Hi. I'm Dan Vickers. I attended Nathan Brown's writing workshop in mid-March not to learn to write poetry, but because I am writing up some notes on my life for my children and "Journaling" was mentioned in the information received about his workshop. I am a retired engineer. Retired from work but still an engineer. I think like an engineer and not like a poet. You know, like if something is 26 5/8 inches long, it is 26 5/8 inches long, not "a couple of feet" long. If a poem has something about water rushing along a rocky mountain stream I visualize water rushing along a rocky mountain stream (that is, if I read the poem at all). If the poet meant it to describe the trials of life in the big city, it flew right past me.
In Nathan's workshop I learned that poetry does not have to be all imagery. It can be like plain old everyday talking. It doesn't have to have a consistent meter. It doesn't even have to rhyme.
So I started playing around with writing poetry. It was hard to admit it at first, but it was fun. I liked it. Of course I limited my audience to my wife and children, all accomplished writers, and all who were somewhat forced to encourage me. As I gained confidence my audience was expanded. First to my step-children. (Now, that takes guts.) Then to some of my fellow workshop takers (workshop takers? Well, you know what I mean.). And now, a farther step, to you.
The following is based on a true and rather unsettling story:
A Senior Citizen's Memory
Let's see now,
What was I going to write about?
It's not really quite that bad.
But, it's getting there.
Rapidly!
It is the little things that drive you crazy.
Oh yes, there are plenty of big things, too.
When you are looking for that misplaced item
You think of a thousand things you should have done
To help you find it. But you didn't.
Like when your granddaughter left her car
With you as she flew to New York.
She's back now. Asleep. Due to leave soon.
Where did you put her car keys?
This is serious business.
They aren't in the miscellaneous old keys box
With all those unidentifiable keys
That you are afraid to throw away
Because you might will need them someday.
They aren't on the bar
Where everything else that doesn't have a home resides.
And time is running short.
I hear the shower running.
She'll soon be out of her room.
She'll have to be told.
They aren't on the workbench in the garage,
Another spot that seems to collect the odd item.
Not on the dryer where I often "temporarily"
Put an item until a trip to its real home is made.
Let's face it. It's time to call Pop-A-Lock
And then the key shop who will call General Motors
(Is their key department still in business?)
To get the key code.
Yes, the problem can be handled
But her dad, my son-in-law, will have to know
And the grief I'll get from him will be worse
Than the ridicule I'll get from everyone else
Including my grandson.
Especially including my grandson!
Oh, Wait.
I may have put that key on the dresser in the guest bedroom.
That seems like a logical place to put it.
Then I wouldn't have to remember where I put it.
It would be right there with the rest of her things
When she got back from New York.
(How long does it take that girl to dress?)
I can actually feel my hair turning grey.
Surely she won't apply her make-up before opening her door.
I need to take a Rolaid.
Oh, no, I hear the hair dryer going.
This is definitely making me old older
Which will worsen my memory.
Why won't that girl open her door?
Nathan is a wonderful, gentle teacher. My take away from the weekend was more confidence in editing my work. I look forward to going to any other workshop that Nathan may lead.
Nathan is a wonderful writer and teacher. It is very easy to feel comfortable sharing your writing in his class. I don't have much experience writing anything other than what I write in my own journals. I was really happy with the progress that I made in the class. It was really a relaxing fun way to spend the weekend. Thank you Nathan and Spacious Place.
Nathan Brown's approach is very down to earth and accessible. For anyone who enjoys expression and/or discussion of how it feels to be alive, I think the seminar he gives offers immeasurable enrichment. It's more like a circle of friends than an academic or writer's seminar. Give it a try and I guarantee you will get something out of it.
What's It About This Guy?
I still can't describe why reading Nathan Brown's poetry percolates my mind. I just know that words and phrases start bubbling into expression... ... ...and it is SO much fun! I have enjoyed a love of words for most of my long life but NATHAN is their MASTER. He sits in coffee shops and God knows where else and writes a poem a day—every day. Some of them get into his six books and Planet Earth is better for it.
In a recent writers workshop at Journey: IFC, Austin, Texas, led by wordsmith Brown, he made everyone comfortable by being appreciative of our spontaneous writings. There was never a scent of condemnation which was encouraging to us attending. His depth of authenticity and multi-faceted life experience coupled with his unique sense of humor give him a scent something like mixing three extracts: almond, cloves, and vanilla.
