In Which the Poet Takes a Zumba Class

In recent months, as I added freelance editing work to an already crowded roster of daily activities, I realized that much of what I do is very, very sedentary.

I have two children, no car, and a garden — all of which provides a nice base level of everyday activity. But what’s more of a challenge is incorporating regular bouts of high-intensity, intentional physical activity. There’s a free gym at work, but given that I work part-time and have a family and other commitments to get home to, it’s very hard for me to convince myself it’s a good idea to interrupt my very focused workday and then stay late to make up for it.

One neat solution I’ve found has been a weekly Zumba class. Let me be clear: I am a back row dweller. I am rhythm-challenged (you will not typically see me at poetry readings or hear recordings of my poems — sound and rhythm are just not the aspects of poetry that come most naturally to me) and also seem to have trouble telling my left from my right. I feel totally ridiculous while in class, and I also tend to sneer at myself that Zumba is just like Jazzercise, only mas picante — for the ladies who want to believe they are all Latin hotsy-totsy as they work out.

But … It’s good for my heart. I can tell. It wakes up my muscles and gets the blood flowing. Most of the work I’m doing and the things I am pursuing for “fun” (serious poets might identify with the air quotes here) involve my mind. But here’s the thing: My mind is also my brain, which is a physical organ, which needs me to keep those arteries nice and clear. There may be some great poetry written as a result of stroke-induced aphasia, but I’d rather not contribute to that body of work.

I think my neighborhood is just about the best place to take a class like Zumba. We are very near the University of Chicago, and the class is actually in a building belonging to a big Lutheran seminary. While there are indeed some very fit people in the class, I get the sense that many are also quite brainy — and all are compassionate. These are not bouncing hard bodies who sneer if and when you make a misstep.

Fellow poets, what do you do to get yourself up and moving? How do you feel about it? Do you find it to be a challenge, as I do? How do you keep the life of the mind from being an utterly sedentary life?

A Probably Blasphemous but Well-Intended Persona Poem for Open Link Night

Rest

I am a park ranger for the Lord;
I arrange His trees in concentric circles
so His children can wind embroidery floss
around, under, and through, sing a song

that is just enough about Him
that He’ll know it’s about Him; He
likes to hear His own name as much
as any of the rest of us do, I guess

(maybe more). He likes puns,
as long as they’re good ones;

lambs and trees go over well,
but He’s kind of tired of loaves
and fishes. No one knows how
exhausting that miracle was,

how few people thanked Him,
and He had to rest afterwards
and wondered why it is He
even bothers sometimes.

By His hand, we are fed, so
it seems like the least I can do,

to set up His crafts, and to pour
tiny cups of juice (apple—
goes with the week’s theme:
Gifts from His Trees) so He can
rest a while longer, and wonder.

I wrote this because it’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for another Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. The first line came to me out of nowhere, and then a persona and scenario built themselves around it. Oh, Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood …

From Not Entering any Chapbook Contests, to Two in One Month …

… in zero easy steps.

A funny thing happened today while contemplating sealing the deal on a travel-themed chapbook (entries are due June 15 — yikes, I just rediscovered that fact yesterday). Well, the first funny thing is that I don’t at all consider myself to be a writer of travel poetry … but when I sifted through the 60-some poems I wrote in April, I found that many of my favorites were about travel in general or about specific locations.

But what happened today is that I found myself reaching back to a previous idea, which was a chapbook of persona poems. I entered it in one contest last fall, it didn’t win, and I promptly shelved it. But I love persona poems and the energy of writing as someone else for a while. By now, a lot of those poems feel a little stale, and I’ve since written other persona poems that I like better — and that I was sorry to cut because they didn’t fit my travel theme.

Sooooo … now I’m planning to do the one that’s due June 15 and another that’s due June 30. Two things: 1) I believe this gives me a handy carte blanche not to write anything new for a while, other than for Open Link Night, which I enjoy each Tuesday, and 2) I am going to have to speed up my usual process considerably.

What’s my usual process? 1) Print everything — everything — out. 2) Sift through it many, many times to choose the best ones. 3) Look for a theme and regretfully pull out any that don’t fit. 4) Find an order that makes sense. 5) Put the pages together in “spread” fashion — facing each other, that is — so I can see how they might pair in book form. 6) Carry the pages around with me for days on end, rereading, making tiny changes, reprinting, rereading — until I’m so sick of the whole thing that I have to get it out of my house … now.

For my travel-themed one, I added a little something extra to step 6, which was to set aside the whole thing for a few days, only to come back to it and find that my order was all messed up and I had a mixed pile of drafts from various stages. And … this was right before I’d planned to consolidate the whole thing from many files into one. So the order only existed in that hard copy. The good news is, I’m quite sure I didn’t duplicate the previous order — but I actually like the new one better.

What remains for the travel chapbook, which (blessedly) seems to fit the June 15 contest better than the June 30 one, is to pull out two poems that I don’t think work very well and put back in a two-pager that I think is very strong but also very personal and perhaps dangerously honest. I *mostly* think that’s a good decision — and it’s a type of decision I find myself making more and more often.

As for the persona poem one, I suspect I might be surprised by how much work remains. I think there’s a lot that will need to come out — and a lot of new ones to put in.

So, the travel one is tooth-wigglingly close (my daughter turned 7 yesterday, so this metaphor is very relevant these days), and I have to get it out of my house … if not now, then pretty close to now.

