Unequal Still

     ~ in memoriam Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012)

Since the beginning of time,
no matter what socio-political clime,
it has ever been man’s pleasure
to count women among his treasure.

Rendered thus into objects apart,
women, who continue to balance art
with work and home, still yearn
for rights men took but did not earn.

Modern mores tend to deceive
about equities the sexes receive;
women still bear brunt of labor,
and at home have little time to savor
any “accomplishment” of “equal rights;”
men still demand that women’s sights
remain unpaid at hearth and home,
when women might prefer to roam
beyond the care of men and babies,
beyond battered promises and maybes.

The few gals granted a turn at the helm
work for less than men who underwhelm,
while men control the gates and are better paid,
perhaps even smiling at small tokens made.

From this first great division of class
come all the others perceived en masse;
as long as the lie of “equality” makes so little noise,
we will mind and mine the gaps of social inequipoise.

©  2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Though times have changed, situations have not. While things may be better in the United States than in other countries, equality is something that is little more than a dream for women, people of any ethnic group that is not the dominant one in the region, for people of different faith traditions and people whose sexual orientation differs in anyway from heterosexuality. In the United States, women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, even if women perform the same job and outperform their male counterparts.

Two stories from my local newspaper attest to the challenges that still face women:

How women, girls are faring in education, jobs in state (CA)

IBM CEO is a woman; will she be able to wear the Masters Tournament Green Jacket?

If the double standard continues in the area of gender, how can we ever truly address the double standards elsewhere in the social spectrum?

The truth is clear = each individual is unique, but as a whole humanity, we are equal. Human thinking and acting needs to evolve in a way that this truth of our equality is apparent in every life.

Please feel free to comment. Discourse is the only avenue through which change is possible. Silence supports the status quo. 

This Business of Poetry, Part 8: What To Do In The Desert While You Await Inspiration

SO, here you are and the river is dry, now. You had tons of great material flow out onto the pages, and now there is nothing. Arrrgh! This is frustrating and unavoidable.

What does one do, in this situation? (You realize, of course, that this is the single most-asked question with regard to creative endeavor…) Well, I have a short, one-word answer that I can expand upon:

Live!

Ha, ha, cute joke, say you, what should we really do?

(sigh) So, I guess the expansion is required, and I had better supply one.

Even when you feel like nothing decent is extant in your brain, you should try to write something every day. Don’t kill yourself if you don’t like what you see. You might even pull out those poems that you haven’t been able to finish, for one reason or another, and rework those. If reworking gets irritating, stop and move on to other things, such as:

Hiking
reading
attending concerts
having coffee or tea with friends
housework
gardening
discuss current events with someone

One should fully engage in all the commonplace activities of life. This, after all, is the seed bed for all of life’s inspiring moments. Engaging in activities fully and wholeheartedly is about as inspired as it gets, as any zen practitioner would say.

I alluded to the word practice just now, and also in the last entry in this series. All of your writing is a practice, of sorts. Your creative energy and outpouring is all done in a specific medium, with a specific sort of way that you go about doing the activity, but this is an exercise of the mind, just as physical activity exercises the body, chants, prayers, songs or other devotions exercise the spirit. Each and everything that you do and experience, feel, see or hear is part of your existential databank. I cannot think of any better practice than expanding your horizons with ever more experiences.  Listening is a good part of such practice.

It is always good to take a break, to treat yourself to a change of scene. Any activity that feeds your senses is bound to open you to new channels of thought.

Music in the Margins

Lost in the margins
of my own story
and among the symbols
from your divine eye,
what shall become of me?

Seemingly between worlds,
by halves and sevens,
guided by feathers and stones,
sands from time’s shores
and infinite music,
this is where I breathe.

The music calls me,
beckoning me to hear,
then to follow the traces
of your flowing presence,
the song of my soul.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This Business of Poetry, Part 7: Flow, Wherein the words flow onto the page

There are times when words flow onto the page. There is no doubt about it; inspiration frequently comes as a storm, even a flash flood. I mean by that, of course, that such storms do not last, but pass through you.

Those rare occasions when you are primed and ready, when you have pen and paper or keyboard to hand and the words start flowing like a waterfall onto your page, such occasions are absolutely amazing! Often, what flows out onto the paper started as a tiny idea and ended up as a torrent of unexpected text.

I cannot explain how this happens—or why—but it does happen. This started happening to me when I was about 12 years old. I would be awakened in the middle of the night with words on my mind; I was unable to go back to sleep until I wrote down what was on my mind.

To this day, much of my writing comes from these late night nudges.

Do such nudges “come from somewhere”? That is a question I cannot answer. Unconscious, subconscious, dream-work, lucid dreaming—these are all terms that may have validity in such discussions about creative work, and you can explore these on your own. Wherever the words “come from,” what ever hits the page is real and valid.

Is there a “muse” or “guide” that is “helping” you with your work? Here again, I cannot answer such a question for you.

