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Morton Marcus: Good evening everybody. This is Mort Marcus and this is your Poetry Show for Sunday evening. And tonight we're going to have a special show in which we are going to preview the In Celebration of the Muse readings, probably the

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oldest continuous reading that has gone on in Santa Cruz County, and it is a reading fittingly enough of women by women. And we are featuring it as it is being performed in National Women's History week, month. I must not take the three

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weeks away. And first we're going to learn a little bit about this event and how it ties in with a group that is connected with it and that is Women's Care. We're going to be talking to Mariposa. Mariposa speaking right into the

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microphone. Welcome to the Poetry Show. Mariposa: Thank you. Thanks for having us up here. Morton Marcus: Okay, and I need you stronger than that. Mariposa: Stronger than that? Okay. No problem.

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Morton Marcus: Oh, there you go. There you go. Women speak up. Mariposa: Women speak up. Morton Marcus: Tell us something about In Celebration of the

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Muse. First, actually, tell us about Women's Care. What is Women's Care? Mariposa: Well, it's Women C.A.R.E., and it stands-, the C.A.R.E. is an acronym for Cancer Advocacy, Resources and

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Education. And were women caring for other women with cancer. We started in this month, March of 1992 in response to a look at the community that had an unfilled need for women with cancer. We had a wonderful project with the Santa Cruz AIDS

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project, but there wasn't anything comparable for women with cancer. And we also were started in response to a dying woman's wish that she didn't have to go to the Bay Area to get the kind of support and education and resources that she

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should have in this community. Morton Marcus: That's marvelous. And how long did you say you are in operation? Mariposa: Since March of '92, so we're just celebrating our three

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years right now. Morton Marcus: Now, have you been involved with In Mariposa: I have the last three years, as it's been a benefit for Women C.A.R.E. directly. I've been- I've gone to see the

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Celebration of the Muse before? Muse many- because I've been in this community a long time. But it was decided about three years ago to have it be a benefit for Women C.A.R.E. and because of personal reasons, they've

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decided to keep it as a benefit for Women C.A.R.E. In the past, they've done benefits for other organizations but it was decided that Women C.A.R.E. really needed the help right now and the exposure and that we wanted to support other women in their

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creative process, so it was- seemed like a good organization to support. Morton Marcus: That's great. Let me ask you something. If there are women out there who suspect they have cancer, or have

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cancer, and really would like to get in touch with Women C.A.R.E. where would we get in touch? What's your number? Mariposa: Our phone number is area code (408) 8457-CARE, care, which is 2273. We're located at 617B Water Street in Santa Cruz.

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We have various hours, you know, kind of drop-in, because we're a volunteer organization, so it's best to call and make arrangements but if you call, we'll return your call and try to connect you with a person, another woman with the same kind

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of cancer if possible. We have legal advocates. We have support groups, we have yoga classes. We offer alternative cancer strategy planning, we- when possible, and we're looking for more volunteers, try to do some home health work with women,

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help them get their lives together. Morton Marcus: Right. Could you give me that telephone number one more time for the people on the air but also for me, and I'll announce it later on.

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Mariposa: Sure. It's 408-457-CARE Morton Marcus: Okay, terrific. Well, what are we going to do tonight, Mariposa? What do you have on the agenda here? Mariposa: Well, I was just going to tell you a little bit more

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about Women C.A.R.E. and then I'm going to turn it over to the three women that are here that are going to be reading this Friday night. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what our current services are at this point. As I mentioned, we have

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support groups and those vary depending on the need in the community. And we hope in the future to be adding more support groups as we're finding the need also of parents who have chi dren with cancer or children hose parents have cancer that ne

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d to talk. Grieving groups, su port groups for men in the comm nity who are partners with the omen that have cancer. e're offering, perhaps, some quit smoking programs sing acupuncture and herb and hypnotherapy. We're curr

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ntly doing a Latina Outreach pr ject to assess the needs o the Latina community in Santa ruz. We're expanding our egal advocacy program. Right n w we have a wonderful pan l of volunteer lawyers who'v put together a legal advoca

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y to help with simple will and durable power of attorne and they're all volunteering heir services. We're hoping to f cus, as has always been our intention, on women who ar not part of the mainstream so iety in terms of access to me

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ical care, which includes, you now, monolingual women, low i come women, lesbians, and so e're trying to focus our progra s on that. I facilitate a su port group for lesbians with ca cer. I'm a cancer survivor my elf. And our next meeting is

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this Thursday, March 9th at even o'clock at the Women C.A R.E. office and they can cal for more information. So, we just want to encourage everyo e to come out to the Muse on F iday night. We're going to hav the information booth there,

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e're going to have a raffle. Yo can buy tickets in advance o you can buy tickets that n ght. We'll be having food ther and just wonderful women rea ing, mostly local women who've been reading, I think, was it f fteen years that the Muse ha

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been going on? So, I'm very e cited to have three women here t night that are helping donate their time and talents to help Women C. Morton Marcus: Hmm, well, thank you very much, Mariposa. We

