Accidental poets

My sister and I were talking the other day, as she was headed to a library book sale. She mentioned a book of short stories she'd seen and was thinking of buying.

I asked her if the stories were written by J. California Cooper. I'd once read a short story by J. C.C. that moved me so much, I photocopied it and mailed it (that's how long ago it was; no email) to almost every woman I knew.

I remember the act of doing that, but I couldn't for the life of me, remember the name of the story.

Oh well. We went on about our conversation.

Later in the night, my sister sends me a series of texts, 10 altogether. They turned out to be titles of J. California Cooper stories -- she was wondering if any of these were the title I was looking for. But because she sent them as stand-alone texts, with no context, and no explanation, I didn't pick up on that.  Instead, in the 10 lines of texts, I somehow read a poem. And a darn good one. It's about an "independent woman" who felt like she "didn't need no man" -- and found out, too late, that she did. 

Femme Fatale

Femme fatale
Do it yourself rainbows?
Living without a life
The way it is?
Living and learning
Sure is a shame
The bank of life
Yellow house road
Somebody for everybody?
A will and a way.

Do you see it?

My sister and I are so good, we accidentally made a poem! :-)

(I never did remember the name of that short story.)

(Also, I realized after I wrote this, that this particular post will probably only mean something  to my sister and me. I'll try to be more mainstream with the next post.)

Online class dropout

Remember "Beauty School Dropout?" That song from Grease?

I've been singing that song in my head a lot the last couple days, but with the words "online class" instead of "beauty school."

It's a little pathetic to be this woefully behind on a self-paced, online, non-graded class. But, alas, it has only been two weeks and I am nearly a full week behind. The stress of thinking about how far behind I am is getting to me.

I'm having dreams about being called on in class and not knowing the answers. People who know me will know how such a RARE occurrence would freak me the freak out! I always knew the answers, people! Especially in my humanities courses. Emily Dickinson better reck-a-nize!

Anyway, I think I will "withdraw" from this stress-causing course and let Lester tell me all about it later.  Somehow, he's able to find time to fit it all in. Mad props, Les. I'm not hating. No, not at all.

To make myself feel better about this failure, I decided to write a poem!

Dope
by Tanika Davis

I don't know what I was smokin' when I thought --
I can take a poetry class in the middle of
My Crazy Life --
This ain't Howard --
I'm no hundred-pound Undergrad.
I'm a worker.
A Mother.
A Friend.
A Lover.
A Sister, a daughter, a board member.
A Wife --
It's not my Fault, Walt.
I dwell in Reality, Emily --
Will your elaborate conceits
Change my sheets?
No?
Didn't think so.
And so --
ModPro must go.
I don't know what I was smokin'
When I took on this chore.
But I wish I could get my hands on
Some more.

Parenting poetry

Lester and I love to learn. In fact, one of the things I love most about my husband is that he tries to learn something new everyday. He reads three different newspapers, pretty much cover to cover (Washington Post, New York Times, Baltimore Sun) and sends me articles he thinks would interest me. Later, when we have time (ha!) we talk about them. It's like newspaper-club, instead of bookclub. And it's really how I stay up-to-date on most of the world's news.

So when we learned that a few top colleges (Princeton, Stanford, U of Michigan and Penn) joined to create an online university that offers courses for free, we jumped at the chance to be a part of it.
 
Through Coursera, you get the chance to study from great professors through video lectures, and collaboration with thousands of others who have signed up. For FREE. How cool is that?


So we, both being writers (at one time in our lives anyway), signed up for a 10-week course on Modern and Contemporary Poetry, by a Penn professor. We'll look at such writers as William Carlos Williams, Lorine Niedecker, John Ashbery, Rae Armantrout, Gertrude Stein, Anne Waldman, Amiri Baraka, Charles Bernstein, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. And we'll get to write some poetry of our own.

It starts in September. I'm excited!! Did I mention this is all FREE?

Anyway, to practice, I thought I'd write a little pedestrian piece of poetry about how quickly my boys are growing up and away from me. I never was much of a poet, truthfully. But maybe this class will help me get better.

Storm Door

Music blares from cars outside; children hang, shriek and laugh.

My boys are rapt. 

All I want to do is keep them safe, innocent

With me.

How long will this storm door hold them?