grieving

Welcome to Ansonia Public Library! (Found Poem)

March 24, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

Welcome to Ansonia Public Library!
You have the following items:

I am the dog, I am the cat
A place so foreign and eight more stories
Rapture of the Nerds
Breakfast served any time all day: essays on poetry, new and selected
The art of social media: power tips for power users
Ikiru: To live
Mozart in the jungle: sex, drugs and classical music

Nobody move
On the Road
One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest: A Novel
The King of Methelehem
Unpacking the boxes: A Memoir of Life in Poetry
The first time I got paid for it — writer’s tales from the Hollywood trenches
Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade a Curious People and Dangerous Ideas
Palm Sunday: At Autobiographical COllage
Extra Nutty! Even More Letters From a Nut

Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft
For the time being
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

Stop Subsidizing the Rich

March 23, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

In 1977 and before, it used to be a summer job could pay for college.

That meant that you know that working your ass off as a dishwasher, waiter… often in the service industry was what paid for your tuition. If you put that many hours and commitment to go to school, you don’t take the costs of college lightly.

From the GI Bill after World War II through the Carter administration, most government money went to help people and unfortunately quagmires like the Vietnam War.

After the Reagan/Thatcher “Revolution”, Trickle Up Economics started in the Orwellian doublespeak of “Trickle Down Economics.” Since then more and more taxpayer money has gone to corporations. Whether it’s the farm subsidies under Richard Nixon that took incentives to end the balance of a family farm to give subsidies for monoculture like Roundup Ready Corn which isn’t delicious and hardly edible. THe amazing soils made my buffalo poop over eons washing into the great Missouri and Mississippi River Delta. Why? Because big ag wants huge feed lots for pigs and cattle where animals wallow in shit and the stink goes for miles. And basically concentration camps for chickens and eggs. Why? Big profits.

Feeding chickens and especially cows corn is insane. Chickens are designed to eat grubs and keep insect populations in balance. Cows, buffalo and other big grass eaters have stomach that can turn the light energy content of cellulose into nutrition and give the grass the poop it needs to grow again. It’s the circle of poop and it comes and goes. And it makes the soil ever richer. Making topsoil grow and things improve.

Now, we are wasting the earth just so people who are millionaires can become richer. A satisfied mind and a satisfied life is knowing that you are enough and have enough. People in Central Maine and many working place know that although the kids are idiots, the dogs and birds are annoying, the bills are piling up and the snow never starts falling that they have a house, they have a car, they are making do.

The culture of many of the very privileged that go to elite colleges often have strong connection and end up in places like Wall Street are to see who has the most toys. Having 20 Rolexes, 10 Supercars, 4 houses and, and, and just means you are buying shiny to hide misery. An absurd number of millionaire athletes are dead broke a few years after their career ends. If the type of players that go to the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats want to learn to be a pro basketball player, they should play in Europe, China or Russia and learn humility. When you are playing with 10 year veterans and you are the talented 18 year old American, guess what, you will learn humility. Humility is what lets a five star recruit like Brandon Jennings realize after a year or two in Europe that a condo near the practice facility and a Ford Edge are enough. He has learned that although talented, he has a lot to learn about being a pro.

Right now we take upper middle class and rich kids to places like Harvard, Bowdoin College, Stanford, etc. where they expect to be coddled. When I heard Bucknell had student laundry service they immediately left my college list. When Penn State admitted their students were just numbers that did too. I feel in love with the Gray Gothic of the University of Chicago and it’s rich history. But, I wasn’t ready for graduate school level rigor. I also think I was emotionally quite young. Although, I have never been a place where anyone wanted to attack a professor’s question like it was chum. Kids at Rutgers are smart too, but they are students that sit back and listen and have to be prompted for questions.

I hope we gain more sanity. I think we need to go back to the times before Reagan/Thatcher in both the UK and US. There is nothing wrong with living in council flats or section 8 housing. Not everyone is going to be rich. My mom was on food stamps when we were babies and dad was a graduate student. People involved in welfare were there to help, not constantly suspicious of fraud. Nixon made us “tough on crime and brought in farm subsidies which destroyed the family farm, which was a tough life but was balanced with the earth. Now we look at “welfare fraud” and blame the poor. Meanwhile big coal is blowing up billion year old mountains literally with dynamite for coal so that the owners can make huge profits, college campuses and Wal-Mart live their lights on all night for “security” and light pollution makes it hard to see the stars.

We need sanity. I think we need to have a flat tax, maybe a VAT and enough of a gas tax to pay the cost of infrastructure. It has not changed in a long, long time. It probably needs to be above the break even point because we are so behind. Less money in gas taxes, means worse roads, means more wear on cars and suspensions and higher auto repair bills. It’s cheaper to have good infrastructure and keep things maintained then have to fix something broken. Think of a house that is well maintained with a hoarder or any house left vacant by foreclosure.

The purpose of the federal government is not to debt collectors can make 18.5% when students get behind on student loans so colleges look fancier and get more applications. It’s time to go back to the GI Bill days for big colleges like Ohio State. They used to accept everyone, but guess what look to your left and right, on average one of you won’t make it.

And guess what, if you aren’t meant for a liberal arts degree there is a glut in the market. It’s why a BA in Sarah Lawrence can work in hotel reception, a Starbucks or a call center.

If you are someone good with your hands, plumbers, contractors with a great reputation and auto repair shop owners make more than someone with a BA in History, Philosophy and English. Only in America to bars say “if you so smart, why ain’t you rich?” Guess what, poets and philosophers have always been broke and needed benefactors. It’s still true in the arts today.

May we have a more sane world in the future where people look out for each other and get by in old mill towns with deep roots and working class values like the Ansonia which was once the capital of brass and copper in America where I live. Despite what the WTO thinks, tariffs are a good thing, it paid the cost of government for years. It wasn’t until Woodrow Wilson that we had income taxes. And higher tariffs might mean places with strong working class values and family loyalty like Westbrook, Maine (SD Warren paper), Ansonia, CT (The Ansonia Brass Company) and Waterbury, CT had people who were unionized had a good salary and deep roots in the community. The purpose of government is not to make multinationals billions in money. The purpose of a corporation is not solely for shareholder gain.

The puppet security courts do not help the 2nd Amendment. I realy wish Supreme Court Justices were subject to review by Consitutional lawyers and scholars which sadly includes Barack Obama. Everyone who voted for People’s United clearly missed the preamble of the US Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Nothing there says that the government is for profit. That means that conservative justices who are entertained by corporate interests that voted for People’s United: Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas the silent (he almost never says anything during cases) and John Roberts should be off the court. With lifetime appointment Antonin Scalia has been a justice for a very, very long time since 1986 and John Roberts who is likely to be Supreme Court Chief Justice for a long time he is only 60 years old.

Maybe we should have ten year appointment instead. The Constitution is broken at this point, the Bill of Rights demolished (1st and 4th Amendments for Security, the 4th Amendment for the War on Drugs, and no one seems to understand that a well regulated militia to me implies that their should be some restrictions on firearms and militias which are similar to State National Guards today.

I will say more but I have said my piece. I am almost at 1500 words.

Take care of yourself and each other, and remember to always work to be excellent to each other. We are all in this together.

edmund

I am a very worried man.

Blessed be as the green ones return soon, I hope we have a rebirth on sanity, we need it.

2014: A Year of Grounding – Deep and Simple

January 6, 2014 by rurugby 3 Comments

We live in shallow and complex times.

Worried about e-mails, about texts, Twitter, Facebook.

Often interacting more with people even that we know in shallow ways. Always feeling like we need to check into our media and devices. A society full of advertising of buy, buy, buy of you need this, you need that.

You don’t. No really, you don’t.

You really don’t need a smartphone although it is very shiny. You don’t need an iPad, again very shiny. You don’t need those new clothes, you don’t need to see every movie, you probably don’t need more stuff.

You need to connect. To people, to the earth, to yourself.

I am dedicating 2014 to be the Year of Grounding for me. I need it.

The last two years have been very ungrounding. Losing my father in law Walter Maheux in March 2012, losing my beloved father Henry Edmunds Davis on April 1, 2013. I am still grieving. I still do not have all of my psychic and spiritual energy and might not for some time. I am trying to ground again and get back into myself. I need it.

I find writing helpful. I love conversations especially one on one although they can be hard to do. Why did it become weird to call someone? Seriously. I love to connect with people. In 2012 I started having lunches with one person and just talking. It was cool. It’s good to spend an hour with just one person and not be in the cacophony of noise and information of the internet and smartphones. I want to get back to it again and having lunch with someone tomorrow.

I am really happy to be in therapy. I had an unbelivably tough year that included a major manic episode in April, 2013. It was one heck of a month. Although I did write some good poems and posts including a memorial for my dad. I also ended up in jail for 36-48 hours of Patriot’s Day last year while fully manic and became extraordinarily manic. Basically doing a 24 hour performance in a cell to the NSA who I was sure was watching. Then was held down and drugged after getting loud at the Maine Medical Center ER and forgot 24 hours completely. April was unbelievably ungrounding. Losing the rock of my life, as I said in a poem at my dad’s memorial service. Losing my sanity.

Recovering slowly. Spring Harbor helped. Lithium helped a lot, dulling my mind when I needed it, found it dulling after my crisis as well and slowly going off of it. My wife helped, my mom helped, my therapist really helped. I am very thankful for therapy. More of us need to be in it. Seeing her tomorrow and happy to go over goals and talk about the last 3 weeks that includes that big holiday of Christmas and all the energy you put in an use for it.