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should say that this is really presented by Patrice Vecchione, marvelous poet, and Amber Coverdale Sumrall. This has been their baby for a long time, and they certainly deserve a lot of credit for it. Some of the names, it's a huge list

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actually, all the way from Katherine Albert, Shirley Anchetta, Ellen Bass, Barbara Bloom, Claire Braz-Valentine, and Anna Chou, Lauren Crux(?). Yeah, Lauren Crux, both of them. Jeanne Wakatsuki-Houston, I knew that one because Jeanne is a

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good friend of mine. Maude Meehan, Ekua Omosupe, got that one, she's a colleague of mine. Bobby Padilla, Sarah Rabkin, Elba Sanchez, Bonnie Schell, Ardena Shankar is here with us tonight. Bettiane Shoney Sien, got it right. Roz Spafford,

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Claudia Sternbach, Louise Thornton, and Joan Zimmerman, who is also here tonight. And the other ladies, here tonight is of course, Bonnie Schell. So, thank you so much for the introduction and we're going to talk to these poets and ask what

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they think about this event. Now, what we need is, who i going to go first? Okay, now le me get you up here. And this is I'm trying to find all of thes numbers here. Yes.

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Oh, we better abandon that one. And only use that one, that is very strange, back sounds, I don't know what that is. Okay. Joan Zimmerman: How is this one? Morton Marcus: This is this is better, you're gonna have to

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speak very loud because it doesn't have- Joan Zimmerman: It doesn't have amplification. Morton Marcus: You do now, I'll tell you, you just hit the moon. On our microphone is a very old friend of mine, a marvelous

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poet, a person who you've heard on the show, actually, not only as a guest, but as a host. And that is Joan Zimmerman. Joan, welcome. Joan Zimmerman: Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here.

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Morton Marcus: Well, it's good to see you again. Tell us about your feelings about appearing with The Muse? Joan Zimmerman: It is just so exciting, I can't believe it. I think what- I mean clearly what Patrice and Amber are doing is

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totally unique and absolutely wonderful, I think their contribution to the whole community, especially women in the community, but I think the whole poetry writing community, is outstanding. I just don't have the words to express my

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appreciation for what they do. Morton Marcus: I agree. And the only thing that I'm sorry about is their names are not on this list to read. Joan Zimmerman: I know and I think that reflects their

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incredible generosity that they are- because it is such a treat to be able to read with such a group of women, and letting the rest of us have that chance to read, so- Morton Marcus: Yeah, this is a marvelous, diverse group of

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people and it really represents all aspects of the literary as well as the cultural scene, and that's grat. Joan Zimmerman: Plus, Mort, the place we're going to read at is a place I have always thought it would be a total trip to read

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out, its Palookaville. Morton Marcus: Right. Joan Zimmerman: And that name, I love that name. Morton Marcus: Have you been inside?

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Joan Zimmerman: I've been inside. I've been inside both for these shows, and also they do a wonderful lunchtime deal where they've got all these different ethnic foods in there. Morton Marcus: That's what I heard. I've been missing that

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one. Because that's the old tent that was right down the street actually. It's a marvelous idea and the fellow who set it up had great foresight and vision and it's become a real cultural mainstay to go along with Kuumbwa. And it's just one or

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two other places that really has great music, young people there all the time and they respect the place, they respect what Phil is trying to do it. It's great now that In Celebration of the Muse is there. Maybe this will start a trend for poetry.

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Joan, I am looking forward to some new poems. Joan Zimmerman: Well, I read some new poems. In fact, I read one that's hot off the press, but I must start with my favorite. In fact, my only radio poem and I wrote this because

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the fruit, you probably don't remember, in fact, you probably never were scared about being on the radio. But the first time I had to be on the radio, I was totally terrified and so I was telling different people at the station, anyone I could find

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just- I was terrified. What shall I do? And I ran into Johnny Simmons, who everybody will know through the Morning News programs. And Johnny said what you'll hear in this poem, which I'm sure you realize sounds like him, and I just felt

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so appreciative of him that I had to write this poem. The other thing I need to say about the poem is, there's something in it that refers to physics and which is, one thing that people know probably is that stars are moving away from us, the

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universe is expanding, and as the stars move away, they kind of elongate the light, they pull the light out so the reds shift, the stars appear red. But the other thing which people may not know is that there's a remnant sound that's left in the

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universe from the Big Bang, and it's a really faint hum, okay? So the title of the poem is: WHY SPACE HUMS, for Johnny Simmons. Far and deep, where the light lengthens, like your hand opens.

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Space is an unexpected hum. A dusky purr that fills the curved galaxies, vibrates in the blackness amongst them. Scientists puzzle over this, but you understand. "It's only radio," you tell me. "Everything you say heads for Mars, keeps on

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going." How easy life is when my mistakes no longer sulk and drool in closets, but steer away from me, from everyone that knows me, merge with everyone else's errors as they fly, recede, hum gently together.