I do tend to feel as though there is a muse involved with my own creative process. Is that silly? Perhaps. However, I believe that there is a revelatory aspect to the creative process. There are times when I read through the material that has “flowed” onto the page and I think to myself, “wow!” The “wow” can mean “I didn’t expect that train of thought to go there,” or it can mean “I can’t believe I wrote that,” or it can even mean “gee, I need to look at that more closely and think about it in order to figure it out.” The work that flows is a gift that leads to more thought and more work. It can often be a “note to self” about your life.

Is there anything you can do to make creative flow happen? NO. Absolutely not. If nothing is happening, don’t beat your head against a wall; the time is not right and the ideas are not ripe. Better to go for a walk, or listen to music, or read.

Creative flow is a marvelous experience, but I don’t think that absolutely everything that comes from such experience is necessarily complete or good. The work can often take turns that you do not intend, and it is up to you as to whether you want to retain digressions or cut them from work you intend to complete. Digressions can be useful to retain for further development.

Creative flow does not replace editing, revising or reworking material. Yes, there are rare times when the flow hits the page and you feel like it is done. Though you can’t expect this to happen often, you can treasure it when it does.

I am a strong advocate of saving work process in the form of handwritten notebooks. I sometimes work directly into the computer, but not often.

Whether you have a “muse” or work by means of  “automatic writing” or not, the experience of flow with regard to your writing can be thrilling, the resulting work is a passionate example of what is most authentically you. Savor such times!! They do not come frequently.

Could more be said? Of course, but this is enough to get you thinking about it all, in relation to your own practice.

_________

Next time: What To Do In The Desert While You Await Inspiration

Il Pleut

Like a sanctification,

it rains, sending all inward
to the physical and psychic centers.

Veins of flowing water merge,
becoming tiny ribbons and rivulets,
streaming, flowing and cleansing,
outlining paths of reconciliation
we might take, once sun returns.

There is a world of hurt out there,
being bathed and healed in holy tears;
the birds are already rejoicing.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

What Nyx Told The Philosopher

AWAKE, mortal! By wild horses drawn in teams,

you have come here on the waves of your dreams;
you to me my daughters duly have conveyed
and will return thee after what I have said.

KNOW that what can be observed is and must be,
whether or not you can think it or see
it shining brightly in the glinting sun,
have felt it or some other experience done.

But know also that what you have not seen,
felt or heard is, being beyond your mean
and feeble awareness and thought,
apart from the observable and the taught,

Any such is just as true and as real
as that by which you set your seal;
Reality is not as small as your mind,
but large enough to fit all and every kind.

Even both reason and opinion cannot, alone,
conjecture truth so complete and prone
to be fully fathomed by the human eye,
but, alas, these are the tools you have to ply.

Nature, unaltered pool of Being, is One;
from it all things rise and fall, ever redone,
as need and season call, or wit and wile
contrive through vision, putting craft to trial.

What seems static moves slowly to your eye,
but nevertheless has life, and then will die
to be reborn in a different form, visible,
or even, wonder of wonders, wholly invisible.

As much as you crave a truth absolute,
justice is found when the pure of repute,
mitigate the starkly formulaic with art,
arriving at an equity whose best part

Satisfies all sides to a harmonious end,
beyond which none further shall contend,
for all affected, touched and involved
shall truly believe the matter resolved.

So vital art is to nature, I converse
with you in this clear yet simple verse,
that you may completely comprehend,
remember, then impart to all and any friend.

And now, Parmenides, my speech being done,
I return you to the arms of Day, having won
knowledge of nature so noble and rare
that you must carry it forward and share.

And then, Nyx turned aside, with a sigh
and a smile, soft and kindly, yet wry,
while the hapless Parmenides was flung
into the chariot by which he was brung,
whereupon the daughters of the moon
whipped her mares over the cloudy dune,
finally dropping their guest in his cot,
violently waking him to think on his lot
and on all that Nyx had spoken
by way of her unusual token.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Adventures in Paralysis

Paralysis:
inability to choose a lesser evil,
owing to there being none least;
find suitable work two hours away or
continue the local treadmill of austerity;
pay the universe to pursue art and beauty,
at the mirrored risks of overwork or idleness.

Politics:
a legal way to empty the pockets of the poor
into the pockets of those who need no more;
there is money for denial, for cheating, for robbing,
but none to uphold the dignity of life for those living;
leave no tree standing, no stone unturned,
toil and boil ‘til you spoil the water and the soil.

Plight:
the list is longer than the hours for doing,
but a divided self cannot think or walk or do;
the band plays on and on in my head,
so that I cannot achieve deep sleep;
when I do slumber, I dream there is no coffee,
yet whilst I am awake, I brew too much.

Pickle:
to convert an object hierarchy into a byte stream,
thereby serializing, marshalling or flattening, or to remain firm;
to pluck cucumbers from their vines and shove them in brine,
or to serve them as a lovely salad with tomatoes, greens and beans;
kosher dill or gherkin, bread and butter, sweet or onion,
to serve them warm or cold, in sandwich or clear libation?

Ping Pong,
Ding Dong,
Sing Song,
Fling, Flang--Flung!

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen