This Machine Kills Fascists: Woody Guthrie at Age 100

One hundred years ago today, Woody Guthrie was born in Oklahoma.  His early years were dicey:  born into a middle-class family that was about to become much poorer as the nation plunged into the Great Depression with a mother who was mentally unstable because of Huntington's disease.  Soon, he was on his own.

He travelled the country, often by jumping on trains.  I tend to romanticize those journeys and forget about how dangerous they were.  I'm influenced by the amazing songs that came out of those travels.  But if we're brutally honest, it's amazing that Woody Guthrie survived those journeys and was able to create art.

Many of his fellow travellers died.  The hobo lifestyle exposes one to all sorts of dangers beyond the basic danger of jumping on a moving train:  the elements, criminals, unsavory public officials and sheriffs, hunger.

Woody Guthrie did many things in his life, but he's most famous for his songwriting.  A great article on Woody Guthrie in The Washington Post reminds us:  "But Guthrie’s long-term influence as a singer-songwriter can’t be overstated. 'For the folk revivalists,' Place says, 'Woody was the great folksinger, the authentic voice. He wasn’t the first to do this, but [with] the concept of the singer-songwriter, he was the really big one. Nowadays, most people who play acoustic guitar are going to play their own songs. But before Guthrie,hardly anyone was doing that.'”  (Jeff Place is an archivist for the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage).

Guthrie was not what has come to be the stereotype of the morose singer-songwriter, working out relationships in song.  No, Guthrie saw himself fighting injustice and preserving the lives of those society forgets or casts out.  He had a sticker on his guitar that declared, "This machine kills fascists."  And in some ways, he singlehandedly made great strides, dragging society along with him, in making our culture more inclusive.

It's even more amazing when you consider how little musical training he had.  He couldn't read music, but that didn't stop him.  He often used songs that were already in existence and changed the lyrics.  In many ways, it's a brilliant technique.  Not only could he remember them this way, but others could too.

A recent episode of Talk of the Nation includes this nugget: "Guthrie, you know, he consciously used older melodies - and a lot of composers have done that - so that the audience can immediately pick up on it. So you, like, start singing - you know, like the song we listened to, 'Big City Ways,' is based off a major country hit at the time called 'Brown's Ferry Blues.' So everybody who was like - who knew that song could just immediately pick up on it and sing along. And that was, you know - and people say, OK. Is that stealing? No. It's just the way that topical songs work. People wanted - well, he wanted these things to be sung by the people" (Hear or read the NPR program here).

I've often wondered if poets should be taking their cues from Woody Guthrie, if poetry might not be an endangered art form if more of us did.  I've written before about sneering dismissals about poetry being accessible--but artists like Guthrie remind us of the importance of accessibility, especially if we're looking to make meaningful changes in the world.

Today, on the 100th anniversary of Guthrie's birth, is a good time to think about our own art.  What do we hope to accomplish?  If we championed the forgotten and the outcast, which groups would we showcase in our work?  Can protest art be more beautiful and enticing than it has been?  Can we be angry without being alienating?

On the hundredth anniversary of our own births, what would we hope that future scholars and historians focused upon?

The Woody Guthrie website

Another great NPR story about Woody Guthrie on Fresh Air

Of Pies and "Plume"

Yesterday, I began the day thinking about pies, particularly the ones made by my grandmother.  Early in the day, I also learned that Marion Cunningham had died.  I first thought of Ritchie's mom on the T.V. show Happy Days.  After a minute of confusion, I realized that the Marion Cunningham who died was the woman who so impressed James Beard that he recommended her to update/rewrite The Fanny Farmer Cookbook.  She went on to write many others.

What sticks with me most about that retrospective of Cunningham's life was that she began this career after she turned 50.  Unlike the success narratives so popular in the U.S., she was able to accomplish quite a lot, even though she got what for most of us would be an unbearably late start.

Like many women artists, however, she had children to raise, which she did, before going on to other methods of fulfillment.  Even though I have no children, I still love these narratives of people who achieve levels of success, even though they're older.  I'm surrounded by stories of this 20-something who wins this award, and that 20-something who has published these umpteen fabulous things.  It's good to remember that we don't have to achieve our full potential in the first quarter of our lives.

I love that Cunningham took one of her passions and turned it into a career.  I thought of this story in The Washington Post about a woman who gives pie baking lessons in home kitchens.  For the privilege of learning how to bake a perfect (in an artisanal way) pie, her students pay $200.  They get a pie to take home and a slice of pie (made earlier in the day) and champagne to enjoy together at the end of their endeavor.

