Liza Rutherford reads great books and writes great stuff so I’ve asked her to chime in now and again about the books she’s reading and what she thinks is valuable, or not so, so you and I can sort through the maze of what’s out there on the bookshelves these days. Liza lives in Boston, has three grown children and is in the process of applying for an MFA program to further her writing career. We were classmates at the Vermont College Adult Degree Program for two years. We’ll be sharing two weeks next month at the Hambidge Center for the Arts & Sciences in Georgia where I’ll be working on compiling my writings for–well, still to be determined–and she’ll be working on her own memoir with a dramatic historical twist (really cool stuff!). Liza’s one of those people who lives an undaunted life–who cares deeply and gives generously. I love her and know you’ll enjoy what she has to say!

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The Glass Castle
by Jeanette Walls

A wind picked up, rattling the windows, and the candle flames suddenly shifted, dancing along the border between turbulence and order.
- The Glass Castle

I admit to initially being unenthusiastic about reading The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls memoir of her family life, when it was first suggested at my monthly book club. For some reason I’d developed a prejudice toward her and her story. The memory of why is already dim. I tell you this now because, courting my prejudices, I read the book anyway and discovered that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Jeanette Walls’s surprising memoir is an intimate examination of the relationships within a family, her family, which throughout this book precariously dance on, “the border between turbulence and order.” In this scene-driven wonder, Walls leads us through the stories of her childhood as the daughter of two parents, both of whom find themselves living in poverty on the fringes of society due to their own quirky aspirations, addictions, and ambitions. Alternatingly brilliant and abusive in their child rearing techniques, Rex and Rose Mary Walls justify their neglect of their children using denial exacerbated by alcoholism and undiagnosed mental illness. This is not a book about self pity but instead a book about the far reaches of love and how it can and does exist in a family regardless of its means or its level of sanity. Walls has amazing distance from her strange and sad memories which make this book a pins and needles journey for the reader. We are never told what to feel but instead simply allowed, through Wall’s expert storytelling, to live in her memories and feel them for ourselves. What a gift!

The following is a guest post by friend and fellow poet, Sarb Nam Khalsa. She participated in the Five Days With a Master Poet Course in July on Anna Akhmatova and I felt the writing she did about how the poetry and the life of Akhmatova affected her were both eloquent and insightful. I hope to include Sarb Nam’s thoughts and poems again from time to time in the future.

What I find so powerful about Akhmatova’s work is her

accessibility and universality, which makes her poems

so relevant and present. Being of Russian descent,

I found a deep resonance with the words of this poet

whose pain and courage fired an amazing body of work.

This is a discussion of some of her poems and how they

speak to my personal life experience.

Sarb Nam

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How many demands the beloved can make!
The woman discarded, none.
How glad I am that today the water
Under the colorless ice is motionless.
And I stand — Christ help me! –
On this shroud that is brittle and bright,
But save my letters
So that our descendants can decide,
So that you, courageous and wise,
Will be seen by them with greater clarity.
Perhaps we may leave some gaps
In your glorious biography?
Too sweet is earthly drink,
Too tight the nets of love.
Sometime let the children read
My name in their lesson book,
And on learning the sad story,
Let them smile shyly. . .
Since you’ve given me neither love nor peace
Grant me bitter glory.

Akhmatova 1913

Each line of this poem seems to echo some time in my life when I struggled with issues of self-worth, self-love, co-dependence, and an overwhelming need to be appreciated and loved by others, when I felt that my needs were being subsumed by the overwhelming needs of others and I repressed my creative spirit to please them for fear of losing their presence in my life, however dispiriting or crippling. Knowing that as a woman in society I could never really pursue my dreams without the support of men. How only the power of surrender and prayer to God would finally save me and allow me to walk safely on the brittle ice without fear; to face the death of my ego and my weakness and my insecurity and still come out a warrior. To escape the “nets of love” and dare to hope that I might leave a legacy of truth in the pursuit of the spirit, that my suffering shall not have been in vain and that others, generations hence, might find solace and inspiration. That I can dare to hope for something compensating that is not so much a bitter glory but a greater gift of knowing that one has made a valuable contribution that will live on beyond one’s physical death.

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Somewhere there is a simple life and a world,
Transparent, warm and joyful. . .
There at evening a neighbor talks with a girl
Across the fence, and only the bees can hear
This most tender murmuring of all.
But we live ceremoniously and with difficulty
And we observe the rites of our bitter meetings,
When suddenly the reckless wind
Breaks off a sentence just begun –
But not for anything would we exchange this splendid
Granite city of fame and calamity,
The wide rivers of glistening ice,
The sunless, gloomy gardens,
And, barely audible, the Muse’s voice.

Akhmatova June 23, 1915

Again, I too feel a longing for a “simple life and a world / Transparent, warm and joyful.” I remember this world from my childhood, shrouded in the blissful ignorance of youth. This poem transports me to that time and just as quickly reminds me of all the trappings of modern society lived “ceremoniously and with difficulty” as we “observe the rites of our bitter meetings.” I pray not to experience a loss of words, not to know a “reckless wind” that “breaks off a sentence just begun,” but to step forward courageously and speak my piece. Okay, I know I chose this life with all of its accompanying limits and challenges. However, like Akhmatova, I too would not “exchange this splendid / Granite city of fame and calamity” for anything…would not give up the opportunity to hear “barely audible, the Muse’s voice.”

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Wild honey has the scent of freedom,
dust–of a ray of sun,
a girl’s mouth–of a violet,
and gold–has no perfume.

Watery–the mignonette,
and like an apple–love,
but we have found out forever
that blood smells only of blood.

Akhmatova

What a poetic way to say that War Sucks!

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For the Ages

Sonnet
so slow that I can hear the
creaking of ages
Lines
written in solemn spaces
or noisy anterooms
with quill pens
and computers
dotting I’s and crossing T’s
so that we won’t forget
won’t slip into
a downward spiral
away from Art
Religion & Poetry
away from all that has
elevated us
one note
one ideal
one hope
at a time
out of the darkness
into the Light.

Sarb Nam Kaur Khalsa © 2006

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Lot’s Wife

And the just man trailed God’s shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
“It’s not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed.”

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

Akhmatova

For some reason, the poem “Lot’s Wife” has haunted me this week. I am taken by the simplicity of the telling of this story, without judgment, of a woman who had every blessing for a spiritual destiny (the theologians tell us that she was the wife of a professor and had access to the holy teachings and leaders of her time, including Abraham, who was her uncle by birth). Yet she chose to turn away from all this, even with a warning from God’s angels that to do so would cause instant death. What compelled this woman to turn her head, just to look, knowing that she could never return to her former life and all its comforts. Was she so fearful of the spiritual and physical terrain that lay ahead that she would rather die than meet her destiny head on? I feel drawn to this poem and to Akhmatova’s telling of the story. I feel redeemed by the poet’s forgiveness as she grants redemption to a woman lost in the pages of history, a woman condemned not by one religion but many for her lack of obedience and duty. Maybe she was answering to a higher call?

The Pillar

Who will grieve for me
when I am given up
to the burnt place
when the ashes of my body
sail in the immortal spaces
where once I played
and rejoiced?

Who will cry and mourn
my death, a passing
signifying nothing
and everything
to one who has invested their Soul
in a journey both monumental
and insignificant?

Will I sit counting
the wasted days and hours
when I could have been
working, or healing, or praying?
Will I regret the emotions
unexpressed and words unspoken
from fear or lack of imagination?
Why did I care so much about
the trash, or the laundry, or the housekeeping
when my Soul yearned for its
Home of Homes?

We all reckon with our own days
we wrestle with our daily regrets.
If I leave, let my legacy
be a grain of Truth
and not a pillar of salt.

Sarb Nam Kaur Khalsa © 2006