I read in the paper today that Ruth Bernhard, the celebrated photographer, passed away in her home in San Francisco at the age of 101. I know of Ms. Bernhard and her work from my studies at Vermont College. In my third semester my study was centered around an overview of art, artists and creating my own art. My dear advisor, Charlotte Hastings, who knew I wanted to explore individuals who not only crafted beautiful art but a rich and meaningful life,  sent me a book about Ms. Bernhard written by Margaretta K. Mitchell entitled Ruth Bernhard: Between Art and Life. I found the photography striking and unusual. She was renowned for her beautiful and sensitive female nudes in black and white. She was also a beloved teacher and mentor to hundreds (maybe thousands) of young photographers.

In reading about her, as much as I was impressed with her art and dedication to teaching, I was even more so with her philosophy of life and her willingness to walk a daring and controversial path as a woman in the early twentieth century. She never married or had children, understanding that to have a family would be a compromise to her art and that she would consider friends, students and colleagues as her "family." After reading her book for my study, I wrote a short piece for my e-letter about her and included her Recipe for a Long and Happy Life. I print it below and include some photos of hers. If you’d like to read more and see more of her photos you can go to the Women in Photography web site.

Recipe for a Long and Happy Life

Last night I was looking through a book about the photographer, Ruth Bernard, who at the time (1999) was 95 years old and still teaching, exhibiting and vitally involved in producing art. Her story and her work are inspirational. I was also thinking about when a friend and I were watching a video about another artist and my friend asked, “Why are all artists so crazy?” I found myself contemplating what it takes to really give yourself to your art and how it is different for every individual. How, each individual has circumstances and choices that influence how they approach life and art. It is certainly true that great poetry, novels, paintings and performances can be created even though the artist is a tortured soul, but it is also true that an artist can produce dynamic work and live happily. Perhaps the latter takes more vigilance, patience, attention to nurturing other aspects of one’s life besides one’s art. Perhaps it is a compromise or, perhaps, simply the grace of God.

Ruth Bernard is an example of someone who certainly lived an unconventional life, but it was one she carved out for herself, one that was particularly suited for who she was and how she wanted to navigate the world. She never married nor had children. She found that the love she so valued could be found among friends, lovers, sharing her knowledge with students. She decided not to confine herself to society’s dictums and to trust her intuition and to “fall madly in love with the world.”

Below is Ruth’s Recipe for a Long and Happy Life. I found it inspiring and plan to refer to it often, especially when I am in one of those emotional valleys that come along every so often.

Recipe for a Long and Happy Life

1.  Never get used to anything.
2.  Hold on to the child in you.
3.  Keep your curiosity alive.
4.  Trust your intuition.
5.  Delight in simple things.
6.  Say “Yes” to life with passion.
7.  Fall madly in love with the world.
8.  Remember: Today is the Day!

Folding 

Straws 

Trees Walking 

When I was growing up our family always drove to the valley, to Portland from our small town of Redmond, to be with my mother’s family for the Christmas holidays. It was a large tribe: Nana and Papa, Aunt Mary & Uncle Vince and their brood of seven (each kid in our family matched up in age with one of theirs), Uncle Butch & Aunt Alice, Auntie’s Dodi & Anna, who lived with Nana and Papa in the house where they were born, (where all ten of their children were born) and numerous other aunts, uncles and cousins racing in and out. These holidays were the highlight of the otherwise long, cold and school-laden winter; Nana’s raviolis and Aunt Mary’s cherry pie, the football games, the banter of the Uncles, playing Scrabble with the Aunt’s and exploring the streets and surrounds of the big city. Nana’s house (it was always her house, even after she was gone for twenty years) sat a few hundred yards from the railroad tracks. I loved the sound of it clacking along the rails, the whistle’s sharp call. Tramps and hobos would often come to the back door for a handout, which Nana always gave. The neighborhood was a little Europe, with Italians, Greeks, Irish, Germans, accents from places that were faraway and a little scary to a girl of seven or eight. Next door on the south side of their place was a “haunted” house inhabited by a Boo Radley type and on the other a robust Irish family, with two handsome red-headed boys in their teens.

