain rises without me and falls. So many friends I've never met even once, so

00:41:17.550 - 00:41:35.070

many faces of cities might have moved me, yet in this world, I know only one city and discover it in dream. So many poems I haven't written whose secret chorus brambles nearby and one day will choke me. I am forced to know the beginnings and ends

00:41:35.070 - 00:41:54.150

and life after the end, and something I don't have to remember. An indistinct woman occupied my natural place with my legal name and has left me a nickname. I did what I could with it, thank you. I won't lie in my own grave, but sometimes a

00:41:54.150 - 00:42:11.190

mad spring wind, or the combination of words in a chance book, or someone's spot smile, suddenly pulled me into an unrealized life. Back then, something might have happened. I could have traveled, seen, and thought things, recalled my

00:42:11.190 - 00:42:25.650

past, or gone into a new affair as into a mirror with a blunted awareness of betrayal. But yesterday, I wasn't so wrinkled. Yet, if from there, I looked at my present life, I would be envious.

00:42:29.290 - 00:42:44.140

Morton Marcus: Yeah, she's a great love poet, also an amazing, amazingly subtle poet. Anita Wilkins: Which then brings us to the subject of love poems. And I'd like to read from a contemporary American poet,

00:42:44.500 - 00:43:21.100

Linda Gregg. A poem called, "Alma Watching Her Husband." This is- we can call it a love poem, a troubled love poem. One of the things that Linda Gregg does is to break off a part of herself whom she calls Alma. It's as though in her life,

00:43:22.300 - 00:43:35.350

there's been such intense suffering, that she had to take a piece of herself and set it off out there where she could look at it and talk about that suffering figure in a way that made her own pain bearable.

00:43:38.270 - 00:43:51.380

Halfway through the scene, I could not decide whether Alma should react or go on standing there, by the window of her dark room, her back to us and the bright summer night above the roofs beyond. She was looking into the apartment across the

00:43:51.380 - 00:44:06.170

courtyard as they finished making love, and the woman climbed down the ladder from the high bed, shining in the candlelight. Maybe Alma should lie on the floor with her face showing, or smash the tulips, kneel crying alongside, then

00:44:06.170 - 00:44:23.060

quickly sweep them up. But I wanted something more tenuous. I went outside, the air smelled like cardamom. Students were singing in the street, it was already morning. I wrote it all down. The kind of daylight at midnight in Denmark and the kind

00:44:23.060 - 00:44:37.910

at four in the morning. Maybe Alma would sit with her legs out the window watching the birds overhead. When I got back, the man downstairs was crying because his wife had just died of cancer. He used to grab Alma when she came home from ballet

00:44:37.910 - 00:44:53.750

class and weep in her hair. Maybe I should show Alma's husband for the ending. Walking across the city, over the bridges and along the moat to his workroom, he would make soup and put it on the cast-iron stove, pour tea, and begin to

00:44:53.750 - 00:45:13.860

work. A boy might come by from the next cabin and say they had moved the trumpet-player into a soundproof room facing out in the marsh, then I knew she would just go on standing there. The title of this poem was, "Alma Watching Her Husband." So,

00:45:14.130 - 00:45:29.910

as I read the poem, it's the eye of the poem watching her husband making love in an apartment across the way. And in order to deal with that, she has to see it, she has to have this fragment of herself, Alma was watching her husband.

00:45:32.520 - 00:45:43.620

Morton Marcus: Let's see, we have enough time for at least one more poem each. So, shall we go the same direction? Claire. Claire Braz-Valentine: Okay. Morton Marcus: And any comments you'd like to make, we may even

00:45:43.620 - 00:45:55.470

have time for comments afterwards, actually. Claire Braz-Valentine: All right, I think I'm going to- I had a longer poem of Sylvia Plath picked out but rather, I don't want to cut Maude short here, so I'm going to read this

00:45:55.500 - 00:46:14.820

other one that I wrote. And I wrote this because I've been a single working mother, it seems, for about eight lifetimes now. And, I call this, "Act Two," and I'm dedicating this tonight to one of my dear friends, Billie Harris.

00:46:15.480 - 00:46:33.160

ACT TWO I'm a many-rolled player holding down this cast myself, it is a poorly written script in the mother tongue. There is no time, no time between acts, between scenes I race wildly backstage.