I have no idea what that means. I just know that I like to be around this guy because it pushes out the walls of my head and heart.
The class energized me and had me scribbling furiously for weeks afterward. I felt safe to share and to just stop and write if something came to me; plus, I grabbed up a ton of new writing ideas.
Journey Floor
Cold, hard, grey concrete bearing the marks of its past lives, passed lives
Circular red rust stains from the round feet of the machines that manufactured computer chips
Graceful curved lines and white hand-painted letters forming words from the 2007 prayer vigil labyrinth
Rigid, perpendicular 2-inch tape residue dividing the room into quadrants from a Bible study exercise
Brown, black, yellow, red, pink, and florescent purple tree roots painted over most of the room that represent the human family as one from a worship service
The Journey floor bears the marks of its past lives, passed lives
Some are worn, no longer shiny bright
Some are splotchy, haphazard
Some are visible only under black light
Some are broken and chipped, scratched by furniture being moved across them
Some are painted over with new lines, new lives
These marks are what make this floor:
Beautiful.
A Delicate Sky
Mom throws the box of slender tampons on the bed beside me on her way to the laundry room. I wipe my tears away and pick up the blue box.
"Cheer up kiddo. It only gets worse from here. Instructions are in the box. Let me know if you need help." Mom says shutting the door behind her and starting the washing machine.
I wonder if I can still ride my bike to school.
Angela and I wade through the Texas September air in silence with the elephant padding along between us. My gray corduroys that grandmother bought for me at the back- to-school sale announce my self-conscious thighs and pull at the toilet paper I have wrapped around the crotch of my panties for extra protection. The white polyester bra under my stiff mauve shirt is new too, really new. It strangles and scratches with each sweaty step I take in the expensive suede shoes mother refused to buy for me. Grandmother just felt bad for me after she announced to my mother, my brothers and all of JC Penney in a voice she never knew was so loud, "This girl needs a bra!" Now the entire ensemble seems like a bad idea.
Angela finally speaks up. "I'm sorry about your grandmother."
It is another first; the first time I know my best friend has no clue. Her words reek of a mother's last minute instructions.
"Thanks." I say. There is so much more to say and yet there is not. I can't tell her that she and I are no longer residing in the same world. I can't tell her that I have seen the sky tear open.
We find our new classroom for 8th grade literature. I sit in a desk at the front as usual expecting Angela to take her usual spot at the desk behind me, but she doesn't. She sits one row over and behind me. I sit adrift in my little desk, the excitement of a new day buzzing all around, watching the shoreline fade away.
I wish I hadn't cried so hard at my grandmother's bedside the last time I saw her in ICU. How am I going to live the rest of my life wearing a bra and bleeding every month with my sky in this crumbled condition without grandmother's cool caress and the smell of her evening glass of scotch on ice clinking the end of another day survived?
YELLOW MORNIN'
My Dad's
5 horse power
gasoline driven
fishing-boat motor
still sputters and mutters
in my mind
in my heart.
He and I would get up
with the first light
walk out into the yellow mornin'
drive down the hill
climb into his small
aluminum 2 seater
and - after I pushed us off from shore -
head out into the warm waters of
Lake Travis, Central Texas.
Never mind if we caught a
fish or not.
It was a magical time.
Dad would -
with lively animation-
relish a time when I
"caught an 14 inch brown bass
comin' around this very bend."
Never mind if my pole never once bobbled.
In my heart
I had caught a whopper
because Dad made it come alive and real
over and over again
as the years slipped by.
Almost 3 years ago
This magical character
Slipped from us
At age almost 92.
We placed a mountain
of yellow sunflowers
on his casket
befitting the man who
was - and is -
the sunshine of my life.
Happy Father's Day, Dad:
Arthur Eidson Eitelman
October 14, 1914 - September 17, 2006
Cat's Feet
The fog comes
d
r
o
p
p
i
n
g over the town like a cloak of mystery, and
of history.
Looming up, out of the silver tapestry stride
the too familiar Holmeses and Rochesters
usually met only betwixt the black stain
and yellow-brown crinkle
life breathed
by the
insubstantial
capricious
argent
magic
of
the
fog
the fog comes
and then
moves on.