I thought about the women who paid $200 for this adventure.  It made me think about what I want to learn and how much I'd be willing to pay.  It made me contemplate my skills.  It made me want pie.

Later in the afternoon, I consumed all of Kathleen Flenniken's collection of poems, Plume, in one setting.  I'll be writing a longer review in August, when I have a series of reviews of apocalyptic books planned (look for it August 19-22).  But in the meantime, let me just say that the book is indeed as wonderful as I'd heard it to be.

Wonderful and terrifying.  Reading her poems which weave together historical data of the most chilling kind and personal stories of loss and images of the scarred landscape around the Hanford Nuclear Reservation made me want something comforting even more.

It made me wish that I had a pie waiting for me when I got home.  A pot pie, followed by a fruit pie for dessert. 

Of course, slaying my nuclear nightmares with pie is a sure, albeit delicious, recipe for weight gain.  Instead, I went to spin class, where I pedaled away my stress to Motown music.  A great way to end the day!  Not as tasty as pie, but a healthier option for the long term.

Yearning for the Past: Civil War Reenactors and Girls Who Miss Their Grandmas

Recently, I read this review of Charlie Schroeder's Man of War:  My Adventures in the World of Historical Reenactment.  It took me back to days in South Carolina, not as a reenactor by any means.  Oh, no, I like too many modern comforts, like toilet paper, for that.  But the review took me back to my days as a woman shopping for fabric with my grandmother.

Long ago, my grandmother made most of my skirts and shorts and the occasional shirt, if the pattern was simple enough.  I was a poor student, so I was happy for her to sew for me; my mother remembers wishing she could afford clothing ready made from stores when she was an adolescent, but I did not.  My grandmother had long days, so she was happy for sewing projects to fill the hours.

When I'd go to visit her, we'd go to the fabric stores.  Even when she couldn't sew as much, we'd still go to fabric stores together.  I was shopping for fabric for quilts, but even if I hadn't been, we'd have likely gone to fabric stores out of habit.

I loved the store in 96, South Carolina (yes, that's the name of a town).  At one point, the fabric store was attached to a factory that made the cloth.  We always found bolts of cloth there that we wouldn't find elsewhere.

96 Fabrics also had a corner of the store devoted to Civil War reenactors.  It had period authentic fabrics and buttons and other dry goods.  It had patterns.  As I sifted through the items, I thought that a historian could tell a lot about the Civil War by looking at this corner of the store.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that a historian could tell a lot about our modern culture, by analyzing our fascination with the various time periods that take hold of us.

I didn't ever buy any of the materials or dry goods.  It was incredibly pricy to be authentic.

I never really thought that store would go away, but it has.  Maybe it's relocated; I heard rumors, just before my grandmother got too frail to go shopping with me, that the store moved to Abbeville.

I wish I had taken pictures of that corner of the store.  The term "store" is really a misnomer.  It was a warehouse, with high ceilings and ducts of all sorts running overhead.  The floor was concrete, with all sorts of fibers blowing through from the factory.  It had some partitions up, to set aside parts of the store.  There was the reenactors corner, just a few jumps away from the bridal section.  There were vast tables of remnants, most of which were astonishingly cheap.

I wish I could go shopping with my grandmother again.  I wish I knew how to sew.  I wish I had time to sew.

I wish I could travel back in time, just for one summer afternoon.  I'd go to 96 Fabrics with my grandmother again.  I'd love to hear her say, "Greenwood is growing," as she always did about her the town in which she'd spent the better part of her life.  I'd love to hear her memories of what used to be on which corner.  I'd love to come home to a dinner of her good cooking:  pork chops with gravy and white rice (or maybe some sort of chicken casserole), at least 4 vegetables on the side, with her homemade rolls. 

I'd pay big money to have one of her pies again, even if I couldn't have the meal.  She always apologized for her piecrusts, which tasted fine to me.  I loved every pie she ever made, except for banana cream pie (because I don't like bananas, not because there was anything wrong with her pie).

And after dessert, it would be great to sit on the porch, watching the world go by, watching darkness gathering in, seeing fireflies beginning their flickering.

Writing at Work

I expected to get more writing tasks accomplished in the past few weeks, despite the fact that I continued to work, even though the faculty and students were taking their vacation time.  In fact, I expected to get more writing tasks done because the faculty and students were taking their vacation time.  I thought the place would be delightfully empty.  It was.  But I met people for lunch and recovered from/prepared for Vacation Bible School and caught up on the work that didn't get done before the term ended . . . and before I knew it, the time off was over.