00:46:33.370 - 00:46:55.630

Oh, God, I race. The costumes I wear lie rumpled and cornered as I thrash for the worker's dress. Three sons wait on stage, I come dressed as a poet and blow my lines and tell them gentle things, tearful things, soulful things, and they need formulas.

00:46:55.990 - 00:47:13.420

They need to study the mechanics. So I failed the audition, but get the part anyway. And can't they see I have no talent, I cannot speak the language, I do not get the message, it isn't even a good try. But there are so many

00:47:13.420 - 00:47:34.480

paying spectators who have come to see my magic where there isn't any, that I keep the pace, and I hold them spell-bound with expectation that at any moment, I may enter a phone booth and come out naked. My son, skin will be as white as the moon, my

00:47:34.480 - 00:47:48.430

wardrobe will rot backstage, and you, only love, will know me. Morton Marcus: Is that a new one, Claire? Claire Braz-Valentine: No, I wrote it several years ago, I've just never really shared it.

00:47:49.180 - 00:48:04.030

Morton Marcus: That's nice. I'm sure all single mothers will appreciate that one. Maude Meehan: I'm Maude again and this is the poem that comes to mind every year during International Women's History

00:48:04.030 - 00:48:18.390

Month, and I always seem to find a place to read it. It's called: LITANY OF ALLIANCE Every woman who knows that she has been patronized or trivialized, every woman who has been called weak, called

00:48:18.390 - 00:48:35.700

neurotic, called hysterical, and who among you has not been named. Every woman whose aging has rendered her invisible, or by her youth or age has been seen as powerless. Every woman who has known poverty, who has watched her children's eyes grow

00:48:35.700 - 00:48:52.290

dull, who has heard the sound of their bellies growling. Every woman who has been stunned by the weight of her own revelation, looked to all women, to the old for their wisdom, to the young for their daring. Turn to your sisters whose skin is

00:48:52.290 - 00:49:08.700

the color of honey, the color of earth, the color of almonds. Look into their lives and weep for their knowledge, make a bridge of your sharing, and joining together, we come to our power and joining together, new strength is born.

00:49:13.170 - 00:49:20.400

Morton Marcus: Well, I'm sort of feeling like a minority myself here. Anita Wilkins: Well, then, I'll read this one for you, Mort. Morton Marcus: Thank you very much.

00:49:21.090 - 00:49:36.640

Anita Wilkins: It's called: RECONCILIATION Earlier, the sun went down over the strait with a black bar over its face, defining the far mountain slope as it went. Two

00:49:36.640 - 00:49:52.480

ferryboats from Athens and Hydra approached each other, crossed over the sun's path, the long orange strand on the water, and passed through each other pulling apart. Now the moon has come up through the olive trees. What a distance this night

00:49:52.480 - 00:50:11.560

encompasses, stranding us half a world apart on islands of different natures, different desires. We met and lived on that meeting place so many years as if trust had substance. We cross over the path of the sun now, pulling apart. Lights still

00:50:11.560 - 00:50:28.390

burn in the village below this house near midnight. Someone shouts from the road, and a vespa goes by, crushing the stillness. The moon has pulled itself free from the olive tree and rises slowly its own inexorable way. I've deserted

00:50:28.390 - 00:50:44.650

the table in the courtyard where the talk still goes on. Glasses cloudy with ouzo on a low table, the candles that flickered in a small wind under the jasmine. I dreamed of you last night, first in a blackened valley where you slept and wouldn't answer when I

00:50:44.650 - 00:51:03.520

called, then walking beside me, risen out of a charred self. At noon, the Temple of Athena in its incompleteness, broken and salvaged, raised clean beige stone against the sky's mildness, and the mountain fell away towards the sea on either

00:51:03.520 - 00:51:24.250

side, demonstrating how clear a placement can be, heavy on the centuries and still sure. Far below, the Aegean washed against the rocks. I imagined the slow schools of fish that freckled the surface, testing existence invulnerable. In the sunlight

00:51:24.250 - 00:51:41.290

there, I was happy for a moment, wanting and being content not to have, wanting to give that to you, to make from the elements of this day and night stone to stand on the mountain, looking both ways down to the sea.

00:51:42.700 - 00:51:47.340

Morton Marcus: And what you did not say was that that was your poem. Anita Wilkins: Yes. Morton Marcus: And it sounds like a new one. It's beautiful.

