Women Bearing All

Oh what a lovely hubbub!

This morning I opened my email to find an entry on the beautiful blog of author Patti Digh - in which she receives a personal note from Billy Collins - the poet I most admire. My heart stopped. I read it again slowly - the words from Billy - the magical, lyrical sounds of love and lilacs, the deep admiration from one poet to another. I went rushing through the house to breathlessly announce to my husband my outrageous jealousy, my petty smallness at wanting to snatch the letter from her hand and make it be to me. He was putting his boots on for a day out working in the cold, and try as he might, could not grasp the depth of my hysteria. Just last night I was compiling my submission to a poetry contest that Billy Collins is judging.

Rare privilege

My husband never ceases to shock me. He gave me a tremendous boost yesterday. He read one of my most devastating poems without really meaning to, he happened upon it - one that I still cannot read out loud without crying. This is a poem that is probably 10 years old. No matter how much time has passed, there are still parts of our histories that hurt deeply. I have worked through so much - and feel that today I live mostly in joy. Yet, looking at this poem brings it all back. He is not much of a reader of poetry. He likes car magazines. I completely accept this because if he were to start describing in detail some car part that he was excited about, I would draw a blank and not understand a word he was saying. This is how he generally feels about poetry.

He came to me quietly, and put his arms around me. He said, "I'm one of the people who truly 'gets' you. But now, I think I know you even better." Later, he continued to talk about what he had learned of me through that poem - and how much more protective he feels about me after reading it. I cannot imagine a better gift from my mate than for him to clearly tell me how much something I wrote spoke to him.

A Gathering of Women

Recently I posted an invitation on the Creative Fresno listserv for female poets to join me and start a community - where we can have monthly readings and gatherings - where we can encourage one another to continue producing words on paper!

I had some response - but didn't really have a place for people to post a comment if they wanted - so here it is. This is not a traditonal guest book - because I am not necessarily a web savvy person. Creating a blog was the closest I could get. I hope for the sake of creative interchange - you will overlook my novice stature and just work together to build a community!

Sudden Tangerine

Sudden Tangerine now conjures up the idea of unlikely pairings.

This is a line from a recent poem - it's the middle of the night and tomorrow I will regret that this is my first posting to this new weblog. However, before I could figure out how to design it, I was forced to write a post. I was completely unprepared to be brilliant this evening and so there - that is the first post!

With this community of Women Bearing All - I hope to meet other writers, read their work, encourage artistic expression even if the subject matter is unbearable. I have carried more than I thought I could bear - many of us do.

Let's live to tell the tale and not only tell it but sing it with arms around the women still in the thick of it. By it, I am not meaning to refer to any one particular pain - because there are many. And we live to tell of it, and rise above, and lift our voices and laugh and reach a hand out to those who are struggling.

Oh - I have high hopes for this group!

Liesl Garner