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Morton Marcus: Marvelous, great way to start. But let me tell you that I was as terrified as you were when I got on here. Joan Zimmerman: Hard to believe. Morton Marcus: And Johnny, well, don't let my testosterone, I

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think it's called, fool you. My first guest was my buddy Al Young and I could not keep him from stopping, because he had been a DJ, from laughing at the errors that were going on in this board and potting him down. No one could hear him for five

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minutes and it was- it was just impossible. He could tell every mistake I was making, you know? So, no, it's quite an experience. Joan Zimmerman: Well, I had a much better experience than you

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did on my first show, Linda Fox, who also has been a guest and a host on this show, was my partner in crime, and I think if it wasn't for Linda, I wouldn't have got through that first night.

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Morton Marcus: Had she done it before? Joan Zimmerman: She hadn't done it before. We were both, we were trying it for the first time, so thanks, Linda. Morton Marcus: Thank you, Linda. Okay, that's a marvelous poem.

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Joan Zimmerman: Well, he- Morton Marcus: And I haven't heard that before. Joan Zimmerman: Well, I'm glad it was new for you then. Yeah. Morton Marcus: That was really cool. Have you published that

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new one yet? Joan Zimmerman: That was published in the Porter Gulch Review a while ago, so yeah. Morton Marcus: I should have seen that.

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Joan Zimmerman: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Good. Joan Zimmerman: Okay. The second poem I'll read is one that that really is new. It was just written yesterday. And normally,

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I wouldn't dare read a poem on the radio that was this new but I wanted to do it in part in acknowledgment of a workshop that I was at this weekend. It was led by Galway Kinnell and so it was down in Carmel and he is- we're blessed with a lot of fine

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teachers in this area. I sit here with your colleague, Joe Stroud, I've studied with Joseph McNeilly and Ellen Bass and they've all been wonderful teachers to me. And Galway encourages writers, I feel, in a way that is very unique and very

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positive. And at the same time he's willing to tell you, just like most good teachers are, of problems in your poetry. So I wrote this poem, and in part I wrote it because even though I don't perceive myself as a Christian, I like the Christian

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rituals. And so I participate in Lent, and I give something up, and the thing I give up is chocolate, which is the thing I love most. So I was thinking about Lent and I was also thinking about the other meaning of "lent," like if something is

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lent to you, like we only have our bodies for for a short time. And anyway, the words get lent to us, the poems get lent to us, so there were those two things that came into it. So I'll read it and I hope people will be kind in realizing that this just

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counts as the first draft of the poem. And it begins with a quote from a woman, Joyce McCready, who was in the workshop. And so often happens in the workshop, some of the things that people will just say in conversations are even more wonderful than the

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fabulous poems that they're presenting. And so I'll read the epigram as part of the poem. And the poem is in five parts and so I'll read with the numbers in a different length pause. LENT

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"But the water will still flow no matter what." Joyce McCready ONE Come my consolation, remind me how it is. TWO

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While I work on cement, the Tibetans still walk around the mountain at the center of the world, decorate the high desert with yellow and blue prayer flags, slender, white prayer scarves. What little and precious they have, they

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discard. Black and gold brocade hats, jackets, needles and pins, locks of their thick black hair. A crown, a mother, and a maiden, bow sunwise around the high flagpole. Its word rare in this treeless-desert as the Great Blue stones at Stonehenge. These

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women kneel down in dust, fling their chests forward, touch their foreheads to the pale earth. They scribe a mark as far forward as their arms can reach, stand, step to the mark, they begin before sunrise, they continue in moonlight. It is

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February. It is May. It is November. Snow falls, snow is gone, snow falls. The teacher explains- THREE The teacher explains they will each write down the things they

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most love, can least give up for six weeks. The children write, toss their prayers in a box. Now we promise, says the teacher, to help each other keep our promises no matter what. Each child picks a paper from the box and groans, calls out their

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loss: candy, computer games, ice cream, television, the mall. FOUR Time and again, she says she loves to write. She enters the well, the spell, the river, the chariot, the ship. She enters it

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and she is gone. She returns with a traveler's tale without a name. The sailor is a sailor even when he is lost at sea, or shipwrecked off Newfoundland, or shipless in high Tibet. The writer is still a writer, even if she is lost in the telling,

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or stuck in memory or passion, or wordless to tell any of it. FIVE This winter, this Saturday, this noon, this breath, this body, this arm, this fingerprint, this dust.

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So, that's Lent. Morton Marcus: Great first draft. Is it the first or second or third draft? Joan Zimmerman: Well, we had an hour and a half to write the

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poem. And so what I did was I wrote it out and then made some corrections and then rewrote it so that it was legible. So I'm not sure. I mean, technically, maybe it ends up being a third draft, but it's like the first writing of it. I know some

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people say, you know, I revise the poem a hundred times, right? And so if you were counting, then maybe you'd- you would say, well, it's been revised three times, but it is first draft as far as I'm concerned.

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Morton Marcus: Okay, I got you. That's marvelous stuff, read us some more. Joan Zimmerman: Okay. Morton Marcus: In fact, you might want to tell some people

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out there- going to start with this, but I know you so well I didn't think of asking- what do you hope to accomplish in your writing? Joan Zimmerman: Well, what I hope to accomplish changes as

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probably it does for most writers. Most recently, Mort, what I hope to accomplish is- last year, I took a trip to Nepal and Tibet, which was referenced in the poem. And so those references were two things that I had seen or done myself.

