PoMo2013 - Poem 26 - Nikky Finney

Nikky Finney, Last night

Seattle Arts and Lectures' Poetry Series, 4/25/13 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be generous, she said

after rounds of stand-up applause
for the 10^th grade WITS* poet
who read her poem
before Finney walked on stage
to more stand-up
applause
from a Seattle audience
who made her feel,
she said, like a rock star.

Be generous she repeated.
Support your poets out loud.
Give them tools
to craft their work is
what Finney’s mother did
and her grandmother
and siblings
and her father too.
And then came Colleen McElroy
(in the audience)
who taught her excellence
and Lucille Clifton who,
finding the younger poet scrambling
and embarrassed at her door,
said:  Come on in child.
And then came Nikki Giovanni
whose own mother helped red-ink
Finney’s poems-in-progress.
and later paraded
them down the street.

Be generous, Finney said

support your kin
treat them as if
they are
already famous
so they 
learn
to say
their poems
out loud.

Be generous,
so the poet
can tell
her stories.
and tell them
true.

-Esther Altshul Helfgott
4/26/13

*Writers in the School

PoMo2013 - Poem 25 - "Accident"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accident

The son and father

whose parents were killed

and wife and baby injured

by a drunk driver

across from the school yard

heard about the accident

on the news.

He had a hunch it was his family
and raced over to Harborview 
Hospital to find his life

was over

as he had known it.
Flowers line the curbside

along NE 75th

where the family's bodies

laid strewn across the street,

the drunk driver

leaning on a police car

and a first responder

so shaken he can't work

the district

for the next two weeks. 
When he returns,
the first call

he gets 

is from a
woman
poet

whose house

got egged. 
What a relief ,

his body

said.
 

-Esther Altshul Helfgott

4/25/13

PoMo2013 - poem 24 - "To the Aspiring Poet"

1

Poems are to be
used in everyday life
is my answer to the aspirng poet
who wants to publish in the New Yorker
and nowhere else, except maybe a
peer-review journal that makes you wait
a year or more before a committee
decides your work
meets its editorial needs.

2

What this aspiring poet doesn’t know

is that poetry needs to sing in the rain
it needs to come alive in the middle of an afternoon.
It needs to dance 
in the dark
of night.

It’s not just the poet who needs
Poems have needs too.
They need to be outside
everyday, in the fresh,
or the stale, air.

3

This aspiring poet does the work of poetry. She writes .

She attends poetry gatherings and discusses her work
with other writers.
She reads in open mikes
and once in awhile
gives her own fifteen-minute readings.
She  keeps a journal of her days
and a notebook full of poems.
Most of all, she reads poetry, lots of poetry.
She doesn’t need a famous magazine to tell her she’s a poet.
She already is and shouldn’t hide her work
in envelopes waiting to be read.
Send them out, I tell her.
Or post them on a blog.

 4

But if I post them on my blog, she says,

the journals won’t accept them.
That’s their loss, I tell her.
Besides, the world is changing
The publishing world is.
Famous is not what it used to be.

5

The poem is a vehicle for responding
to current events, to the goings-on around you.
Poetry-making need not be a closed network,
unless you participate in making it so.
Speak your poems now, I advise this poet.
People are waiting to hear you. 
I'm waiting to hear you. 

-Esther Altshul Helfgott
4/24/13

PoMo2013 - Poem 23- "Fifth Grade"

Fifth Grade

  If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.

                                                                     - David Foster Wallace

 

When I was in elementary school,
I got A+’s in Handwriting.
In fifth grade, the only student
who came close to me in that subject
was a boy named Barry.
I don't know
what happened
to Barry and his handwriting

but mine led me
to hours of anguish.
 

I’d get all the way to the end of a page

without making a mistake

and then

on the last line

if my cursive wasn’t just right

and if an erasure
threatened
to expose my imperfections
I'd have to re-start.

 

My sister said I made her crazy
watching me
re-write
letters
to my 5^th grade-pen pal.

And you know the envelopes
had to be perfect too (but that's
another story).

For class, I wrote my stories

over and over again
and I wrote with a #3 pencil,
as if I didn’t want anybody
to see what I was writing.

Mother kept telling me
to use #2 pencils,
but the print

didn’t look as pretty

on the page.

To make a long story short:

I got A+ in Handwriting,
but I didn’t turn
my work in
on time.

This led people to think I was slow.
- Esther Altshul Helfgott
4/23/13

PoMo2013- poem 22 - A Woman Is

Circa 1946

 

 

A woman is

her body of work

which is

her thinking

inside her

pen

 

Esther Altshul Helfgott

4/22/13

PoMo2013 Worth It - poem 21

Worth It

People
fight and fight
to stay alive
and
then
they die.
I don't get it.

If I believed
in God (for sure)
would my
questions be
the same?