00:51:49.530 - 00:52:01.860

In fact, all of the poems that you three poets read tonight were beautiful, your own as well as the people you read. Very, very powerful evening and as I said, we've had one phone call already, and someone else called then hung up before I got to

00:52:01.860 - 00:52:17.820

them. But I'm sure a lot of people out there who were listening tonight and were as moved as I was. Since I don't have much of a voice, I finally shut up and just listen to my guests, I ought to do it more often. Final words, and we have

00:52:17.820 - 00:52:31.220

been talking with, and I will just introduce them again as they give us their final words, this is Claire Braz-Valentine. Claire Braz-Valentine: Thank you, Mort. I just want to say again, that I'm very pleased to be here particularly because it

00:52:31.220 - 00:52:50.870

is in honor of International Women's History Month. And I would just like to encourage all the women out there who are silencing their voices and their creativity to let it go and join in with their sisters and begin to do their writing and their

00:52:50.870 - 00:53:08.000

art and get out publicly and politically. Thanks. Morton Marcus: And Maude Meehan. Maude Meehan: I wanted to say that when you read about Anna Akhmatova, I was very moved because I recalled the story

00:53:08.030 - 00:53:21.410

that she wrote about, a very brief story where she was standing outside the prison where she was waiting to see her son, and it was bitter cold and a woman in the line recognized her and whispered to her, "Can you tell about this?" wanting

00:53:21.410 - 00:53:40.760

her to tell the outside world what was happening, and she said, "Yes, I can." And the gist of the story was that it was important to be a storyteller, to get the word out to the rest of the world what was happening. And that put me in mind also of

00:53:40.760 - 00:53:58.730

Leslie Marmon Silko , who is an American, native Eskimo, and she has a book called, "Storyteller," in which she says that it is the charge and the duty of women to be the storytellers so that we may remember our ancestors and so

00:53:58.730 - 00:54:13.370

that we may pass along our stories because they have not been recorded. And so tonight, we have been passing those stories along and like Claire, I urge all the women out there to remember that we are the oral tradition of this country, of

00:54:13.370 - 00:54:26.430

this world, and since our history has not been kept, it is up to us to make it known. Morton Marcus: Wow, okay, and Anita. Anita Wilkins: So, Maude has focused on story, I'm reminded

00:54:26.430 - 00:54:39.840

of the last poem in my book called, "The Trees Along This Road," and I'll read the first stanza of it in conclusion. Morton Marcus: Well, let me see how long is it, maybe you can do the whole thing? Okay. Okay, great, then do the whole thing.

00:54:41.370 - 00:54:45.570

Anita Wilkins: But the first stanza- Morton Marcus: Oh, it's the first stanza you only want to read, okay. Anita Wilkins: I can read all of it if we have time.

00:54:45.660 - 00:55:00.420

STORY, and it begins with three dots because it begins in the middle: ...how we came here to the riverbank and saw swimming the silver beautiful fish, flashing metallic and large in the

00:55:00.420 - 00:55:14.420

sunlight, calling us into the water to be like them coming home to our depths. Morton Marcus: Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much, all three of you. It's wonderful. I was just going to

00:55:14.420 - 00:55:27.200

let you people do the show and I was gonna sit here dumbly and I just had the best time I've had a long time. But that's when you're in the company of three real pros, so thanks again. And everyone out there says thank you also. I would like to say

00:55:27.200 - 00:55:41.660

thank you to Plaza Books which has provided a grant that helped make the last half-hour of programming possible. Plaza Books is located on the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz. We appreciate their support. Let me again remind you that on

00:55:41.660 - 00:55:57.770

Thursday night, I will be giving a performance, a very rare performance of the Santa Cruz Mountain Poems at the Public Library, upstairs in the meeting room, 7pm, and that will include slides of the fifty-six original drawings by Gary Brown. Let me

00:55:57.800 - 00:56:12.650

also say that Joe Stroud will be here next week, but that you should definitely keep tuned to Tim Folger on "Things Ain't What They Used To Be," a special tribute to Gil Evans, the great jazz pianist who, alas, just passed away this past Sunday.

00:56:12.920 - 00:56:21.320

So, lend Tim your ear, lend Gil Evans, out there in the stratosphere, your ears. This is Mort Marcus, I'll be seeing you in two weeks.