I got more done Monday and yesterday, despite frequent interruptions, than I did during the blissful quiet of faculty/student vacation.  It makes me wonder about my ideas of needing peace and quiet and knowing that I won't be interrupted.

Part of my break was consumed by trying to make sure that desks and chairs were ready for the start of our quarter.  Even on Monday, the task wasn't done--insert a heavy sigh here because it shouldn't be so hard to add 10 desks to one classroom, 15 to another, and to convert a room that's been storing all sorts of junk into a lecture room (people have known that the task needed to be completed for at least 5 weeks).

At one point during the break, I called the dean to tell him that we had no classroom just 2 days before the start of the quarter.  He said, "I'm coming right over.  We'll look at it together."

So, I didn't want to start on any important projects, since I expected to be interrupted momentarily.  I thought about writing a blog post entitled "Things to Do While Waiting on the Dean."  It would include things like "sort through your old e-mails" and "sort through your paper files."

But I decided that the larger issue is more interesting.  You see, my dean never made it to my building.  And I spent 2 hours taking care of not-very-important things.  Sure, at some point my e-mail system will crash if I don't sort through the old e-mails.  But I could have spent those 2 hours writing or sending out submissions or sorting through my blog posts on my memoir quest.

Why didn't I?

For fear of being interrupted.  As simple as that.

Yet, on Monday and Tuesday, when I knew I would be interrupted, I was able to accomplish some writing tasks:  a few submissions, cleaning up my blog links, some work on the memoir project.  And I was interrupted, and I was able to keep the writing task in mind while dealing with the issue that interrupted it.  Not a huge deal.

It makes me wonder how much more I could accomplish if I forced myself to work despite my fear of interruption.  Once upon a time, I didn't start a writing task unless I was sure I had a chunk of time--at least 1 hour.  Now, I'm better at not demanding huge swaths of time.

My next task:  to get over my fear of interruption!

Turning Japanese: Monday Jitters and Joys

--I am relieved to see my blog up and normal looking today.  I half expected to see Japanese when I logged in this morning.

--Why would I expect to see Japanese?  Yesterday, Kathleen Kirk wrote to me:  "BUT, in attempting to link to Pudding House, I clicked the book cover at your blog and was taken to a Japanese site. I clicked translate, and it was a business site and/or fake business site (?!) (or has Pudding House disappeared?)."

--One other link on my blogsite page also linked to a site that looked Japanese.  That link once upon a time took readers to a poem in an online journal.  I suspect the link has been dead for some time.  Still, it's disconcerting that two links on my blogsite took people to Japanese sites.

--My anxiety was exacerbated by the fact that I was writing on a day when the FBI took down its software that kept a dangerous virus from infecting computers--why would we get rid of that protection?

--But Kathleen and I had a great e-mail exchange.  She's planning to use my poems in a workshop that she offers.  That idea brings me such joy.

--I'm going to offer her workshop participants a deal on my chapbooks.  I'll make readers here the same offer:  get my first chapbook for $6.00 (original cover price $8.95, but $10.00 from the publisher now) and my second for $10.00 (originally $12), or get them both for $15.00.  Plus I'll pay for shipping.  Christmas will be here before we know it.  Order now!  I'll honor this offer until Labor Day ends, the unofficial end of summer.

--Last night, after deleting strange/corrupted links from my blog, I went to my boot camp exercise class.  It's held on the 8th floor of a hospital where my little gym exists (my little gym began life by being a place that educated heart attack patients in new ways of living life).  It's one of the higher points in Ft. Lauderdale.  As I did jumping jacks, I saw a flock of parrots (the tiny green kind) swoop and swerve.  It made me insanely happy.

--I wonder if they could see me.  I wonder what they would have thought.  I like the idea that seeing humans working out makes them happy in the same way that their flight makes me happy.

--I got home to find my pecans had been delivered.  I'm a Southern girl who needs a supply of pecans.   But lately, the price has skyrocketed, for a variety of reasons.  Happily, Koinonia Partners offers a great deal (go here for a variety of options).  And I'm supporting the social justice group that helped bring racial integration to Georgia and created Habitat for Humanity (more here).

--My grandmother used to have a pecan tree, and I remember one Thanksgiving when I collected pecans and shelled them and filled our freezer (my grandmother had already filled her freezer with the bumper crop that came that year).  I miss that tree, which had to be cut down.  I miss my grandmother.  But she would be happy that I'm supporting American farmers with my pecan purchase.  I'm happy too.