On the appointed day of departure I would pack my small bag with pajamas, a sweater, long-sleeved shirts, knit pants, socks and mittens. My sisters and brother would do the same. Dad was always the first one out the door and sitting in the car, tooting the horn and hollering out the window to “Get a move on!” or “What are you doing in there, writing a novel?” He didn’t have to pack himself, nor was he subject to any of the last minute preparations like my mother: cleaning the kitchen, turning off all the lights, turning down the furnace, checking each child’s bags to make sure they brought what they needed, packing hers and Dad’s things—not to mention staying up until two or three a.m. the night before wrapping gifts for each cousin and each one of us with Santa Claus or angel wrapping paper, curled ribbon and red, green or gold bows. Dad’s duties were long ago completed—the car had a tank of gas, oil and anti-freeze checked and the heavy box of chains stashed in the back of the station wagon. When the time had arrived to depart (usually at some ungodly pre-noon time) Dad would begin to rattle his keys, yell upstairs and then down into the basement, “Get a move on! It’s time to go and be sure and go to the bathroom before you get in the car.” (This last command repeated several times, with the final one as we were all seated and ready to go in the driveway.) It was always Mom who would run out last, breathless and laughing, while Dad shook his head and honked as she dashed around the front of the car and slid onto the front seat.

(Read on …)

After hearing for months from my friend Hilda about the monthly poetry reading at Village Books in Pacific Palisades I finally made it last night. I allowed myself plenty of time to make the drive down Pacific Coast Highway and up Temescal Canyon Road to the village center. Three of us (Hilda, our friend Barbara from the Nightbirds, and I) met at six for dinner and to catch up on our respective personal and poetry news, then we walked the two blocks in the crispy coastal air to Village Books. The place was packed, and that doesn’t take much in this diminutive bookstore. It’s one of those rare (I refuse to say "dying") breeds of locally-owned booksellers and with the cost of rents in a place like the Palisades they have to use every square inch to sell their books, which were stacked, piled, and shelved from top to bottom, wall to wall. There were about twenty chairs set up in the front facing the display window and we were advised to grab one now or risk standing.

The monthly readings are called the Moonday Poetry Readings and are co-hosted by Alice Pero and Lois P. Jones. Alice was the emcee for the evening and had us all seated and the first half-hour of open mic readings started right on time at 7:30. Both Hilda and I had signed on to read, along with about fifteen other local poets. Spirits were definitely cheerful and there was a warm and welcoming energy from the regulars, which helped the few newbies, such as myself, feel right at home. Each reader was given two minutes or two poems and the poems, for the most part were well written and well read. I went fourth in the line-up and read a new prose poem and a list poem I had written at Squaw Valley this summer. (To read and hear them scroll down to the next post.)

There is always a "feature" poet or poets, and this month it was a father/son duo, Willis (the father) and Tony Barnstone (Associate Professor at Whittier College). Tony went first and read from a variety of pieces: his translations of the Chinese poets from a soon-to-be-published manuscript and his own poems, both published and new. His presentation was lively, engaging and relaxed. He was good at keeping the audience from glazing over (as he put it) by varying the length of the poems and the subject matter. There were a few poems from one manuscript he is working on that were about WWII soldiers, relaying their own accounts of the events of that war and how they were changed by them. These were my favorite and I would love to have this volume when it comes out. For more information on Tony and to read a couple of his poems click HERE.

Willis Barnstone is a man who has been many, many places on this earth and has rubbed elbows with the likes of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, been published in some of the top journals and magazines in the country, as well as being fluent in Greekand French (he read one poem in each of these languages). He read poems some wonderful poems taking us all over the world and into some lyrical and often humorous places. It was truly inspiring to see a man of his age and stature so delighted to be reading to this small, but enthusiastically attentive group. For more on Willis Barnstone click HERE.

Following the feature reading there was another half-hour of open mic with some wonderful poems; one lady sang, one young man read his poems from his Blackberry (having forgotten to bring poems on paper) and the last gentleman (who came all the way from Westchester) played an exotic stringed instrument with two fret boards (is that what you call them?). I think he said it was a kind of dulcimer, but I could be completely wrong. At about 10:15  the evening wound down and then books were signed and sold. Myself, I was pretty tuckered out so headed on home having had a perfectly charming and surprisingly stimulating evening. As much as I love poetry I have found that even I can get too much of it and start to zone out after an hour or so. Not last night. It was good stuff and I’m definitely going to be frequenting the Monday night readings in the future and keep bringing my poems along. Next time I’ll bring my camera and get some shots to post, as well. If you’re in the area I highly recommend it. Click on MOONDAY to visit their site.