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And when I came back, or during the course of the trip, actually, I was talking to people on the trip that were writers and were photographers and I realized that some of the skills that I've been working on in prose writing and in poetry

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writing, I could apply to writing about travel. And I was so pleased and delighted with the experience of traveling that I wanted to write it and to write it as an article. So, when I came back, I started taking classes on travel writing and

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reading books and getting information about how you submit articles to newspapers. So, I've completed the first article a couple of months after I came back and I started sending it out to newspapers and got a bunch of rejection slips. But

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also I got an acceptance from a newspaper in Worcester, and acceptance from one in Tucson, and maybe from a newspaper in Anchorage. So I'm just feeling like I've got such great opportunities to use the writing in different ways.

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Morton Marcus: Gives you great excuse to start traveling again. Joan Zimmerman: Yeah, right! Morton Marcus: I think it is a very honorary profession and you will be surprised at the great writers of the world, especially

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in the last several hundred years, who have been travel writers. Stendhal comes to my mind, I mean, people don't associate him with that, but he was a great travel writer. Durrell, you know, is a great travel writer. It's really is a

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marvelous talent to evoke foreign places and to perceptively see into another culture. Joan Zimmerman: Right. And I think it's very helpful because sometimes I find that what I want when I'm trying to write a

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poem, it won't go and I'm not skillful enough, I don't know how to get what I want to say into a poem. But I can write it in prose. And- and sometimes that's sufficient. It's time to move on to the next thing rather than trying to force something

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that doesn't readily go into a poem. So it's also very satisfying from the point of view of being able to capture a moment or a feeling or a person that I met and pay some respect to them by saying, they were here, this is who they were,

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this is what- what they did. And saving that, in a sense, so it doesn't only go out to the stars, but also we have it here. Morton Marcus: Do you know what I've been doing for the last two years?

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Joan Zimmerman: What? Morton Marcus: I've been writing prose poems. Joan Zimmerman: I keep hoping that you will do a reading on a night when I'm not already scheduled.

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Morton Marcus: The only reason I mentioned this is that, try this new approach, the difficulty you had, if it's freed in writing articles, it may be totally freed in writing away from the line, I called it breaking with the tyranny of line. And it has

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just totally freed me. Joan Zimmerman: Yeah. Morton Marcus: And it has just been marvelous. Joan Zimmerman: Right.

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Morton Marcus: I don't know if my writing is any good. I have a lot of people who are accepting this stuff, there's all these magazines, but it's just a joy. And it sounds like you're having that same kind of joy with travel writing. Try it!

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Joan Zimmerman: Right. Morton Marcus: I'd be surprised- Actually, I have tried to do it in a few places. I think after I heard that you were trying prose writing. I thought, yeah, well,

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if it works for Mort, I'm sure- Anyone could do it! Joan Zimmerman: I could benefit from it too. Morton Marcus: Anyway, let's hear from another poem or two?

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Joan Zimmerman: Time for one more? Morton Marcus: Maybe two. Joan Zimmerman: Okay. The next poem is continuing this saga with Goldilocks and The Three Bears. It was my favorite fairy

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story when I was a little kid. And I never knew why and so the only way to find it out was to keep writing about it and argue about it and be unsuccessful with a poem and try a different one, right? Finally, I was reading Bruno Bettelheim, who

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was a wonderful writer about the use of fairy tales in the psychology of children. And in his discussion of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, he says the big thing that the Three Bears give to Goldilocks is, they give her the question. And the question

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is, "Am I you?" Right? And so effectively, Goldilocks is saying to each of the three bears, "Am I you?" And so once I had the question, I could start to work on the answers. Okay? So if that's the question, then these might be some of the

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answers. So the poem is- has a very pretentious title, it's called, "Goldilocks Figures It Out." GOLDILOCKS FIGURES IT OUT This is not my porridge. This hot bowl of wheat and oats burns

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my tongue, my lips, makes it impossible for me to speak. This is not my porridge. And this is not my porridge. It is too cold. It is a discussion of draperies for a sick room. It is a confusion of prescription drugs with God. This is my porridge.

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It is not too hot, it is not too cold. It is just right. It enters me as smooth as blancmange and cheesecake, as soft as a cure for ulcers and anxiety, as easy as air. I look at it and it is gone. I devour it before I know it. Before I

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say hello, it says goodbye. It dances away from me over the tables and I have lost it. I want more and there is none. This is not my chair, this high chair, this unquestioned chair of old oak wood, straight back to the church pew as an

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inquisitor. This is one of the instruments they showed the Maid of Orleans so that she recounted. And this is not my chair. It is too soft in floral pink and yellow upholstery over a flock of feathers. I sink into it as if into three quarts of

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whiskey and no one to answer to till Monday. This is my chair. It is not too hard, it is not too soft. I sit in it, I sit in it. Kaplop! I wear it out with my sitting still. I break it apart with my stillness. What carried me has become splinters

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that cut my skin. This is not my bed. This bed with a high head full of maps and calculations, busy all night with the calculus of promotions and the Wall Street reports. And this is not my bed, this bed with the high feet where one can climb like a

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debutante, like a railway Baron, like someone that is not Italian but goes every night to the opera, flips from group to group of tuxedos and gossip in the intermissions. This is my bed. It is not too high, it is not too low. The dreams come and my

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father kills me and my mother. I am lost again in the mountains. I do not [cut-off]. Morton Marcus: Good evening. Once again, this is the Poetry Unknown: [Music]

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Show and as I was saying before, tonight we are talking with three of the poets who will appear in the Celebration of the Muse reading, which is in its 15th year, we think, the oldes reading in Santa Cruz, and it s a reading of women by women

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And it celebrates not only wome themselves but Women's Histor Month, which is this month, th month of March. And it will b held in a new location which i Palookaville, the wonderfu music spot at 1133 Pacifi Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz

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this Friday, March 10th a 7:30pm. There are twenty poet on this list and we are talkin to three of them. We just talke with Joan Zimmerman. And now w are going to talk with Bonni Schell. Welcome to the show Bonnie

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Bonnie Schell: Thank you, Mort. Glad to be here. Morton Marcus: Yes, yes, that's what we need. That's it. So we've got very poor mics here f r the people out on the air a d-

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Bonnie Schell: Send in your contributions. Morton Marcus: Bonnie, how long have you been writing? Bonnie Schell: Since I was 15. In college, I mostly wrote plays and wrote fiction until I moved to Santa Cruz in '87. And then I

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took a class from Roz Spafford, which actually was a prose class, but she pointed out to me that I was really writing poetry. So I switched. Morton Marcus: That's quite a compliment!

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Bonnie Schell: I switched pretty fast and and joined the union, and I've been working in a writers group, and Joan's in the same group and some other good people. Morton Marcus: That's marvelous. Um, what do you hope to

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accomplish in your writing? Bonnie Schell: Most of my writing in the last two years has been focused on women's voices that normally are not heard, particularly women who are in the mental health system

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or who are locked away and have stories to tell and which they don't- And I try and sort of capture the cadence and the consciousness that develops out of being in a locked situation. Morton Marcus: What do you think of the Celebration of The Muse?

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What do you think of it as an event? Bonnie Schell: I've never been in it before. I'm very excited. I have this image of this massive Greek chorus speaking to some tragedy of our time, which cancer certainly is, especially

00:32:42.820 - 00:32:54.300

in the Bay Area for some unknown reason. Morton Marcus: But have you attended the Celebration of The Museas as a, as a- Bonnie Schell: As a viewer.

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Morton Marcus: As a member in the audience, yeah. Well, that- that does get- Bonnie Schell: And two years I stood on the sidewalk and couldn't get in. Does that count?

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, well, okay. Bonnie Schell: It's a very popular [inaudible]. Morton Marcus: Joan says it's alright, Dina says it's alright, I'll count it! Let's hear some of your poetry, Bonnie.

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Bonnie Schell: Okay, the first two pieces are actually about my daughters. The first one is about my daughter when she was eight. She's now 22. And it's called BONDING.

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The child gets to me, comes to my room dressed, begging to inquire when I'm rising and shining. She braids her own hair with a crooked part. She stays up late, naps all day on books and crayons. She wears the same dress every day without

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wrinkles. She doctors sick animals while nursing my anger. She lines up her shoes wearing socks outside the house. Her books are in order, her underwear arranged but unchanged. She plans for Halloween in August. She's

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designing to be a clown and juggle mother's feelings. She's unnerving and nagging like bitter cheesecake and my cold coffee. She's mine. Okay, and the next one is to my oldest daughter on her way to

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China when she was 23. I remember you always open-eyed, examining everything chin up, people, bugs, books. I remember you're mixing ketchup, salt, sugar in a cafe and dotting it over your bib. But at seventeen,

00:34:37.960 - 00:34:57.490

hating the mess on your apron at Farrell's Ice Cream. I remember dragging you to hide with me under the bed and not having an answer to what you should be frightened of when your eyes asked me that question. I remember deciding that you would

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never be afraid of anything, telling you, "Leave me, go outside, explore!" And now that it's time to say that again, I have little voice to say, "Go!" And be prepared for the world's excrement on your blouse. Go! and know that I would always

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wash it off for you, or if I were there, block its path. Okay, and the next piece I'd like to read was originally called, "Code," and now the first line of the poem is the title. Now, you need to know about this poem that the word

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I.M.D. stands for Institute of Mental Disease, which is a skilled nursing facility called a sniff, but you only need to know I.M.D. HER EXPERTISE IS TRACING GRAVE HISTORIES.

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A woman in an I.M.D. waits at the halls and for her FBI connection to call, it will be did-de-de-dipped, assorted numbers repeated in various orders from which someone somewhere when she delivers the code will proclaim the meaning.

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She cannot find her address book, yellow marker, the lifeline in her palm. The night orderlies leave at dawn with notes in Spanish about northern water rights while she hums taps to food stamp vendors and public guardians who lose the poor's

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bungled treasure. A woman in an I.M.D. calls up the anti-christ in Sacramento who sleeps pressed under heavy volumes of unrecorded deals between millionaires and mercenaries. The staff in the I.M.D. issues an order: confiscate yellow

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markers containing ether, highlighting words is forbidden outside the charts. A woman in an I.M.D. is scalded by a friend's blood on the ground. In the high weeds next to the hospital, he trades a knife for his MediCal card and a dollar.

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She runs streaking down the hall and back. A suicide washes up off the coast of Santa Cruz strangled by a Phi Beta Kappa chain. Boulders tied to his broken bare feet in a twisted grocery basket, his stomach is empty. Chronic complainers with

00:37:51.270 - 00:38:14.520

swollen tongues say strychnine is in the water, push away their meds. The nurses go for coffee to divvy up Ativan, PRN. The ward psychiatrists too has certified a woman in the I.M.D. gravely disabled, slips behind the FBI connection as if to take

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the phone away. Patients shuffle behind parted doors to wait. They exhale. He thrusts his pink hand in the receivers curve, begs the woman to touch his palm, tell his fortune and how much longer he has. And the woman in the I.M.D. clears her

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tongue of ready spit, strokes his wish, then lies. Okay, this is a little short one called DOILIES. Doilies were in demand when the Earl took tea. They were proper to keep rings off his tables. Open spaces the master doily

00:39:06.810 - 00:39:26.070

abhorred. He craved complication. So I framed these thread-mazes, marvel at patients of museum quality that experimented with geometric encreasing. I sew medallions on y blouse, starch them for a sp ay-painted tree to sparkle pl

00:39:26.070 - 00:39:45.840

nty for holidays because I ne d the history. Marproof are my tables. The foppish Earl, if nterviewed on Late Night alkies along with amusing dog t ainers and sex therapist, w uld think genuine conversation o solete.

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Morton Marcus: This Friday, March 10th, at 7:30pm. And Joan Zimmerman has just reminded me, the exact same time, on the exact same night two weeks in a row that such a [inaudible] is happening. One of the very, very rare times you will be able to

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hear Joe Stroud. [inaudible] That's right, Joe Stroud, who is one of the three hosts of the Poetry Show, will read his poetry on March 10th, at 7:30pm at the Thunderbird Bookstore in the Barnyard, Carmel. A marvelous poet, some marvelous

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new poems. He reads very, very rarely, alas, he is reading the same night as the Celebration of The Muse up here. So please keep that in mind, I will have to [inaudible] One of those things. Our next guest is Ardena Shankar. Ardena, welcome to the

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Poetry Show. [inaudible] Ardena Shankar: Well, I'm happy to be here and be part of the Muse again this year. Morton Marcus: [Inaudible] Yes indeed. Hello there, world.

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Thank you very much. What do you hope to accomplish in your poetry, Ardena? Ardena Shankar: I hope to bring some pictures to share with the world of people that I know or things I've experienced, and try

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to share a perspective that's meaningful to me as an African-American Cherokee person. I have a perspective that I'd like to share. Morton Marcus: Did you say African-American Cherokee?

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Ardena Shankar: Uh huh, so I have lots of stories. Ardena Shankar: From long ago even so, tonight, I have som Morton Marcus: Lots of stories. thing new. It's a- I'm oing a collection of things now

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alled, "Family Portraits," a d this one's about my grand Morton Marcus: And before you start reading, I've got to tell you your voice is lovely- Ardena Shankar: But it needs to be louder.

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Morton Marcus: Needs to be louder on the microphone. I've got you potted all the way up here. Ardena Shankar: Hello World. Morton Marcus: The microphone just isn't-

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Ardena Shankar: Okay. We'll try to- we really do need those pledges and subscriptions. Hello. Morton Marcus: Yes, thank you, Ardena. Ardena Shankar: Hello community, we need microphones, among other

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things. Anyway, it's kind of long so I want to jump into it, I guess. Shall I begin? Morton Marcus: Sure. Ardena Shankar: Okay, this is called GRANDPA SAM, and it's

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real fresh. He was black. This is black as you please. He was walleyed. One eye stared, piercing through your soul, the other eye rolled, searching for the unexpected, the unrevealed. As a boy he had

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suffered the ridicules reserved for the crippled, the deformed. But those who indulged in such heartless sport soon paid for the mistake of believing that physical limitations meant intelligence was also limited. He would say nothing but kept

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mental records of those who would demean him. He measured revenge and savored its bittersweetness sooner or later. My Grandpa Sam was a man who was angry every day of his life, and his anger grew as he grew older. He could not be less than a man

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in this world. He fought a lot. He grew strong in this bitterness. He could work as hard as any man. The big man-boss knew just how to handle the big black boy-man, treat him like any other man and pay him fair, the big man-boss said. He

00:44:20.710 - 00:44:43.690

fought a lot, my Grandpa Sam, he was proud. He'd walk into a bar and kick some man in the butt to clear a place for himself. He was mean. He stole my Cherokee grandma and ran off to the next county and married her. My grandma told me her Indian Mama