There goes my June … What are you up to?

I Bear Fruit, for Open Link Night

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets … In other news, I got a contributor’s copy in the mail today, which is always a happy time. But then my husband is reading my poem and says, “Umm, did you mean to spell yeast roll r-o-l-e?” No. No, I didn’t. For the record — since I’m billing myself as a poetry editor and all — the gremlin was at the other end. Oh, well. I know these things happen, and it’s still exciting to have the copy in hand, and it looks great other than that. I think I’ll let it go.

I Bear Fruit

Then I discovered that
everything I was carrying
was useless and heavy,

and I’d dropped all the
right, light things along
the way somewhere.

I didn’t know where
I was going, so I decided
to stand still for a while,

but then I became a
pear tree, one of those
stunted little pear trees

that grows around a
fence, as if the wound
has become integral,

the fence a new heart,
xylem and phloem
beating in chain link.

Houses, for Open Link Night

I’m later than usual for Open Link Night at dVerse. Among other reasons, I got caught up in listening to the brand-new Garbage album — their first in 7 years, and I’m a big fan. My daughter was actually all done with her bathroom prep, in bed, and ready for me to read to her, and there I was, still rocking out. Darkly. Anyway, here’s the poem:

Houses

Never fall in love
with houses;
they’re not as solid
as you think.

They collapse
around you even as
you live in them,
every day, another
small change,
another step closer
to a change
in your address.

You will not die
in your house,
quietly in
your sleep,
or at least,
few people do;

for most, there is
a staggered slide,
here a loss and there,
until, really, it’s time
to find a place for
mom or dad.

(By the way, that’s you.)

Maybe it’s worse
to leave a house
while you’re young;
then it seems as if
you should be able to
go back and visit.

The new people have
vinyl siding, or a giant pool,
and no one cares that you
used to have a hiding place
by the downspout, where
you pretended to sew clothes
with thorns from the trees,
which may not even
be there anymore.

If you are let inside,
what will you see?
Other people’s stuff.
No evidence of you.
You will awaken, too,
a small beast inside,
a young one that

you silenced,
papered over;

now it beats against
the wall of your chest,
believes it’s finally home.

A Slimy Poem for Open Link Night

Slugs

Under the raspberries
under the mint
under the leaves,

a kingdom is growing,
moving, crossing
slick trails like swords
of wet dominion.

Under the tent tarp
under our heads
under our dreams,

a whole world
is sleeping with us,
unseen in the cool
and the damp,

mouthparts always
chewing on something,
be it memory or plan.

A word about Open Link Night: This takes place each Tuesday afternoon/evening/night at dVerse, a website by and for poets. You post a poem on your blog, and then you add a link on the dVerse site, and then you get lots and lots of new visitors (and of course, you visit other poets, too). Thanks again, Anna, for letting me know about it!

Everything I Say I Won’t Do, I End up Doing

I talked a good game about not entering the APR Stanley Kunitz contest (poets under 40, you have until May 15 — and they do take electronic submissions). Entered it. Twice.

And now, after I’ve done all this waffling and carping about how I want to do a chapbook but don’t want to enter a contest, here I am trying to choose from among three different ones, all with June deadlines.

Could you help me, please? If you are familiar with any of the following publishers and can share a thought or two in the comments, I’d appreciate it. Criticism is fine, as long as it’s constructive — not looking to slam any publishers here. I will also order a chapbook or two as a sample, but time and money being short, I’d love to narrow it down to two before I start hitting that PayPal button. Anyway, here are the three I’m considering:

Anabiosis Press

Dream Horse Press (scroll down for the chapbook contest)

Blue Light Press

Thank you, thank you …

Something Good in My Mailbox Today

Came home to find a SASE of mine, stuffed full. Never a good thing … unless it is. (Which it was, this time.) Very excited to have a poem accepted for Pearl, in an issue to come out at the end of this year.

To make it that much better, the acceptance letter came from an editor who shares my first name. “Dear Marilyn … We’re pleased to accept … Sincerely, Marilyn.” Fun!

And I just checked my cover letter and confirmed that I did divulge that a draft of the poem they want to publish appeared at Poetic Asides during the November PAD challenge. So, it’s all legit, and I can breathe easy and be happy …

Calling All Poets under 40

Which I am, juuuust barely …

I’m going to enter this contest from The American Poetry Review, in part because, well, this is the last year in which I’ll be eligible. I wish I hadn’t seen the thing about how you can enter more than once, though, because now I’m all boggled over whether to enter twice — and thus, have six poems embargoed for a while — or just choose the three that I think are the best fit. The double chance is tempting, but then, given my track record with contests, it also sounds good to send just one $15 check, not two.

What do you think? And have any of you entered this one, or plan to? The clock is ticking … The postmark deadline is May 15 (next Tuesday — yikes).

Hey, Man … Have You Ever Really Looked at Your Hands?

Map

Look at
your open palm,
how the branches
fork off into
feathers;
so many rivers,
so many cracks
in the earth
of your life,
the map of
your world,
how it looked
just before
you took flight.

P.S. — How could I have forgotten to link to dVerse Open Link Night, which I’ve been enjoying these past few Tuesdays? Lots of great poets there — please go enjoy!

Marilyn Rauch Cavicchia

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