On the other
hand,
the answers
don't matter.
It's the fight that's
worth it.
-Esther Altshul Helfgott
4/22/13

PoMo2013 "Call (My Baltimore) Sandy"

Today's To Do List

Call (My Baltimore) Sandy

1

Say hello to Sandy = half hour
Laugh with Sandy = one hour
Cry with Sandy = 15 minutes
Laugh with Sandy = half hour
Say goodbye to Sandy = 1 hour

2

Check your phone bill

3

Start
packing
for
reunion.
-Esther Altshul Helfgott
4/21/13

PoMo2013 - Poem 19

 

Can't sleep

Even though I can't sleep
-  it's been hours -
the dog's snoring soothes me.
What's keeping me up
but a list of things:
Guns
Drunken drivers
Boston,
Waco.

Gas stations
in Washington,
D.C.
Bad politicians,
Newtown.

Good things keep me up too:
The man at the diner 
who asked me out.
The library book 
I want to write in.
Tap dancing lessons.

My parents,
children ,
and siblings
The bowling
league I just
might
join.

My book
coming out
this summer!

Life is good
because more people
are precious
than they are monstrous,
say the news
casters.

Meanwhile,
my dog's
back
warms mine.
Tomorrow,
I'll take her to the park--
if it doesn't rain.

-Esther Altshul Helfgott

4/19/13

PoMo2013 - Poem 18

Artist Trust/Edge Reading

Seattle is a place to blossom as we turn the pages of our lives,    
an ideal place to grow into crone-hood.

                                       - Faye Reitman                                            

Eighteen cross-genre writers
reading five minutes each
take turns lavishing
personal idiosyncrasies
and tone
on a packed house
of language lovers.

I ask the woman sitting next to me,
tears streaming down her face.
why she's crying
and she says:

They're so good,
They've worked hard
and I'm proud of them.

I squeeze her hand
and the two of us hug
as if we knew
each other
long before
today.

My friend Faye
up from California
says:

I heard Seattle
was a reading town
But I didn't know
it was a place to blossom
in the basement of a book store
or on someone else's unseen page.
I think I'll move here.

And she did.

         -Esther Altshul Helfgott
                4/19/13

 

PoMo2013 - Poem 17

Abe, Lisa & Hunter

Abe's Red Suspenders

He wore red socks too.
That's what caught my eye.
The red socks,
ski hat, and twinkly eyes.
He sat down next to me,
held out his hand
and said Hi.
I'm Abe.
What could I do
but shake his hand
and say Hi
back. Where you from,
he asked. Easy to tell
I wasn't from Seattle.
Baltimore, I said.
You?
The Bronx, he announced
as if it were the center of the world
and it was to him, still,
albeit he'd been away from there
thirty years or more.

No coincidence we met
in a Jewish history class
at a neighborhood shul.
In Seattle, Jews
who never walked into a shul
before moving West
ended up in one just to hear familiar Ashkenazi sounds
to meet people who moved their hands when they talked -
I move mine a lot - so he liked me, not just for that
of course, but also because I liked his red socks
which I told him, and it made him smile.

At the time he wasn't wearing suspenders
but later, when we were married
at least ten years and he started wearing
them because his body was changing
and belts didn't work as well any more,
I liked them - those suspenders - too.
He's been gone almost three years now
and I still have the suspenders
but I threw the red socks out.

-Esther Altshul Helfgott
4/19/13

PoMo2013-Poem 16



4/16/13

Food Poisoning

Shell fish dinner
brought me here
to Group Health
Hospital's
room
at the top.

PoMo2013- Poem 15 - Boston marathon

 Daughter's medal

All three of my children

   
     home tonight
                    limbs
            intact
 

are marathon runners
 
    in New York
         California
              Boston
                    and
                   Washington
                        State

Damn to the haters
          who would take
               their lives away.
You are despicable.

               There is no poetry
                       in the work you do.

Your purpose
                   is shame.

- Esther Altshul Helfgott
  4/15/13

PoMo2013 - Poem 14

oy, yoy, yoy

Taxes

Time is
A-moving.
X-cuses
Esther?
Seventeen hours to go!
       
         

        

Poetry Month 2013 - Poem for Day 13 - "Inked in"

 

He inked me in on his calendar

                           -    For a grade school classmate

                              who now has a beard

 

Even though he has to schlep more miles
than he wants to and knows he will be fuming
at drivers along the way
my childhood friend agrees
to pick me up from Dulles airport
and drive me to Baltimore
for our elementary school
reunion.

When I say it’s too much of a schlep,

too stressful in the rush-hour traffic
he says: I've already inked you in
on my calendar
and I don't have the eraser
you asked me for in second grade!
Airline and flight time, please?

I know this boy-man since first grade –

Mrs. Solomon’s class -
Louisa May Alcott’s P.S.#59,
Reisterstown Road and Keyworth Avenue,
Baltimore 15, Maryland.

He doesn't seem to have changed

since the Halloween party

he escorted me to in third grade
or the walk we took to Cooper’s Deli
on Oswego Avenue after a party
in sixth grade.

I've barely seen him since.

Yet he inks me in on his calendar
and won’t find the eraser
I asked him to pass me
across our desks
in second grade.

That's why I want to go back

to my elementary school reunion,
I tell a Seattle friend who asks me.
I still have family there,
mishpacha, however extended.