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was not happy with the arrangement. My grandma became an outcast in her family after that. My grandma had eight children for him, three boys: my Uncle Frank, my Uncle Chester, and my Uncle Benjamin; and four girls, my Aunt Elizabeth, the

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oldest, my Aunt Hattie, and my mama Ginny, and my Aunt Betty-Jean, the youngest. He had two outside children by his lover, Miss Dorothy Brown, nine grandchildren by my Grandma Lottie. My Aunt Hattie told me that Grandpa Sam often came home

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drunk late at night. He would often beat my grandmother. He threatened his children, "I'll kill you all," he roared into the night. He'd run the family off into the woods and sat on the porch all night with a shotgun in his lap till he fell

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asleep. And the boys, my uncles, came back at daybreak in the morning, grandpa be passed out. The boys would gently slide the shotgun from his arms. They'd all go back to life as usual till the next time. Once he came home in a snowstorm, and try to

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bring the farm horse into the house, once he nailed all the windows shut, set the house on fire. Somehow he kept a good job until he ruined some expensive farm equipment. His big man-boss brought the first steamroller to the county and who would be

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driving it but my Grandpa Sam. Grandpa Sam was skillful and smart. Mister big man-boss knew that he could do it. Sam was his head man and he knew he could do nothing to stop him. Sam was persuasive when he wanted something. The people lined the

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street white and black, Sam drove the steamroller from the train station to the big man-boss' place. Boys, black boys and white boys and dogs and young men black and white, ran along beside the big yellow thing driven by the black man.

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Sam was proud. "Well done, boss," said one of the white foreman, he yelled out to the big boss-man who rode behind in his Hudson automobile. "Fine piece of equipment you got there, sir, too bad you got a monkey driving it." Grandpa Sam

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was a good driver. He drove trucks and he drove horses. He didn't take insults from nobody. He jumped from the ceiling machine and grabbed the man and threw him to the ground. The big black man Sam, and the white man, Matt McBride, fought in the

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street, over the insult and when it was done, the big, beautiful thing crashed into Raymond's Barber Shop. That's the white barber shop. And grandpa was fired, started working for himself as a day-laborer. Grandma Lottie still worked for

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Captain Hastings as his housekeeper and Grandpa Sam drank more and more. One day Grandpa Sam was out on the run with his bow-legged cousin, Pot Hook George, and had a stroke right there in his Ford. Cousin George pulled the emergency

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brake and saved them both. Grandpa Sam couldn't talk much after the stroke. He could only say, "Lottie, Lottie, Lottie" when he was in pain, and "Come to me, come to me, come to me" when he wanted something, and "Damn you, damn you, damn you"

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when he was angry. He died when he was seventy-five. Grandma Lottie died soon after leaving proud daughters and sons and grandchildren. I love them both. Morton Marcus: Marvelous piece. I hope you have some more.

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Ardena Shankar: No, that's it. You can talk now, Mort. Morton Marcus: Absolutely vivid, wonderful anecdotal material and beautifully written. Wow. Vivid. Just great. Ardena Shankar: Thank you.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, it follows the program before this and I just think it gives all of our stories a run for their money. Ardena Shankar: Thank you. Morton Marcus: How many have you done of the, "Family Portraits?"

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Ardena Shankar: Well, I just finished, well, I'm not exactly finished, on one about my Aunt Hattie. I should have been able to bring her tonight but there's a little more work I wanted to do on her. And she was an exceptional person in that she

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bequeathed me a good sense of humor. And she was the person that was very special in her own way. And she could literally have us sliding out of our chairs and lying on the floor, literally holding our stomachs like you'd hear in a story or

00:50:02.030 - 00:50:13.400

seeing a cartoon or something. I mean, she was just a wonderful humorist, and I got a lot from her. Morton Marcus: Now, you obviously remember your grandpa. Ardena Shankar: Oh, yes.

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Morton Marcus: And- but you obviously had to have a lot of these stories told to you by other relatives? Ardena Shankar: Yes, absolutely. Morton Marcus: And have you been researching them, or you just

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remember them because everyone's always talked about Grandpa Sam? Ardena Shankar: Well, there's some stories that are, you know, the family stories that circulate, the story about the horse coming in, him bringing the horse in. And this horrible

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story about him actually nailing the windows shut of the house, and sitting on the porch after he's run the family into the woods with a shotgun. All of these stories are true stories that were told to me. And so, I, when I visit my family back

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East, I always talk with my oldest relative, who's- surviving relative, who's now is the cousin of mine because we've recently lost a lot of family members. But I tried to create an image and a picture of an African-American family that's

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very real because so many caricatures and stereotypes prevail. So, I also use my work to comment on things that happen in the world. And I think what's really good about the whole thing for me is that I feel strong enough as a person to be

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responsible for my thoughts. And so, I feel if you write a poem or story, you're certainly stuck with it. And you're going to have to stand up for it or live it down or whatever, but it's an exciting thing to do.

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Morton Marcus: I love to do since, Joan knows, one of my books is recalling my whole family and a different case but very American in the same way, living in Russia and then coming over here and just trying to find out who they were. Most of

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them did not do that, but my grandfather sounds very much like Grandpa Sam, they would have met in the street maybe and one of them would not have left. Ardena Shankar: Oh, they may have worked it out!