The following two poems I read at the Moonday Poetry Reading. The first is the more recent. It’s a prose poem, a form I have been spending more time with lately. The second is a list poem I wrote at Squaw Valley this summer. Both have been submitted to journals for publication and are out there trying to find a home. Oh, speaking of homes–I just found out that Poetry Evolution has been listed on a blogsearch called BESSED, along with some pretty prestigious web sites. Woo Hoo!

 (My poems originally appeared here, but have been removed. Many journals will not publish a poem that has been previously published anywhere, including a personal blog. Hopefully you’ll see It’s My Opinion and I Would Tell You printed elsewhere soon.)

I’ve been reading a bit of Thomas Lux’s poems this past week. He is going to be at two upcoming events in January and February that I am attending so thought I’d sit with some of his work. I like his mix of reality and fantasy, how he straddles these two worlds with a kind of sad, angry, compassionate humor. I know that sounds contradictory, but I believe we can inhabit all these emotions at the same time, in fact, it’s more the norm (and really healthier when we do), than having a singular emotion powering our outlook. He goes for irony in a big way and  dips often into a wry look at how society functions as in his poem You Go to School to Learn.

You go to school to learn to
read and add, to someday
make some money. It—money—makes
sense: you need
a better tractor, an addition
to the gameroom, you prefer
to buy your beancurd by the barrel.
Three’s no other way to get the goods
you need. Besides, it keeps people busy
working—for it.
It’s sensible and, therefore, you go
to school to learn (and the teacher,
having learned, gets paid to teach you) how
to get it. Fine. But:
you’re taught away from poetry
or, say, dancing (That’s nice, dear,
but there’s no dough in it). No poem
ever bought a hamburger, or not too many. It’s true,
and so, every morning—it’s still dark!—
you see them, the children, like angels
being marched off to execution,
or banks. Their bodies luminous
in headlights. Going to school.

I like where he wanders with his poetry, speaking of the everyday, examining how we go about life and what’s beneath the surface of what we say and do, as individuals, families and societies. His poems feel relaxed and sure of themselves in a offhand way–not with a lot of puffing up or "I’ve got it all figured out." Here’s one more of his poems from Split Horizon, published in 1994. I’ve recorded both these poems and one more, The Perfect God.

 A Streak of Blood that
Once was a Tiny Red Spider

is all there is left of it which walked
down the page of a book
and which I meant only to brush away
but crushed
to this minuscule skid mark—4 mm high, ½ mm wide: baby
red scar, somewhat askew

hyphen forever
on page 211 of Lost Tribes and Promised Lands.
It had many legs—it was moving fast.
Some version of a heart must have been in there.
Some sensory talents.
Descending down a page,

little literate one, you came to the end of your page,
and thus published
I close your tomb to a sound
I love—hollow, soft: whump,
and give it back to a shelf
and again, someday, I hope, a reader.

You Go to School to Learn
A Streak of Blood that Once was a Red Spider (I say the title incorrectly on the recording. So sorry.)
The Perfect God
from New & Selected Poems, Mariner Books

I’ve been a little preoccupied this week with technology. I’m working on a new format for the Poetry Evolution e-letter that will be more professional (or should I say "poefessional"?), as well as setting up the blog so I can record and post audio (and even video) to the site. This is really exciting as I can read poems (mine, yours, the poems I love) and you can click and listen or even download them to your MP3 player to have available whenever you want. I’m in the middle stages of both of these processes and hope to have the audio up and running by the end of the week. The new Poetry Evolution email will launch at the first of the year.

With my head locked into these realms there hasn’t been too much right brain activity. Kinda quiet up in that quadrant. It did occur to me this morning that it might be fun to share with you one of the great parks near by where my husband and I take our dogs to walk. It’s a ten minute walk and three minute drive from our house and I think Yoshi & Ria think it’s a part of their backyard as much as they go there. There’s always a lot going on there (as you’ll see from the pictures) and even though it was kind of quiet when I cruised through this morning, yesterday it was wall to wall with soccer players, basketball, dog agility, joggers, boxers, yoga and dance classes, kids playing on the swingsets, picnicers and always people walking their dogs. So, here’s a taste of Rancho Park.

RAncho Park is on Pico Blvd., across from 20th Century Studios. 

The sidewalk next to the parking lot off of Motor Ave. 

Enough of this posing–can we go play now?  

There are a lot of beautiful trees. These are especially squirrel friendly, which Ria loves. 

The public golf course which runs alongside the park. 

Always soccer going on. Saturday was kids day and they ranged in size from peewee to teen. 

For More Photos

(Read on …)