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“Rumi (for Coleman Banks)” and “Such Silence” by Mary Oliver

March 26, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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When Rumi went into the tavern
I followed.
I heard a lot of crazy talk
and a lot of wise talk.

But the roses wouldn’t grow in my hair.

When Rumi left the tavern
I followed.
I don’t mean just to pick at
such a famous fellow.
Indeed he was rather ridiculous with his
long beard and his dusty feet.
But I heard less of the crazy talk and
a lot more of the wise talk and I was
hopeful enough to keep listening

until the day I found myself
transformed into an entire garden
of roses.

– Mary Oliver
from Blue Horses: Poems

Her last book “Dog Songs” was my favorite book I have read in the last 12 months.
As someone whose dog Misty saved his life when I was a toddler and slipping on the ice in Wisconsin, blocking me with his strong long-haired collie body.
It’s one of the great reasons Coywolf/Eastern Coyote, the guardian of the suburbs bred from coyotes and the last big group of eastern wolves deep in the wilderness 200 miles north of Toronto, Canada appeals to my spirits.
The coywolf is an animal that can walk through suburban neighborhoods often unseen by humans, if seen in one shot in the wonderful “Nature” episode “Meet the Coywolf” by a cat.

I really think that my cat Squiggy who greets everyone at the door when they come in and says welcome to my house please pet me, is dog spirit.
His brother Lenny is the trickster who hides when guests arrive and likes to love through bites and play.
They are together coywolf spirits.

Please buy Mary Oliver’s last two books they are excellent.

And I would of course love to interview her on my The Poetry Conversation podcast.

A second poem I was touched by even deeper is about an old stone bench, very, very old .. such silence

———–

Such Silence

As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.

No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.

also from “Blue Horses: Poems” by Mary Oliver,
The Penguin Press, 2014

Wow. This hits very deep into my spiritual practices.
Hearing the water and hearing the birds.
Feeling the wind.
Connecting deeply with a tree in a three cauldrons meditation and checking in to see if the cauldrons of your gut, heart and head have their cauldrons up, sideward or down. The three cauldrons mediation is powerful for me. The first time I did it, I saw the snarls of people who are in crisis not getting care. Of people who in ERs and prisons, by police officers and well intentioned professionals are placed in frightening areas.

May we all work to be like Spring Harbor Hospital in Portland, Maine and realize that patients are much better off in a ward where they can talk to nurses who will listen and hear their concern.

It calms their fire. It definitely calmed mine in 2013. This book today is helping me know. Outstanding!

And I am also happy that I waited in front of the Vietnamese Buddhist temple here in Ansonia. It is a place I will need to spend my Sundays to balance the fire of creativity going through me out.

edmund

Filed Under: hiking, nature, poetry, quiet, running water, The Poetry Conversation Tagged With: Blue Horses, Coleman Barks, Dog Songs, Mary Oliver, The Poetry Conversation

Blog Themes Again

March 22, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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When I was blogging every day I had themes to build around so I am doing that again and writing quite a few posts in the future.

Sunday will be Spirit of Sunday like it was before.

Monday will be Music Monday, could be a song I write could be talking about music, it could be an appreciation or so many other things. Music makes the heart sing.

Tuesday is still Port Veritas poetry Tuesday. Although I plan to highlight more poets I like and why I like them preparing for my launch of the Poetry Conversation Podcast and website coming soon.

Wednesday is Wildcard Wednesday where anything goes

Thursday is Thoughtful Thursday which could mean many things. But a deeper piece of some kind.

Friday will still be Friday Reads when I talk about not just the books I am reading but other things as well. Recently that has been more pieces online. I think I will repost much of what I say on Facebook walls here as well if I think I would like to have it be more than effemeral which is what most of social media is.

Saturday will once again be the Saturday Night Review but will include more mini reviews such as the Aldi French Bread pizza that I had this afternoon, skip it and stick with the Stouffers. #skip

Or I saw Pinky and the Brain Season 1: Episodes 3 and 4 on Amazon Prime today. I forgot how brilliant the show is. It’s a complete masterpiece and to me it’s obvious which one is a genius and who is insane. ****

I look forward to blogging more again.

edmund

Here is what I posted to Facebook. I plan to archive much more of my social media posts now. There is some great stuff there.

I have decided to do weekly blog themes again and blog much, much more.
They are Spirit of Sunday about spirit in it’s many realsm
Music Monday that is about musical journeys and will include song lyrics, mainly parody songs
Port Veritas Poetry Tuesday which will talk more about poets I like and poems I like and include some poems too. I feel like I am more concentrated on music then poetry right now but their are so many great poems that deserve more eyes.\
Wildcard Wednesday which could be about anything
Thoughtful Thursday which I want to be a longer, deeper piece
Friday Reads about what I am reading which will include more internet links since I am reading more in bits and pieces right now.
And the Saturday Night Review which will include mini-reviews and some longer ones.
I want the blog to be able to archive what I do on Social Media. Facebook and Twitter aren’t designed to store information well. WordPress is.

Blessed be and believe that your words matter.

Filed Under: Blog Themes, books, Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn, Friday Reads, FridayReads, Music Monday, poetry, Port Veritas Poetry Tuesday, spirit, Spirit of Sunday, Spirit of Sunday, The Ecq Review, The Poetry Conversation, The Saturday Night Review, Thoughtful Thursday, Weekly Blog Themes, Wildcard Wednesday Tagged With: Music Monday

A Day Without a Smartphone

April 17, 2014 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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Smartphones are amazing things. What would be considered a super computer not that long ago in the palm of your hand.

The ablility to send a Tweet around the world. The ability to send a Facebook message to all your friends and followers. Amazing apps, games, messaging ….

You know you can turn them off. No, seriously you can.

My phone died on Tuesday afternoon. Put it in my coat pocket, went to fix my car and then weird squares on the bottom left.

I went to the Great Lost Bear for mac and cheese and beer and it wouldn’t work. I tried removing the Otterbox (which has a horrible design on the Galaxy S4 that already broke from Thanksgiving with loose rubber and breaking plastic that doesn’t seal), and changing the battery but the problem continued.

I want to tweet and message about the the first date going on next to me. It did seem to be going relatively well and I think they will have a second date, not sure if it will be a long-term relationship, but they will likely be friends.

I also tried the crazy mix at Great Lost Bear that is mac and cheese, topped with baked beans, topped with cole slaw and then three fried pickles in a mason jar. It was good but I think wicked farty.

Yesterday, I didn’t really miss my phone that much. I was mainly zoning out and watching stuff like “Orange is the New Black” (which is awesome.)

Usually at work I use my phone more. I check in with my wife, I use it to listen to music since I lost my iPod a few weeks ago, and I play smartphone games (been addicted to FIFA 14).

But the Galaxy is down for the count and the SD card is missing from my old Evo so most of the apps don’t work.

So on my downtime I read more. Read a bunch of the April “The Bollard” (easily my favorite free paper in town and favorite newspaper considering the Portland Press Herald kind of sucks these days.) And I read quite a bit of the 2013 Entertainment Weekly with the 100 best of all time. Really “My Dark Twisted Fantasy” by Kanye West is the 8th best album of all time, really? Between Aretha Franklin and “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys, really?

And as much as I love Woody Allen and adore Annie Hall, I just don’t like Manhattan **, I have tried multiple times but it’s just ridiculous. Why would he really fall for Muriel Hemingway’s HS character, does he have some weird thing for young girls?

But, when I left work I felt like my mind was working on writing ideas. That I wasn’t as distracted all day. That I had a very good day.

So, I am getting my phone back on Monday, ok a replacement phone, but I think I will just turn it off more. I really don’t need to keep checking Facebook or Twitter or FIFA 14. It’s a weapon of mass distraction.

I am ADDish enough without it.

So, I hope to read more and smartphone less.

One of the things I love about my retreat every Memorial Day weekend in the Berkshires is that phones and the internet don’t work. I engage with people more. I don’t hear the traffic. I hear the running water, hear the birds tweeting their songs, not the clatter of millions in under 140 characters. I experience the green and beauty of a sacred place. It’s magic.

I have been feeling the need for a smartphone vacation. I miss my old Evo dying of battery faster. The Galaxy is too good at being a mini-computer. The Google Chrome works too well. Sometimes it runs better than my laptop at home.

So, I don’t think I will disconnect, but I will connect less. People are much more important than devices, if you find you can’t ignore your phone at a poetry reading, turn it off. If you can’t ignore your phone while having lunch or dinner with someone, turn it off. Seriously. If you want to connect it will still be there. If you really want to connect with actual people you should turn if off.

Seriously. Try it!

C’mon. Try it!

I know you don’t believe you can, but your public can wait. Especially if you have to pay attention to the road.

Be safe. Be mindful,

edmund

Filed Under: facebook, Television, The Blog, The Ecq Review, The Off Channel, The Poetry Conversation, twitter

Embracing the Geek: A Writers Journey Selected Poems 2010-2013. My first book.

April 10, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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My first book called “Embracing the Geek: A Writers Journey Selected Poems 2010-2013” is almost ready to be available in PDF tonight.

I need to type in one poem that is still in journal, and then do formatting with my wife tonight.

The goal of the book is in the wonderful quote by Kurt Vonnegut in my 2nd favorite book of his (to Slaughterhouse-Five) “A Man Without a Country”:

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

So make something, anything. A pot at a pottery store, it may not be symettrical, it may crack, it may not hold water and need to be used for pens, but it will be your cup, that you made, with your hands. And it will be art.

Or like me and Lanna Lee you could blog every day. If you average 100 words a day it’s a novella, 250 words a day a full modern novel (365 pages). And the post can simply be “today f**king sucks. Ow!” That’s a blogpost you kept up your writing journey. And you will keep improving and if you use a blogging program like WordPress easily archive your work.

It’s also about gratitude to my writer’s journey. From 2nd to 4th grade I wanted to be a writer. I learned to create my work on a computer and let it flow. Then in 5th grade, I had a terrible, horrendous, not very good English teacher that thought me being on a computer was an abomination of his narrow worldview. These terrible teachers have tenure, and continue to infect students for decades. Meanwhile the amazing, creative teachers who inspire art, creativity and writing are on 1 year contracts and not hired on. There is both my amazing 4th grade Language Arts/English teacher and some of my friends I am thinking of here.

The book starts with the Vonnegut quote and then has a very long acknowledgment. If you are listed on it, congratulations! You have earned a free PDF copy of the book. I only have 100 copies of the book, signed and numbered so if you want one assigned (there are about 35/100 books unclaimed before even PDF release) please let me know on the blog, or my e-mail address edquinn at gmail dot com (to avoid spam), my Twitter feed at @rurugby or my Facebook at Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn.

Here is the acknowledgment:

This limited edition chapbook is designed for all the people who have helped me in my writing and poetry journey. So if you have made this list of people who are awesome, you have earned a free chapbook. I would love to do trade for the poets in the room, and to pass the gratitude forward for those who are not. And maybe even inspire you to write.
I first want to dedicate this chapbook to the love of my life, the wonderful, fabulous and amazing Lanna Lee Maheux. She is my rock, my partner, and makes me life immensely richer. I love you.
Next I want to dedicate this book to the radically inclusive and safe space, Rhythmic Cypher. The 2nd poetry slam from the amazing small city of Portland, Maine. This was a dream and vision of my good friend Tina “T Love” Smith, and had a difficult birth in an imperfect space. Now that it has found its true home at the amazing Dobra Teahouse in Portland, Maine at 7pm on Sundays, it’s one of the best poetry slams in America. A place where genderqueers, gays, lesbians, freaks of all size, shapes and colors, and those afflicted with madness can feel safe. Where a 16 year old with panic disorder can read a beautiful and amazing poem about her condition and feel safe. Where Toben Tilgenman can make an amazing poem about what it means to be a man who was born in a woman’s body. Where music backs the poets, and the poets back each other. It is a spectacular success and I am so happy it is part of my community.
Next I want to thank New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover for first creating her wonderful young adult romance “Slammed” that used the power of the poetry slam to make the beautiful story of woman loses dad, woman loves boy across the street, boy across the street has no parents so transcendant, thank you. My friend Gennyfer Hanley sent me a link with the free eBook of slammed, and I loved it wrote a positive review on Amazon saying I was a slam poet and how much I love the book. She followed my blog at ed2dq.com and we became friends.
While Colleen was writing the follow-up to Slammed this time ahead in the story and from Wil (the boy’s perspective) called “Point of Retreat” she happened to see my blogpost/poem “Write Poorly” about simply writing and turning off the editor. She printed it off, put it up by her computer and looked at it whenever she felt discouraged or needed to remember to just write. I plan to make my second chapbook called “Write Poorly” with 500 copies. It is amazing to me that my little poem on my often not that read blogpost that often gets less than 10 pageviews a day inspired an author so much. So much that she put it in her book “Point of Retreat” that is a bestseller that has been read and loved by hundreds of thousands of people. Her 3rd book “Hopeless” is the number two eBook on Amazon so far in 2013, behind only behind Nicholas Sparks’ “Safe House”. Bemazing. That fact is surreal and amazing, that I may have more page reads in 2013 than the absolutely incredible and amazing Andrea Gibson who was the number one seller of the best slam poetry publishing house in America, Write Bloody Publications in 2012. Just ridiculous, if you haven’t read Andrea Gibson’s work yet and live in Portland, Maine go to Longfellow books and get a copy of her work, it’s outstanding.
Next I want to thank the Port Veritas writing, slam and poetry community for showing me love, giving me a place to read, and encouragement. Wil Gibson is a force of nature, and him saying “Write Poorly” is the best thing I ever read meant a lot. I have seen Port Veritas go from Acoustic Coffee, to the much beloved North Star Café, to Wil’s House, to the Mayo Street Arts Center, to Blue, to the wonderful restaurant Local Sprouts, and to it’s current location at Bull Feeney’s upstairs every Tuesday at 7:30pm.
I would be incomplete without talking about the amazing contributions of Tricia Hanley to Portland’s poetry scene and craft beer community. Her little bar, Mama’s Crowbar in Munjoy Hill, has some of the best craft beer you will ever drink in a wonderful small place. It would be my regular if I lived on the hill, but alas I live in Westbrook. They also host a reading hosted by Ryan McLellan that is unmiked, and at 9pm on Mondays. I do wish the reading is earlier so I can attend more. Unfortunately, I wake up at 4am most Mondays. It’s a great place to read.
Next I want to thank the heroes, friends, and compatriots of my journey towards embracing my inner geek. My recently departed father, Henry Edmunds Davis who passed away very recently on April 1, 2013 at 66 years old to brain cancer. You are one of the nicest men and fathers any son could wish for. I expected you to live so much longer, as did my wonderful mom Christine Davis. Their marriage is the great love I have seen through my life and it’s so sad it’s over after 42 years. Mom, I love you.
I also want to thank my wonderful and insanely intelligent sister, Melinda Davis Layten, who is ABD (all but dissertation) in computational biology and SUNY – Stony Brook. Dad’s illness I think took a lot out of my sister and brother-in-law Robert Layten, and I hope my dad’s journey away from pain, suffering and cancer allows her to become the brilliant scientist she is meant to be.
Next I want to thank the people who I have known the longest growing up in Montgomery Township, New Jersey north of Princeton. This chapbook may have the longest acknowledgements ever and I will just name some of my good friends that made feeling like an outcast in school easier: Greg Seidel, Bill Dyer, Conrad Saam, Anthony Schubert, Ben Dalbey, Eva Hanna, Kayt Sukel (who has an amazing book called “Dirty Minds” about the neuroscience of sex and love), Beth Cooper, Laura Hahn, Susan Flora …
Teachers including: Cheryl Watson, Jay Prag, Mr. Juliano, Mr. Harry Brobst, Ms. Williams and so many others.
And of course fellow poets including, who are mostly performance poets. I am about 20% a performance poet, and 80% a writer. Many of these excel at both and include: Heidi Therrien, Greg McKillop, Beau Williams, Jen Jacques, Toben, Emma Bovril, Paulie Lipman, Rachel McKibbens, Andrea Gibson, Billy Tuggle, Ryk McIntyre, Tony Brown, Melissa May, Sam Sax, Denise Jolly, Zanne Langlois, Robin Merrill and the fabulous Nancy Henry.
There are so many others I can mention but this is already an over 1,000 word acknowledgement to a chapbook. To all the friends I have made in the amazing city of Portland, Maine. Twitter has been an amazing way for this geek to meet people so I must thank Chyrstie Corns, and .. for creating them.
Also want to thank my Twitter heroes and friends like Alex Steed, Alexis Lyon, Keith Luke and so many others who make Portland a jewel of American cities.
I can’t name all the people who are part of my journey towards acceptance, but thank you all so much.

The last line of the book is “Make art, it’s good for the soul.” And it is so true.

Thank you and with much love,
Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn

Blessed be.
Make art! Suck!

Filed Under: acceptance, acceptance, books, breathing, Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn, Embracing the Geek: A Writer's Journey, FridayReads, graphic novels, grieving, haiku, Kurt Vonnegut, library, meditations, minerva, My books, NaPoWrimo, page, poetry, Port Veritas Poetry Tuesday, reading, Short Stories, sickness, silly, slam, spirit, Spirit of Sunday, Spirit of Sunday, The Poetry Conversation, The Saturday Night Review, Thoughtful Thursday, Weekly Blog Themes, westbrook, Whispering Deer, woods

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