books

Poem of the Week, by Lowell Jaeger

Posted on by alisonmcghee

I’ve driven the Mexi-Cali border its full length many times, slowed and stopped for border patrol checks many times. I can predict the drivers whose vehicles will be pulled over and inspected. They usually don’t look like me, which is itself a problem.

Then came Kansas, a few months ago. Cops pulled me over for fictitious reasons and asked a series of questions–are you concealing a kidnapped child; are you concealing rocket launchers; are you transporting fentanyl and methamphetamines across state lines–that would have been laughable if the men standing next to my rolled-down window hadn’t been so flat-eyed and humorless. If they hadn’t been carrying guns and badges. If I hadn’t known no one would know if they chose to do something awful to me.

But here’s the thing: we can choose to turn off the lights and sirens. We can choose not to scare each other. We can choose to be the safe harbor, the soft landing, the helping hand. If not now, then when? See you at the protests.

After Second Shift, by Lowell Jaeger

She’s stopped to shop for groceries.
Her snow boots sloshing
up and down the aisles, the store
deserted: couple stock boys
droning through cases of canned goods,
one sleepy checker at the till.

In the parking lot, an elderly man
stands mumbling outside his sedan,
all four doors wide to gusting sleet
and ice. She asks him, Are you okay?
He’s wearing pajama pants, torn slippers,
rumpled sport coat, knit wool hat.

Says he’s waiting for his wife.
I just talked to her on the payphone
over there. He’s pointing at
the Coke machine. What payphone?
she says. That one, he says.
It’s cold, she says, and escorts him inside.

Don’t come with lights
and sirens, she tells the 9-1-1
dispatcher. You’ll scare him.

They stand together. The checker
brings him a cup of coffee.
They talk about the snow.

So much snow.
They watch for the cop.
This night, black as any night,
or a bit less so.

Click here for more information about poet Lowell Jaeger. Today’s poem appeared in Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone, published in 2016 by Shabda Press. 

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Natalie Diaz

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Book party! I rarely do book events, and I’d love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul this Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little, tell you some secrets behind the writing of the book, answer questions, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. It’s a school night so fear not, we’ll get you home nice and early, too. Click here for all the details. 

The zinnia seedlings biding their time in the 40-degree drop in temperature from last week. The man and his dog who always stop for a poem from my poetry hut, careful to relatch the door afterwards. The hurt squirrel writhing on the lawn that I called 311 about. The man with the long box braids unloading the giant moving van who stopped to wipe the sweat from his face. So much feels fragile and precious in these days of siege from lies, cruelty, and greed. Don’t we all need refuge?

If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert, by Natalie Diaz

I will swing my lasso of headlights
across your front porch,

let it drop like a rope of knotted light
at your feet.

While I put the car in park,
you will tie and tighten the loop

of light around your waist —
and I will be there with the other end

wrapped three times
around my hips horned with loneliness.

Reel me in across the glow-throbbing sea
of greenthread, bluestem prickly poppy,

the white inflorescence of yucca bells,
up the dust-lit stairs into your arms.

If you say to me, This is not your new house
but I am your new home,

I will enter the door of your throat,
hang my last lariat in the hallway,

build my altar of best books on your bedside table,
turn the lamp on and off, on and off, on and off.

I will lie down in you.
Eat my meals at the red table of your heart.

Each steaming bowl will be, Just right.
I will eat it all up,

break all your chairs to pieces.
If I try running off into the deep-purpling scrub brush,

you will remind me,
There is nowhere to go if you are already here,

and pat your hand on your lap lighted
by the topazion lux of the moon through the window,

say, Here, Love, sit here — when I do,
I will say, And here I still am.

Until then, Where are you? What is your address?
I am hurting. I am riding the night

on a full tank of gas and my headlights
are reaching out for something.​ 

​Click here for more information about Natalie Diaz, and click here to hear Diaz reading today’s poem. If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert first appeared in Postcolonial Love Poem, published in 2020 by Graywolf Press. 

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Winter Jones

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Minnesotans! Book party! I rarely do book events and I would love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, in the world as of next Tuesday. Please come to the launch party at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little, we’ll talk, we’ll celebrate, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. Click here for all the details. 

When I read this poem I thought about how bringing a child into the world, knowing everything we know about what life may throw at them, is an act of…what, defiance in the face of it all? Selfishness, because you yourself want to feel that kind of giant love for someone else forever and ever? Hope, that they will love their lives? Faith, that you can make the world better for them and they can make the world better by being in it?

Molecules from everyone who ever lived circulate inside us. Gandhi. Hitler. Your great-great-great-great-great grandmother. That former friend who no longer speaks to you. The beloved dog who died at fifteen. The poets who wrote the poems you memorize and recite to yourself. Everyone you love, and everyone you don’t. The past, the present, the unknown future: breathe in. Breathe out.

Concessions, by Winter Jones
(There is a 98.2% chance that at least one of the molecules in your lungs came from Caesar’s last breath. From Innumeracy, by John Allen Paulos)

If Caesar, then my great-uncle too.
He waited until the farm was sold,
went into the field and shot himself.
Was his last breath soft, a letting-go? Or was it 
sorrow? I lie awake imagining his final air, 
still alive in my body. 