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Morton Marcus: I would hope so. I would hope so. What is the Celebration of the Muse mean to you as a reading? I take it you've been to them before. This is the third time you've appeared in them, isn't it?

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Ardena Shankar: No, I did my first Muse about eleven years ago. Morton Marcus: Oh, so it's been all- Ardena Shankar: About '84 and I think they stopped for a while

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or there was some interruption. And then, for the last few years, I've been proud to be part of it again and it is a very exciting evening. It's true that people stand on the outside trying to come in. I think that's wonderful. It says a lot

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about the interest of writing and poetry here in Santa Cruz County. Morton Marcus: Serves us that it's worthwhile poetry. Well, it doesn't happen all the time.

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Ardena Shankar: No, but there's a lot out there. But the fact that people would want to line up and get in and sit on the floor and hang through the windows, they're searching for a good poem here and there.

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Morton Marcus: Oh, yeah. I think poetry is really a necessity and maybe in these some Grinch or Gingrinch, what is it we call it? Ardena Shankar: [Crosstalk

00:53:17.510 - 00:53:32.240

Once I had a- I was wondering, I was having a dry spell with my work and I was wondering, you know, what is the point of this, you know? And I was in the library one day and I was just feeling really downcast. Oh, what is the point of it? What

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does the world need to have one more jot or one more tittle, I though, with so many stacks of books, but I really feel that it's a good thing to have poets who are willing to comment on things about life and things that are happening around us,

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that's what we need our poets for. Morton Marcus: Now I think that, knowing myself, obviously we all have to question that once in a while, but it is amazing. I know that I and many people think the poets, Joan's heard me say this,

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that the poems go out into the void. The stories go out into the void. You never hear anything about them, but don't be fooled. I've saved someone's life at three o'clock in the morning. It is shocking when I suddenly get a phone call from

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someone from Boston in the middle of the night or something like that, said, "I've hunted you down because you saved my life last night, just because I read this in an anthology." I said, What!?!" And I know so many people have gone through

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that experience. It's important. Ardena Shankar: People come up and said, "You read this poem, and you know, I have to stand and have to have them to help me track it." "Which poem was it? When did I read it?" But it is

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the kind of feedback that we do get, and it is very soothing for my soul, to know that someone really heard what I was trying to say and that it really helped. I did actually write a little piece about that wondering about if the world

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needed one more jot or tittle from a poet. What difference does it make? But then I thought if there was a jot or tittle or word that comforted someone or encouraged someone or gave someone pause to think about something, well, of course,

00:55:04.250 - 00:55:15.770

we're doing our job. Morton Marcus: Dylan Thomas, very drunk one night, and it's on record, he was asked, he was kidding around with this woman so actually, it's apropos, it was one of these women's poetry

00:55:15.770 - 00:55:30.680

groups, you know, where everyone had three names. And he was just making fun of all the questions he was being asked and one of the women just suddenly asked him, "Why do you write poetry?" And there was this dead silence from the stage and you can even

00:55:30.680 - 00:55:46.730

hear it on the record and totally sober now. No longer drunk. He said, "To show others that they are not alone." And I mean, it's such a switch in tone. Ardena Shankar: Mhm.

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Morton Marcus: That it just, you know, yeah, that's it. You know that's the reason we all do it. Well, we have just about reached our end. Thank you so much, Bonnie Schell, Joan Zimmerman, and Ardena. It is Ardena Shankar. It is marvelous to hear

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your work. You people out there, you've just gotten a taste of three of the poets who will read other things, I'm sure and I got a suspicion though, that we're going to hear about Grandpa Sam Ardena Shankar: I think he'll be there.

00:56:17.090 - 00:56:35.950

in that reading. Morton Marcus: And this is three people of the twenty readers that make up this year in Celebration of the Muse, which will be Friday, March 10th at 7:30pm at Palookaville, 1133

00:56:35.950 - 00:56:49.390

Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, and it's that street right down from, well, you can see the old Bank of America building and it's right near the Del Mar, just ask someone to show you where it is. But what you may not have gotten in the air since

00:56:49.390 - 00:57:06.970

I was not potted up, is alas, at the same time, our co-host Joe Stroud, will be reading his poetry, a very rare reading at the Thunderbird Bookstore in the Barnyard at the very same time, starting at 7:30, so you've got a hard choice to make because

00:57:06.970 - 00:57:21.970

Joe does not read that often and he is a marvelous poet. And some of the poems he's going to read, I know they're just absolutely breathtaking. My Lord, I wouldn't like to be able to make this decision. I'm going to be out of town, so I don't have to

00:57:21.970 - 00:57:37.180

make it. That's the only reason I'm going to go out of town. Anyway, this is Mort Marcus saying to all the people out there, thank you so much for listening in. Good luck Celebration of the Muse. Good luck, Joey, next week, and we

00:57:37.180 - 00:57:41.740

will go off with more women's music as we continue to celebrate Women's History Month.