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Posted on by Dave Bonta

Woodrat Podcast 30: Giving Thanks

I pestered family and friends this Thanksgiving and Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day with a simple question: what are you thankful for? Responders included my Mom and Dad, my brother Steve, his daughter Elanor and his wife Pamela, who checked in with us on (American) Thanksgiving Day via a Skype video connection from Newfoundland; and my friends Natalie d’Arbeloff, Chris O’Brien, Deb Scott, Phil Coleman, and Beth Adams.

Several people have asked me what I’m thankful for — a fair question. Too many things to count, really, but first and foremost: all of you. Thanks for reading (or listening), thanks for the gift of your presence and for the inspiration of your own example as writers, artists, or citizens of the planet.

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Theme music: “This noise,” by Innvivo (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike licence)

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Thanksgiving porch

2007 (November 22)
Something approaches at a slow shuffle, gray in the gray light: porcupine. He threads the thistle patch, squeezes under the porch.

2008 (November 27)
That drum so low it sounds as if it’s in your head? A ruffed grouse, beating the air with its wings like one hand clapping. Or so they say.

2009 (November 26)
As if giving thanks, the thin, wavering call of a white-throated sparrow. The dawn sky half-cloud, half-clear. A distant owl.

2010 (November 25)
Steady rain, and the temperature just two degrees above freezing. In the herb bed, the pale blue wheel of a blossom on the invasive myrtle.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Postprandial

The feast: more than a meal, it’s flesh at its most opulent surrounded by a nimbus of starches and sweets, by anticipation and ceremony, by cacophony and prayer. If fast is a holding firm, feast is a letting go — but no less a ritual for that. Certain foods must be served in a set order. Belts must be loosened along with inhibitions. First the table must groan under the weight of the food, then the eaters must groan as they attempt to rise. The boundary between pleasure and pain must be breached — especially on a feast of thanksgiving. You can say grace before any meal, but Thanksgiving’s mandatory excess imparts a visceral understanding of the cost of consumption: something has to die that we may live.

Walking it off
through the night & fog
the dazzle of home

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Woodrat Podcast 29: Hannah Stephenson on blogging, fashion and poetry

Burden, by Samantha Hahn, and Hannah Stephenson portrait by Marcos Armstrong
'Burden' by Samantha Hahn, and Hannah Stephenson portrait by Marcos Armstrong

Hannah Stephenson has been blogging a new poem every weekday since July 2008, recently posting her 600th poem at The Storialist. She’s also active on Facebook and Twitter, records and uploads songs to SoundCloud, reads and comments widely on other blogs, and has just completed a full-length manuscript of poetry called Guided Tours, in addition to her work as a college writing instructor and freelance editorial consultant. Bascially, I wanted to know how the hell she does it. I also wanted to learn more about the connection between poetry and fashion photography, her original inspiration at The Storialist.

In the course of the conversation, I got her to read a few poems, too. Here are the links if you’d like to follow along:

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Thanks to Samantha Hahn (see larger version of “Burden”) and Marcos Armstrong for the images. Theme music: “Le grand sequoia,” by Innvivo (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike licence)

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Silly

On my kitchen counter, I had a jar of dark honey and a jar of light honey. The dark was wildflower, and the light, I believe, came from the beekeeper’s yard full of blueberries, or perhaps from some basswood trees on the mountain behind him. For unlike clover honey, which is also light but generic in taste, this honey was delicious — far superior to the wildflower. When it diminished to the point where my spoon couldn’t reach it, I heated and poured it into the smaller jar of dark honey. Earth, meet sky, I thought. But by the next morning, they had switched places: the light was on the bottom and the dark on top, with only a slight blurring where they met.

Without bees, how would we ever learn what flowers taste like? Without children, how would we remember the way the world looked before it grew tangled and thick? Yesterday, my five-year-old niece was flopping around on her back on the kitchen floor, trying to trip me as I plodded back and forth between stove and counter. Out of the blue, she said, “You know what, Uncle Dave? You’ll never get married to anybody because you’re too silly!” It almost made me laugh, but being a grownup, I was careful to keep my smile safely hidden behind my beard. Stepping high to avoid her, I carried a hot saucepan over to the sink, thinking of John Cleese’s most famous skit and the occasional, absolute necessity of silly walks.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

The Starlings

This entry is part 24 of 37 in the series Bridge to Nowhere: poems at mid-life

Today was no longer fall, but fly,
with high winds & a fast
traffic of clouds. Now that
it’s almost still, the birds are making
strange noises in their sleep,
like fragments of car alarms,
& I remember the forest floor startling up
on iridescent wings & streaming
through the branches, a rush
hour crowd, & the dark road
they unfurled across the sky.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Voice Alpha

I’ve been roped into invited to become a contributing author at Nic S.’s new companion site to Whale Sound called Voice Alpha, “a repository for thoughts, theories, suggestions, likes and dislikes and anything else related to the art and science of reading poetry aloud for an audience.”

The idea came out of our conversation last week, though I didn’t expect Nic to jump on it right away! But jump she has, and I am only the first of what I hope will be a whole posse of regular contributors. Check out in particular “Why don’t they teach us to read & What makes a poetry reading fail?” and “On looking (or not) at your audience when you read poetry.” If you have any reflections on the art of reading poetry, either as reader or as audience, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Sniper

I want what we all want: the past in its own house & enough trees to hold up the sky. But in my dreams, going out only means going farther in. One night I’m a sniper. My target appears to be a normal, middle-aged woman, but my instructions say that she is a danger to us all. I pull the trigger on my noiseless gun & a small red hole appears in her forehead. She continues talking as if nothing happened, so I enlarge the hole with a second bullet. As her body crumples, I feel more and more certain that I did the right thing. Soon I am feverish with rectitude.

Not all bad dreams are nightmares; this one stays with me for hours after I wake. It plays over & over in my imagination like a video game with only one outcome: sight target, aim, fire, see a red eye blaze open. Turn to ash.