A Ghost's Day Off

This is our one day off from the Evergreen Cemetery walk, and, in my case, a day for doing human things: all the laundry, all the grocery shopping, and all the housecleaning that has not happened all week. While I was dead...

Tomas Transtromer won the Nobel Prize for Literature and Sweden erupted in jubilation, and so did plenty of other people who love poetry! Over at Escape Into Life, you can read Patricia Clark's poems, including one called "Poem Ending with a Line from Transtromer," and a beautiful line it is. So is the rest of her poetry.

I interviewed Patricia Clark on her work, here, in the EIL Blog, and I was especially curious about her take on "nature poetry" and its stigma/sudden trendiness. She points out, quoting Gary Snyder, that it used to be "'death' for a poet to be called a 'nature poet,'" and I have certainly read guidelines that say, "We don't want garden poems" and heard editors say, "I hate nature poems."

I agree with Patricia that it's usually best to read the poem closely and see what's going on, rather than labeling and dismissing it, and I wish more readers and editors would do so. This ties in with The Geography of Bliss, too, by Eric Weiner, whose happiness research confirms that we find great joy in being open to nature and to the beauty of our surroundings.

And nature is not all beauty, either. It's what's going on. ("It's what's for dinner.")

Anyhoo, I'd be interested in your thoughts on "nature poetry" here or at the EIL Blog interview.  How do you define it? If you have written poems about nature, have you run into the stigma? If you are a reader, what turns you off or on in poems that include nature? If you are a reader and writer of poems, have you, too, noticed the irony or hypocrisy of "eco-friendly" poems emerging in an age that has tended to despise "nature poetry"?

Here, again, is that great photo by Dana Col-cleasure, as, tomor-row, I head back to the cemetery, for the final weekend of the Voices from the Past Evergreen Cemetery Walk 2011. We think it will still be sunny and in the 80s, with sweet yellow and red leaves raining down, rambunctious squirrels, and sometimes a spider dangling down from the brim of one's hat....

Hilmar the Happy Heathen

I am still reading The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner, for my book group, and just finished chapter 5, “Iceland: Happiness is Failure.” I am in love with Iceland, and particularly with Hilmar the Happy Heathen.

I was reading about Hilmar just in time for Thor’s Day in the blog: we first meet him in the book wearing “a small silver pendant: the hammer of Thor, the Norse god.”

Turns out heathens/pagans/Vikings/Norse gods 1) weren’t quite as violent as we are told and 2) love cappuccino.

Wait, I might have muddled that up a bit. No matter! Icelandic mythology, in the book called the Eddas, “could be a muddle of thought, but,” according to Hilmar the Happy Heathen, “everyone needs a belief system, in order to have these transcendental moments.”

As Alice in Wonderland might say, in a happy mood, “Happier and happier.”

Anyhoo, I find Iceland endearing, and right after reading that chapter, I cooked dinner while listening to Bjork. Vespertine, the swan CD. (See above, and click title for details.) It has a song on it called “Pagan Poetry.” Hilmar mentored Bjork. Also, he met Joseph Campbell, a favorite of mine.

So I am really happy and transcendent right now, and will save this and post it tomorrow morning, Thor’s Day, right before I head off to the cemetery….

Wishlist, constantly: W. H. Auden, Letters from Iceland.

Dead By Now

Last night we got this email from our fearless director for the Voices from the Past Evergreen Cemetery Walk 2011: "Tomorrow is 'hump day.' If you make it through in one piece, the rest of the Walk is a piece 'o cake!"

Well, we made it through. We, the actors, volunteers, and tour guides, did not collapse, but, as of the "hump of the week," 10 people have fainted--a combination of dehydration, pre-existing conditions, lack of breakfast, and blood. They tend to go down at or near the two Civil War doctors, covered in (stage) blood, discussing amputation, which, as you might recall about the Civil War, was a main treatment for bullet/mini-ball wounds.

Yes, one of the doctors carries a saw.

I perform near the monument of a man named Townsend who died in 1865, at the end of the war, at age "54 yrs., 6 mo." as is inscribed right on the white stone. It reminds me that if I had lived in the first half of the 19th century, I'd be dead by now. Um, I mean that in more ways than one.

I'm also near the grave of a Civil War soldier, marked with a star, from the 33rd regiment. And, of course, my own--Martha Rice--marked for the cemetery walk with red, white, and blue flowers. Early this morning, the cemetery workers were out with their leaf blowers, clearing off the graves and performance spaces--what great guys they are!--and they'll do it again tomorrow morning, as all morning and afternoon, the yellow and orange and red leaves were gently falling.

For your own Table Saw cake knife, go here. For your own ampu-tation kit...er, for more on Civil War medicine, go here.

Cemetery Light

Wow, look at this eerie and wonderful photo of the cemetery light on Saturday, during the Voices from the Past Evergreen Cemetery Discovery Walk 2011.  It's taken by Dana Colcleasure, who took plenty more, all marvelous, and I've got to assume it's OK to share it here since 1) it's of me, 2) it's been shared all over Facebook, and 3) it turned up among my own Profile pix without me doing a thing.

I left it there. I've got to say I like this Facebook change that allows you to leave yourself tagged while removing a photo from your Profile. It seems impolite to have to untag yourself just to keep pictures out of your Profile if you didn't put them there yourself. You know what I mean? They still turn up, but now you can remove them. And now, if someone wants to tag/label me on her own page, she can!

Today I saw the blond squirrel again, and a little red one searched for acorns and various buried things around my big skirt while I waited for the next performance. If he'd gone under, I might have shooed him away, but instead he put his front paws on my skirt (stiffened by the crinolines underneath) and looked up at me, as if to ask, "You got any nuts under there?"

It's not easy to answer a question like that.

Blond Squirrel

Great day in the cemetery for the Voices From the Past: Evergreen Cemetery Discovery Walk 2011. Lovely audiences, many squirrels. I had seen the resident blond squirrel earlier at a rehearsal, but he visited again today between performances.

Along with plenty of other squirrels, probably all officially American red squirrels, of various sizes and colorings. Busily burying things or chasing each other around.

This blondish red squirrel is a photo taken by D. Gordon E. Robertson, with full credits here.

Also vaguely pertinent, this poem with a squirrel (not) in it, "Golden Retriever," at IthacaLit.