Then my girl lights up my phone. Three time zones
away she tracks me by cell location, senses
I’m awake in the dark: love you mama
This is the child who couldn’t sleep without my touch,
without my own breaths timed to hers.
Back then she once told me she wouldn’t be sad if I died.
You wouldn’t?
Nope. Because I’d be dead too. I couldn’t live without you.

Her air also swirls inside me.
Before she was born I was young.
I didn’t know the weight of this kind of love,
how it would hurt. Would terrify.
Would turn me dangerous, like the time I hurtled between
her and the raving man in the grocery store.

Love you more, I text back.
Every breath’s a bargain struck between fear and trust, 
a concession we make to stay in the world.
The truth we carry within: for every
great-uncle who leaves this world
by lonely blast of bullet, a bright flame of child.

Click here for more information about John Allen Paulos. 
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Philip Larkin

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Minnesotans! There’s ​plenty of room in my FREE workshop on Friday, May 2, 1-4 Central Time: The Echo That Remains. This workshop, held via Zoom, is for anyone who loved someone who died of suicide, substance abuse, or untreated mental or physical illness. Click here for more information and to register. ​Note that we do not share our writing with each other in this workshop, which you may find freeing. All are welcome, free of charge, no writing experience necessary.  

Last week I stood on a beautiful bridge, watching the current flow beneath, when an idling motorboat dislodged a duck nest from the pilings. The nest went floating down the river, the mother duck frantic, fluttering up from her seven eggs and down again, helpless to stop the drift. Finally she jumped off and paddled to shore, her nest soon out of sight.

It hurt beyond all reason to witness that duck and her nest, because even though it was unintentional, too many other losses aren’t, like this heinous administration’s wanton, daily, abject cruelty. The world throws so much at all of us, animal and human; we should be careful of each other, and kind.

The Mower, by Philip Larkin

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   
a hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   
killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. 
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   
unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence   
is always the same; we should be careful

of each other, we should be kind   
while there is still time.

Click here for more information about Philip Larkin. 
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Three new free workshops for Minnesotans

Posted on by alisonmcghee

The Transformation of Trauma

Have you gone through something awful, either recently or a long time ago? Maybe someone you love died, or you lost your job or home. Maybe someone you love is an addict, and you struggle with conflicting feelings on how best to care for them and yourself. Maybe someone sexually assaulted you, or abused you over a long period of time. Maybe as a child, or adult, you struggled through domestic violence or emotional manipulation. If your life is compromised by any of these experiences, and you’re looking for some relief and support, welcome to these workshops.

Note that I am not a therapist. But as a lifelong writer, as well as a trained crisis counselor, I know that the making of art, in all its many and varied forms, can be a profound way to help cope with experiences that were grievous, unfair, unwanted, or cruel. In each three-hour workshop, we’ll work on three creative writing exercises, read and discuss a few short readings, and hopefully find ways to unlock your own power.

These workshops are offered free of charge via Zoom. You do NOT have to be a writer, or even be interested in writing, to enroll. I’ve designed them for people of any or no writing experience – all are welcome. There’s no feedback or public sharing of work in these workshops (unless you want to), so you are free to unburden yourself and follow the prompts in whatever way is beneficial to you without fear of anyone seeing your work. Enrollment in each workshop is limited to 30.

To register for any or all of the workshops, email me directly at alisonmcghee@gmail.com. Feel free to share this note with anyone who might find the workshops helpful.

Please note: While these first three workshops below are open only to Minnesotans, I plan to add them to my regular workshop offerings in future, and they will always be offered free of charge.

Tuesday, March 25, 6-9 Central Time, via Zoom. Mapping the Unmapped
This workshop is designed for anyone living in the wake of loss: of a loved one, a job, a home, a relationship, a long-cherished dream, physical or mental health.

Sunday, April 6, 1-4 Central Time, via Zoom. Rewriting the Story, Reclaiming the Self
This workshop is designed for anyone living with the memories, recent or long ago, of abuse: bullying, domestic violence, an emotionally abusive relationship, a sexual or physical assault.

Friday, May 2, 1-4 Central Time, via Zoom. The Echo That Remains
This workshop is for anyone who loved someone who died of suicide, substance abuse, or untreated mental or physical illness.

Poem of the Week, by James Baldwin

Posted on by alisonmcghee

It’s hard to live in the world. This line has spoken itself in my head throughout my life, especially right now. Don’t let them get to you, Allie. That little mantra got me through some hard times when I was a child, and while it’s a flawed philosophy it’s still a helpful one when it comes to bullies, because bullies love reactions.

Who do you turn to in hard times? That question was asked a few weeks ago in my church, where the only creed is love, compassion, kindness, inclusion, and social justice. Those who have gone before me, was my instant answer. Those who have done the hard things. Those who have already stepped through those distant doors and did so with courage and heart. Like James Baldwin. What seems hopeless isn’t, because the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, and nothing is fixed.

For Nothing Is Fixed, by James Baldwin

For nothing is fixed,
forever, forever, forever,
it is not fixed;
the earth is always shifting,
the light is always changing,
the sea does not cease to grind down rock.
Generations do not cease to be born,
and we are responsible to them
because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails,
lovers cling to each other,
and children cling to us.
The moment we cease to hold each other,
the moment we break faith with one another,
the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. 

Click here for more information about poet, essayist, short story writer, critic, novelist and iconic American James Baldwin.  

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter