The Mom Poems! Share yours!

In honor of National Poetry Month, a different kind of poem.

So 1812 Productions, a theatre company in Philadelphia devoted to comedy, is collecting Mom Poems as part of their upcoming production of "It's My Party: The Women and Comedy Project."

They are asking folks to create poetic tributes to their moms -- sort of a poetry by Mad Lib -- and share a photograph.  These will be posted on the website and some will be up around the city as posters.

I was proud to share this photo of my mom, Bernice Feldman, in her US Navy uniform from WWII.  I may never have learned how to knit but I love her tons.  And when it comes to poetry, she is my biggest fan.

Want to do your own Mom tribute?  Click here.

Bartram's Boxes

You have been quite patient with me as I have talked about the Bartram's Boxes project without posting up many poems.  This was a tough assignment -- each poem containing a reference to a theme, a tree, and some Bartram history.  But after almost a year, 13 poems are all done and, with thanks to my  creative partner, Claire Owen,will be delivered today in their extraordinary boxes to the Center for Art in Wood exhibition.  The show does not open until May 2014 so I will send out a poem now and again to whet your appetite for the full series.

As often happens when I write, I can miss the most obvious thing.  So when I was contemplating the last Bartram poem inspired by the Kentucky Coffeetree to go into the Caretakers box, it finally occurred to me that there should probably be a poem called...

Bartram’s Boxes

We travel at risk of health and untold loneliness

to uncover what has been seen only by Creek

or crocodile among the brambles.

How we love each fruit or flower for its singularity,

the way we love a wife’s touch, a son’s quick mind,

a daughter’s attentiveness.

Ours is the commerce of curiosity,  seeds gathered,

sifted, tenderly nestled in moss, until with sunlight

and breath, each will spark like tinder,

reveal its secret – beauty, fragrance, usefulness –

brilliant as sunset, dark as coffee, a balm –

sent to bloom across oceans like the children

who blossom in our absence.

We are men of science.  Men of faith.

This is our praise.

(c) 2012

P.S.  Remember to check out my tagged writers for this week! (see the post below)

Ragdale buddy Sheila Flaherty

My mentor and poet extraordinaire AV Christie

The Next Big Thing!

I have been asked by my friend and poet Liz Bradfield to participate in The Next Big Thing -- a sort of "Tag! You're It!" blog scheme for writers to post up about their works in progress by all answering the same questions about an upcoming book.  You can check out Liz' post from last week to get the gist. Here goes!

What is the working title of the book?  Well, the poems were written as part of a collaboration with visual artist Claire Owen for an exhibition entitled “Bartram’s Boxes Remix.” I hadn’t thought of a title for the actual poems on their own.  But now that you ask, I am thinking the title will be “Solace”.

Where did the idea come from for the book?  In June 2010, 13 trees were toppled in a storm that went through Bartram’s Garden, a historic house and garden in Philadelphia. The Garden collaborated with the Center for Art in Wood and put out a request for exhibition proposals for art made from or inspired by the trees.

What genre does your book fall under?  The book is actually three small books of poetry (by me) and images (by Claire) so we have a sort of an interdisciplinary nature/history/poems/visual art genre here.  The photo above is the inside of the "Journeys" box.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?  The poems center around the Bartram family of botanists and naturalists as well as the trees and the gardens and war and slavery and women who never get a bit of historical attention…and… and…

I pick Daniel Day-Lewis as patriarch John Bartram.  Laura Linney as Ann Bartram.  Ewan McGregor as William Bartram.  Who perhaps could bring his lightsaber.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?  If 13 trees fall in the forest, can you make art about them?

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?  I wrote the first two poems for the proposal to the exhibition while I was at Ragdale for an artist residency in October 2011.  We got word that we were accepted into the show in February 2012. Then Claire and I set up a series of deadlines for each of the three books which I then passed off to her so she had time to create her incredible boxes.But I delivered the last set of poems to Claire right on time in February 2013.

 By the way, writing really complicated poems on a deadline is really, really hard.  Thanks to everyone who listened to me whine for the past year.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?  Claire and I had collaborated together on Sage and we both love old science, working together, nature things.  So this project seemed right up our alley.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? John Bartram was considered the father of botany in the New World and his home and the garden are still preserved, in all their quirkiness, on the banks of the Schuylkill River behind a low-income housing project.  If you’ve never been there, you should definitely visit come spring.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?  Well, one problem of writing poems that are going to be shown as beautiful hand-bound books in three beautiful hand-crafted boxes is that no one will be able to read them in the exhibition.  So I am starting to work on creating either a chapbook or e-book (or both) to accompany the exhibition and get the poems “out of the box”.  I have time.  The exhibition opens at the Center for Art in Wood in May 2014. 

As incentive to check out my tagged writers, I will post up a Bartram poem next Wednesday.

My tagged writers for next Wednesday, March 13, 2013 are:

Ragdale buddy Sheila Flaherty
My mentor and poet extraordinaire AV Christie (through Facebook)

See the SAGE Exhibition!

I know. I have been kind of quiet on the blog front but I learned a very important thing since I last posted up.

It is hard to be in a creative frame of mind while icing a herniated disk in your neck.  

But in spite of (or perhaps inspired by) pain medicine and muscle relaxants, the Bartram Boxes Remix project is marching along.  The 'Journeys' poems are completed and I have my poetic nose to the grindstone to deliver the "Storms" batch to creative partner Claire Owen by December 15th.  So I promise a new poem posted up soon but in the meantime...

Check out the virtual exhibition of SAGE that was at the Chicago Botanic Garden this summer.  Shout out to photographer, Joe Rynkiewicz, and to the staff at the Garden for all their help with bringing the exhibition to reality. 

Buy a gift copy of SAGE for that poetry lover in your life....or plant lover...or herb-loving chef!

Poetry is History! Thanks to Ken Finkel for including my poem "Taking Down the South Street Bridge" on his recent phillyhistory blog

That should keep you busy for a while!  More poems soon, I promise.

The Journey Begins...

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

When I left you in June, we were diving in to the Bartram Boxes Remix (BBR) project.  (Check out the June posting below to refresh your memory.) Starting a new project is daunting and complicated since, while I have an intention of where the poems should end up, I am not always sure how to get there.  (Anyone who has driven with me knows I am directionally-challenged but I get to where I need to go eventually.)

So I procrastinated.  Cleaned my desk.  Did some laundry.  Took a lot of walks. Bought post-it notes and a nice green highlighter. Circled my big blank sketchbook like it was a threatening animal with sharp teeth.  Take it from me.  Nothing is as scary as a big, blank, white page.  I did this for quite a while.

Then I started my research which is less scary than actually writing and just as important.  I read a lot of letters and journals by John and William Bartram.  I did research about the characteristics of the trees.  Claire and I went to the Library Company of Philadelphia and looked at commonplace books. I decided to write the poem for the Paper Mulberry Tree for the box entitled "Journeys".  I wrote my papermaker friend Melissa Jay Craig and asked her favorite thing about mulberry paper.  I thought about letters and maps and sketchbooks and journals and envelopes filled with seeds.

The journey starts...

Papers

Dear -

Because scarlet hibiscus cannot survive

  the northern winter.

Because rivers and mountains shift

  shape with the falling light.

Because seeds overflow my palms

  like a broken string of beads.

Because alone, I cannot make sense

  of all that is unfamiliar

Because I miss conversation.

Because you lend the inner layers,

  strands and strands entwined.

Because everything is captive in eyes

  and fingertips unless released, received.

Because nature sows generations

   in the cycle of seasons.         

 

Because we search the terrain,

  mark our journey, fill the vessel

that holds the crimson ink -

New Project! New Poem!

First, thanks to everyone who has bought the SAGE book and sent such warm notes as you read your way through my words.  It is more than a little nerve-wracking to finally launch a project out into the world so it is gratifying to hear all of your comments.  You can still get a copy of the book here.

Onward and upwards to a new project.  My creative partner, Claire Owen and I, have been curated into an upcoming exhibition entitled "Bartram's Boxes Remix" (BBR).  BBR is a collaborative project between the Center for Art in Wood and Philadelphia's Bartram's Garden, home of the famed 18th century explorers and botanists, John and William Bartram.

The title of the project references Bartram's boxes containing seeds, plants and curiosities that he sent all over the country and the world to 'seed' New World gardens.  Claire and I are among the artists invited to 'remix' history, materials and inspiration from 13 trees felled in a 2011 storm at Bartram's Garden.  We will be creating our own boxes that will include three 'commonplace books', an ancient tradition that is sort of a cross between a field guide, journal and collection of famous quotations.  You can help by checking out the new web page for this project and adding your favorite Bartram story or quote.  Check it out here.

To get you in the mood, here is a sample of one of the poems I wrote as part of our exhibition proposal; this one for the Tulip Poplar (photo above) one of the trees lost in the storm.  It includes a cast of characters including patriarch John Bartram, his most avid English plant collector, Peter Collinson, and a narrator who could be one of the many un-named, un-famed, Bartram women.  We will keep you posted as the project develops.

Tulip Poplar

Europe coveted tulips –  couleren, rosen, violetten –

named to exalt admirals and generals, even as the plague took

sisters and children.  They wanted petals of flame

perhaps to remember, perhaps to forget, until they lost

all reason, buying nothing but futures of air

and empty promises.

Collinson writes, Send the cones of the Tulip Tree

and whatever else thou thinks well of –

John writes, This is what you need to know –

root it in rich, deep soil and it will grow to 100 feet,

yield honey to sweeten your bread.  Its wood will

plane smooth and true to fit the pipes and valves

of an organ for you who praise your God with song.

It will make a coffin.  It will give you shade.

This is what I would write, When it catches

the breeze, each leaf will capture the light,

flutter of its own accord into brightness.

In autumn, it will be transformed into

a goblet of gold.   As for its flowers,

they will blossom –yellow, orange, red –

too high for us to see but we imagine them,

much as we imagine heaven.

(c) Beth Feldman Brandt 2012

SAGE is here! Buy the book!

Yes, it has arrived.  It has been quite a journey -- close to three years since I wrote the first poem.  Thanks for your enthusiasm, patience and undying support from all corners. 

You can get the final product by clicking here.  You then have the option of paying online and having it shipped or choose "pick it up from Beth" and email me to find a time to connect for hand-delivery by the poet.  Cash and carry works too!

Just to whet your appetite, here is one more poem selected from the "Summer" section, headed up with Claire Owen's stunning painting on the left.  Sometimes one bit of a found poem (below in italics) was enough to kick off its companion piece.  I send "Saffron' out to Linda Williams, exquisite chef at Ragdale and extrraordinary human being, who nourished me in so many ways while I was writing this book.

Saffron

Three.

The whole essence

is in the number.

“If I tell you…

   …the dream where I am walking through

   rows of crocuses, petals spread saucers,

   each offering three threads, three words.

“If I tell you three times…

  …how thousands fill the basket

  and still they are too light,  but how

  detached, bruised, heavy with scent.

“If I tell you three times, it’s true.”

  …how I search for three to pull

  from the tangle, three to swell with ink,

  three words that are not  I love you.