Stephens College lies 1,400 miles and thirty-five years from my childhood home in Massachusetts. As I walk across campus here in the heart of Missouri, chapel bells strike the hour and Westminster chimes warp and converge time and space. At this moment, I am home in a confluence of nostalgic feelings that wash over me like water. The Connecticut River of my youth, the Missouri River of my present, and the Mississippi River that flows between lap at the shores of my consciousness. I stand barefoot on the banks and dig my toes into the memories. The chapel bells and the grandfather clock of my childhood unite, resonating inside me, sparking a rhythmic intonation. Home – home – home.
The sound of the chapel bells on campus or dried leaves scuttling across the sidewalk remind me of my childhood. A certain gesture or gait of a stranger brings to mind a loved one I haven’t seen in a while, and miss. Something touches a sense in me, the warmth of the sun on my face as I walk out of shade or shadows or my infant grandson’s body curled in slumber across my chest. Moments and memories, these are where my poems are born.
I believe my writing reflects a confluence of past and present in a home that travels with me. The pieces I chose for my Senior Project not only show my growth as a writer and an individual, they portray the personal and public aspects of my humanity. But is this enough, to just write of our own feelings? As someone who likes to raise social awareness through my writing, I question why the hardest part for me is to take the “I” out of my poetry. I know the poem came from me, it consists of my feelings, but how do I put those feelings on the page so they reach out and touch the reader? What if someone has never cuddled a child on her chest?
In Adrienne Rich’s book What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics, she says a poet must be aware of “…your own level of responsiveness, of responsibility, to what lies around you” (51). The responsive part I get okay…I’m pretty responsive. But, then I wonder if I am being responsive enough or responsive to the right things, the important things. And, what exactly is my level of responsibility? I know I feel compelled to make a difference through my writing. I often hear: write what you know, what you care about, write from the heart. And so I try, but always with a mother’s heart – with love and compassion. I know there is a world of hurt out there and I want to make it better. So I write with the hope that my words will somehow make a difference, no matter how small. The biggest need I would like to fill for others is hope. If my writing enlightens others, inspires them somehow, then I have done something good and worthwhile. Whether I touch one person or many, my goal is to offer them hope or show them they are not alone.
I tend to write simple poems, everyday common poems. Sure, I touch on emotions of importance, such as hope and despair. But, still I wonder about my own level of responsibility, and how do I know it is enough? I suppose these are questions most poets ponder, and perhaps it is the task of the individual poet to find his or her own level of responsibility. I know Rich’s words have raised awareness in me as a poet, and I know I must share my words, my “visions.” Maybe I don’t need to pull the “I” out–maybe the “I” is really “We.” So what if someone has never cuddled a child on her chest? Perhaps my poem will touch a part of her that longs for the warmth or closeness of another human being.
When I first came to Stephens, I thought of myself as a poet and freelance writer of non-fiction who had dabbled a bit in short fiction. I knew I would be expanding my horizons as a writer, but I never dreamed I would write a screenplay or become a playwright–those genres were for other people, not me. I knew a good play when I read one or saw one performed, but the thought of writing in that genre myself never entered my mind. Then I took a class that changed my world–Introduction to Writing for Performance–and I learned that my words could cross genres, and that the “I” could become the “We.”
In her essay “Intimate Partners,” performer and scholar Elyse Lamm Pineau quotes Bryant Alexander’s definition of generative autobiography as “a performative response to a signifying encounter with an autobiographical other” (41). Pineau goes on to say “…generative autobiography replenishes the stories of our shared humanity” (41). For years I have wanted to tell the story of children in foster care, and although I have written many poems about and for them, the message of what it is like to be in “the system” wasn’t making the impact I hoped it would. As a foster parent, adoptive and biological mother, and a strong advocate for children’s welfare, I want others to know what it is like to care for a neglected or abused child. I want them to see and hear and feel what it is like to be taken from the only home you’ve ever known and placed with strangers. Playwriting gives me that opportunity. Through performance writing I can share these stories with an audience, orally and physically, thereby connecting with an audience and keeping the stories alive. It is my hope that my play “Defining Family” will convey, without being didactic, the messages of innocence lost, fear of the future, learning to trust, and the longing to be loved that so many of these children experience.
In my autobiographical performance piece, “The Path,” I wanted to get the message across of how the choices we make affect our future. The literal “path” in this piece became an extended metaphor for “the path” my early choices led me down, and the struggles I’ve experienced to get where I am now – graduating Magna Cum Laude from a prestigious women’s college at the age of fifty. Still, I hesitated…did I really want to share this part of my life? I mean, it’s not something I’m proud of, but then I thought maybe by letting others know how my poor choices affected me, I could get the “don’t do what I did” message across without being preachy.
The theme of family appears time and again in my writing, no matter the genre. Family means community to me, whether it is my own family, my Stephens family, or any other group of people influential in my life. Some of my writing includes memories of important events, such as my father’s death in the poem “Restaurant Matters.” Other poems, such as “The Secrets She Kept” and “Distant Screams,” portray parts of my childhood that helped shape the person I am today. My screenplay, “Carla’s Coffee,” is based on a currently typical weekend morning at my home. It seems natural when I write creatively that family, or those people closest to me, somehow make an appearance, even if that was not my original intention! My performance piece “Driving Down County Road 977 on a New Moon Night,” which stemmed from one of my poems, is a perfect example. The poem is about my observations during a late night drive and has no reference to family. Yet, when I incorporated the poem into a performance piece, there they were, in the opening scene! The piece begins with a telephone conversation with my oldest son about babysitting my grandchildren, which preceded the late night drive from whence the poem was born. Not only does this show the influence of family in my writing, it shows how I have learned to combine genres and how I have become more than just a writer–I can actually perform my own work!
Until I took the poetry workshops with Terry Song at Stephens, I was lucky if I could get up in front of an audience and read my poetry without passing out. I have always been shy and the thought of public speaking terrified me! Yet, through Terry’s classes, I learned to memorize and perform my own poetry in front of an audience. This helped prepare me for the Writing Through Performance class I am in now, doing solo performances of my own writing.
I still have a long way to go, but I have gained so much confidence in myself as a writer these past two years, I feel the possibilities are endless! I will continue to work on the plays I have begun, to revise my poetry until it is ready for publication, and to forge ahead with my memoir. I will pursue my dreams passionately. I will share my knowledge and continue to learn through writing workshops in the community and beyond. The written word illuminates my path, and I know that wherever I go, I will always be home.
Works Cited
Pineau, Alyce Lamm. “Intimate Partners.” Voices Made Flesh. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2003.
Rich, Adrienne. What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. New York: Norton, 1993.