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I feel the need to ground. To slow myself down. In the words that Fred Rogers used from the documentary “Mister Rogers and Me ***” Make your life deep and simple not shallow and complex.

Take a walk. Look up. See the stars. See the clouds. Feel the wind. Hear the water. Rest your mind. Listen. Breathe. Breathe. Slow down. Touch the Earth if you need do, do some Earthing. Literally ground yourself.

Make it a practice. Meditate. Prayer with your heart. Bring the worries of the brain down to the heart. Practice the mediations I learn from Whispering Deer. Your heart can take a lot in, the brain wants to analyze everything. Breathe. Breathe.

One thing I do to ground that make me feel joy is walking with my headphones at work. There is great landscaping there. Statues, trees, birds, a creek, a marsh. Listening to something like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin in the Wind” yesterday, watching the trees in the twilight in a sea of clouds. Transported. Just looking. Appreciating.

Your technology can wait. Texts can wait. You can turn your cellphone off. Sometimes it’s good to not be available. People do not need you all the time. You can not answer a text. You can leave your phone in your pocket while driving. Pay attention.

Right now, I am looking out my window. Seeing rain on the panes. Seeing a gray sky with some blue just after sunset with plenty of dark gray clouds after a rainy, and warm day that reached the upper 40s and had plenty of snowmelt. Can see some red of the sunset in the distance. Lights over the parking lot for the Dancing Elephant and the Frog and Turtle. Light in the parking lot by me. A wet American flag. Trees in fornt of the sunset. A wide Presumpsoct River that is harder to notice through the raindrops. The Disability RMS sign hiding through the trees. A car driving through. Listening, looking.

Billy Collins said all a poet needs is a window, paper and a pencil. Simple. Beautiful. Calming. Noticing. Not overthinking. Which we all do too mcuh. Looking up seeing the day change, watching the birds. Seeing the scampering of creatures. Hoping the insects don’t bite.

Think when you were happiest. Was it a tweet? A Facebook message?

Was it time with a friend, with a loved one, a lover and partner? With family? Eating, drinking. Maybe on vacation in the woods, in the desert? Listening, content at peace. Breathe.

We all need more peace. Less worry.

A life deep and simple where you appreciate things. My cats Lenny and Squiggy. My wife Lanna. The simple sound of the cat fountain. The silence. Sleep, dreams. My family. My sister Mindy, brother in law, Robert. Brother in law Bill, mother in law Dottie. And the ones who have passed, my dad Henry, father in law Walter. Grandparents Avis Neal, Charles Neal, Mary Davis and Donald Davis. My Aunt Louise. My mother’s best friend Dottie Mithee, Cousin Benny.

And heroes who have passed and enriched my life like Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Miles Davis. And of course teachers past, present and futures. Those who listen. Those who let us listen.

The water. The sky. The birds. The animals. Our pets. Cats, dogs. The mice we can’t see. The bees who pollenate. The pollen that makes us sneeze.

Breathe. Ground. Let life be easy. Let life be quiet. Read. Turn the screen off. Just listen to music. Drift. Dream.

Work to live a deep and simple life in complex and shallow times. Love one another. Hug. Kiss. Be thankful. Breathe. Mediate. Be Present. Appreciate the silence. Learn to love the noise and watch. See the sky change and darken, as the blue almost disappears and the red of sunset is almost gone.

Rest. Breathe. Ground and be Peaceful.

Blessed be.

Pain

October 11, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

To be human is to know pain.

Emotional pain, physical pain, psychic pain, hidden pain.

When we are young the pain can be temporary and heal quickly.

A toddler can fall, cry and then be okay, quickly.

When we get older we learn about emotional pain. Losing a pet, a relative, having a friend move away. Losing a friendship.

It just gets harder.

I am in a lot of pain right now. My dad passed away on April 1st and I am still healing.

And unfortunately lots of physical pain. Had an issue with plantar fascitis on my right foot for sometime now, several years. Have a left knee I twisted golfing 2 1/2 weeks ago. That was a scary pain where I could hear something. Was worried I would have to go to the urgent care or ER but was able to walk it off. Occasional headaches, other pains.

All are draining. Mourning is the largest drain on my psychic energy.

Pain is part of being human. I am glad we have Tylenol (although it’s a common drug for overdose), ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen. I am trouble by the narcotic drugs like Oxycontin that are now commonly prescribed and often addictive, and very often abused. Oxycontin by far is the most commonly abused drug in Maine. Pot of course is the most commonly used, but it is absurd that that is class 1 and illegal.

I hope we get better at pain soon. It’s only going to get harder in an aging society.

Maybe we aren’t meant to last so long as humans.

Edmund

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

April 10, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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!