--All in all, it could have been a worse first day of classes in our Summer quarter.  We had enough chairs for all the students (last week this time, I wasn't sure we would).  The students who came to me with problems presented problems that were easily solved.  My blogsite and documents haven't been corrupted, as far as I can see.  I submitted a submission to Rattle for their Speculative Poetry section (sci-fi and alternate realities, a genre I experiment with occasionally).  I saw parrots.  And I have 5 pounds of pecans to keep in the freezer.

If You Think You Don't Have Time to Cook, or Money

During this week's On Being episode, Krista Tippett interviewed chef Dan Barber.  She asked what he would say to someone who has children and a job and who sees pre-packaged food as a salvation of sorts because there is no time to cook and the pre-packaged food is cheaper anyway.

He replied, " . . .if I said to you that 25 years ago, you know, with all the time spent on TV, we're going to spend another four hours a day on average on the Internet, and you would say, 'Wow, I can't believe we'd fine four hours in the day.' I'd say, not only people are going to find four hours, but 95 percent penetration of Internet use for 4.5 hours a day or whatever it's up to today average, you would say that's absolutely crazy. Nobody will spend that time, nobody has that time in the day. Well, we figured out how to do it. So the question comes down to priorities. To what extent is cooking and eating and all the rest of the things that are attached to that, to what extent does that become a priority? And if it is a priority, you make the time.

It goes hand in hand with the amount of money you spend because what we're talking about — and I don't want to skirt around it; I think it's a big issue. It's more expensive. There's no question about it. You're paying the real cost of growing food. Locally, it's usually more expensive. So the question is, again back to the Internet example or cellphone use, 25 years ago, if I said there'd be 95 percent penetration in cable television, you all would have said, 'That's nuts. We have free television. Who is going to be able to find $125 a month extra?' You all would have agreed with Krista, right? I would say, not only that, you're going to find another $125 for cellphone use in disposable income. Everyone would say, 'Oh, $250 extra? Nobody has that money.' Well, of course, we found it because we found it indispensable without those things. So can we excite this issue around food and pleasure to the extent that people feel the same way about dinner?"

But let's remind ourselves that it doesn't have to cost a lot in terms of time or money to cook at home.  It's fairly easy to roast a chicken, and much cheaper than that rotisserie chicken would be.  It only takes about 25 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken.  Throw some cut up potatoes and carrots in the pan with the roasting chicken, and soon, you'll have a delicious meal.

I could write a whole cookbook of recipes that only take 30-45 minutes to cook, and not much time to assemble beforehand.  But until I get around to that project, there are plenty of cookbooks and websites  with those kind of ideas already in existence.

If you need additional reasons to cook, it's good to remind ourselves of how subversive an activity cooking can be.  We're surrounded by a variety of corporations who would like us to become increasingly unable to feed ourselves, and thus, increasingly reliant on their products they desperately want us to buy.  When we cook lower on the production chain, we subvert that process.

If we want to be truly subversive, we can grow more of our own food, or if we're lucky enough to live near them, we can support smaller-scale farmers.

And if we want to be subversive to the ninth power, we can turn off our televisions and electronic devices.  We can set the table.  We can talk to each other.

We could even invite others to our table.  Now that could be a culture changing, culture challenging act!

What Workplaces Celebrate

On my theology blog, I've been thinking about charitable giving, not only of money, but also time.  How would the world change if we donated 10% of our time to charitable and justice activities?

I've also been thinking about careers.  If I could reshape my life to look any way I wanted, what would a day in the life of ideal self be?  A week?  A year?  More on that later, as I ponder more.  But I'll begin with a question that pokes me again and again.

What would it be like to work for an organization that encouraged me to do social justice work?  I have been known to sneak away from work to serve dinner to homeless men. I return to my office refreshed and renewed in a way that I'm not if I sneak away to have dinner with a friend.

What if I didn't have to sneak away?  What if charitable work was celebrated?

So far, I've been moderately supported in my artistic endeavors at work.  There is no money for travel, but so far, I've been allowed to use computer resources:  composing at my work desk, preparing packets of poems for submissions, that kind of thing.

My friends and I do wonder what would happen if something we composed at work went on to earn us fabulous wealth, would the company come after us for some of the money?

You laugh, I know, at the idea of a poet earning anything.  But I'm putting together a memoir.  What if I become the next Kathleen Norris or that woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, to make this analogy work better.  Would my for-profit college want some of my profits?

I shall worry about that day when it comes.  In the meantime, I'll continue to write and continue to look for ways to infuse writing, along with my other values, into my work day.  I'll continue to remind myself to feel gratitude that I'm allowed to do that.  My workplace is not so brutal that I can't write a poem or rearrange my schedule so that I'm free to go off to feed homeless men.