                        -Esther Altshul Helfgott

 

Norma Jean - Poetry Month 2013 - Day 12

     

Norma Jean

          -after Norma Barzman (1920 - )




 



Did you know
         because I didn’t
not until I read
Norma Barzman’s
memoir, The Red
and the Blacklist
that in 1947,
before Marilyn Monroe
was Marilyn Monroe
as we know her,
she was on her way
to a party at Vincent
Minnelli’s
house
(just after Liza was born)
and was stopped by police
at a road block.

A deputy sheriff, stopping every car
going up the hill toward the Minelli’s,
asked drivers: where are you going?
Not to 1290 Sunset Plaza Drive, are you?
he asked Norma.
Subversives live there.

The young blonde was irate
and promptly drove up the hill
and into the driveway
of 1290 Sunset Plaza Drive
and found Norma and Ben Barzman
sitting on their lawn.

The two Normas introduced themselves
and Ben went to make drinks
while drivers-by slowed down
and stalled in front of the Barzman house.
Norma Jean said: I don’t know what’s going on
and I don’t want to bring you bad news
but you’re being watched
and Ben said:
We were planning to have a meeting
for The Hollywood Ten.

Years later, expatriates in France the Barzmans
saw a newspaper photo of Marilyn Monroe
Hey!  Ben yelled, That girl! The blonde who warned us!
It was Marilyn Monroe.
Remember? 
She said her name was Norma.
                                    -Esther Altshul Helfgott, 4/12/13

Source:
The Red and the Blacklist: The Intimate Memoir of A Hollywood Expatriate (Thunder Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003) pp. 96-99

 

Swimming a poem - Poetry Month 2013 - Day 11

Swimming a Poem

                        - for Hunter


Ian & Hunter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fifteen year old

freshman
on his high school
swim team, Hunter
glides through water
as if he were a poem
slinging rhymes
in the air.
This young swimmer
working with his team mates
forms
nothing less
than an orchestra
playing a concerto
for the rest of us.
His is an example
of a body in harmony
with itself, a teenager
balancing
home, school
and friendships
and who makes his grandma
proud. As does his dad,
Ian, who drives
his son
to practice,
waits for him
every day.
-Esther Altshul Helfgott

Books as Wares, Poetry Month 2013 - Day 10

 

Books as Wares:

A response to those who think celebrating publications on Facebook is elitist


I would say that

intellectual elitism

means
one lords one’s way of life
and thinking
over someone else’s
way of life
and thinking
and that she believes
people who don't get
advanced degrees
for whatever reason -
lack of opportunity
and funds,
emotional
or
cultural
intimidation,
language challenges,
choice,
and so on -
are less than.

In another matter
or perhaps the same -

arrogance walks with
and assumes
an air of superiority
one who is overbearing in her claims.
Professors and teachers often
have this problem
because they're taught
and paid to be
expert in their subjects.
In my view,
the challenge for experts
is how to leave their professorial
and pedantic
manners
in the classroom.
This is not to say 
that experts who write
and craft books
who spend their time editing and proofing
and reading and re-reading
so others can learn the subjects 
they're expert in,
should hide the finished work they do.

When their articles and books are published,

experts have as much right to show their wares -
that is what books and articles (and poems) are
wares (products of work)
as the hats of hat designers are wares
as the cabinets of cabinet makers are wares
and the bridges or houses of architects
and the working-pipes of plumbers
as the electrician’s exacting light-fixtures
as the hairstyles of hairdressers
are wares and the dance of the dancer.
Any ware, any product - especially books
in my opinion - working
to move our poor suffering
lot of humanity
forward
is worthy
of Facebook
display
and celebration. 
-Esther Altshul Helfgott

Poetry Month 2013 – Day 9

What does it mean to sleep with stuffed animals?


 Ian with his beloved Batman

To put one’s hopes and love
into a transitional object,
such as a teddy bear or hippo
or even a Wonder Woman doll?
Everyone has stuffed animals.
Sherry Turkle’s robots at MIT
have them.
They have toys and dolls
and vast numbers of other playthings.
But tell me,
do human children
really feel better
when they sleep with stuffed animals?
What does it mean to them?
I want to know
because
I’ve never slept with one -
ever.
 - Esther Altshul Helfgott

The Packages - for Jackie - Poetry Month 2013 - Day 8

The Packages 

                  -for Jackie

Inside the packages
she found on her steps this morning
were forty volumes of books she edited
and opened after her ten-mile run.
This girl-woman who is my daughter
produces more in  half a day
(keinahorah -
toi toi - the evil eye
shouldn't get her)
than most people
produce
in weeks of whole days.
How she does this
is beyond me
 but for better or worse -
wear and tear on joints
notwithstanding -
this girl-woman
daughter
mother-teacher
is a scholar
who,
like the waitress
she was throughout
her school years,
looks intellectual elitism in the eye.
For that I am most proud,
and I promise to forgive her
the next time
she texts
while
talking to me.
        - Esther Altshul Helfgott