Tara Hardy has been a mentor and influence of mine since I first saw her perform in Seattle in 2000. I then went on to be one of her students for about five years, studying at Bent: A Writing Institute for Queers, where I eventually became a volunteer and substitute teacher, and where I learned a ton about performing, chapbooks, writing, queerness, butchness, femmes, and all sorts of other life things.
Anything But God by Tara Hardy, one of my favorite pieces of hers:
Her new book, Bring Down the Chandeliers, is published on Write Bloody and is brilliant. I have many of her previous self-published chapbooks, so I recognized some of these poems, but even familiar with her work I was thrilled to see them re-made and re-imagined for this new collection. I love how she’s edited them.
I bought an extra copy of her new book just so I could give it away here on Sugarbutch. Want it? Leave a comment with your favorite poet or poem or book of poems, or something else entirely, and I’ll pick a winner at random next week Monday when I get back from Dark Odyssey.
One of her recent chapbooks, Shoulder Slip Strap (which she probably has copies of if you email her or find her on Facebook), has this short but amazing piece in it that I have been chewing on ever since I read it.
Isn’t that just oh so perfect? I love how much is encapsulated.
She’s going to be touring in the Northeast in September and October, so if she’s coming to a city near you, this is your chance to see her perform. Do it. From her Facebook note:
Tara Hardy on the loose for 20 days in the northeast: 18 performances, 8 workshops, 1 rental car, more shoes than she shoulda, and lots & lots-o-copies of Bring Down the Chandeliers (for sale!).
*Thursday, 9/15: Amherst, MA, Smith College
*Friday, 9/16: Somerville, MA, Poets Theater (Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave) 8pm
*Saturday, 9/17: Boston, MA, Jme Caroline’s kitchen, Time TBA
*Sunday, 9/18: Portland, ME, Rhythmic Cypher, Slainte Wine Bar (24 Preble St) 8pm
*Monday, 9/19: Portland, ME, workshop TBA, performance at Port Veritas (Local Sprouts, 649 Congress), Time TBA
*Tuesday, 9/20: Providence, RI, Providence Poetry Slam (AS220, 115 Empire Ave) 9pm
*Wednesday, 9/21: Day of rest, or rather, bookstore hop.
*Thursday, 9/22: Manchester, NH, Milly’s Tavern (500 Commercial Street) 8pm
*Friday, 9/23: New York, NY, Nuyorican Poetry Slam (Nuyorican Poets Café, 236 E Third St) 9pm
*Saturday, 9/24: Worcester, MA, Clark College Youth Performance, (location TBA) 7pm
*Sunday, 9/25: Worcester, MA, Clark College Workshop (location TBA) 2-4pm and Poets Asylum, (WCUW Front Room, 910 Main St) 7pm
*Monday, 9/26: New York, NY, LouderARTS (Bar 13, 35 East 13th Street) 7:30pm
*Tuesday, 9/27: Washington, D.C., Beltway Poetry Slam (The Fridge, 516 8th Street SE) 7:30pm
*Wednesday, 9/28: Washington, D.C., Busboys & Poets (5th & K Streets) 9pm
*Thursday, 9/29: Long Branch, NJ, Loser Slam (665 Second Avenue) workshop 8pm, performance, 9pm
*Friday, 9/30: Jersey City, NJ, JC Slam (location & time TBA)
*Saturday, 10/1: Richmond, VA, Richmond Slam (Artspace Art Gallery, 31 E 3rd St) workshop & performance, 5-7:30pm
*Sunday, 10/2: Day of rest, or rather, search for best vegan food in D.C.
*Monday, 10/3: Washington, D.C. Mothertongue (DC Center, 1318 U Street NW) workshop 6:30-8, performance, 9pm
*Tuesday, 10/4: New York, NY, Urbana Poetry Slam (Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery) 7pm
When Peace Comes by Tara Hardy
Thank you, Tara, for all that you’ve done and all you’ve taught and all you’ve shared with the world. You’ve been a huge influence, and I wouldn’t be where I am if I hadn’t had your guidance and brilliance along the way.
When I was 18 my girlfriend introduced me to Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey”, a poem David Whyte reads well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ3PC-84ImA (Ignore the dog.)
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
-Mary Oliver
Oooh, I’m excited about this giveaway and am happy to pay for shipping to Canada if I win.
Regardless, I am excited to see the comments on this post and hear about other great poets/poems.
My favourite poets include: Andrea Gibson, Mary Oliver, Marie Howe, Karen Connolly, Buddy Wakefield.
Thanks for the opportunity!
My favorite poet is Pablo Neruda, and this is my favorite poem if his.
Sonnet XVII
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
in which there is no I or you
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand
so intimate that when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close
Pablo Neruda
Goodness, “When Peace Comes” is so powerful! And thank you for sharing that very sweet Daddy poem! One of my most favorite poets is Stacey Ann Chin – who first caught my attention with “Catalog the Insanity” (http://www.staceyannchin.com/v2/poems/poem_pop_1.html)
RUMI is my all time favorite poet, but I love this one because it could almost be about a poly family like my own
Danse Russe
by William Carlos Williams
If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
Oh, I’ll stand in line, would pay for the extra cost to Germany in a heartbeat (and maybe alongside your chapbook that got sent to the wrong adress first?) …
Favourite Poem. Hm, kind of hard, most of them are German. ;-) Let me think… I pick one of a writer that has influenced me a lot.
I’ll try to translate. Rose Ausländer is a German poet who fled to New York during the II World War. She actually wrote in English long before writing in German again. She spent the last eleven years of her life in bed – writing these beautiful, lucid poems about friendship, love and grief mostly. Don’t know if she is known in the States anymore?
FINDEN III
Ich finde
was ich nicht suchte
vereistes Lied
Ich nehme es
in den Mund
hauche es an
Es taut auf
und singt
mich
und
dich
(Recognition III
I discover
what I didn’t seek
frozen song
I take it
into my mouth
breathe it
It thaws
and sings
you
and
me)
I have many favorites, but this one’s on my mind lately:
Theme for English B
By Langston Hughes
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
I’ve been reading a lot of Margaret Atwood’s poetry lately. This is one I like a lot:
Variations on the Word “Sleep”
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
My favorite poets are random and eclectic.
Andrea Gibson, Michelle Tea, Tennyson. But the list is a mile long.
I’m awkwardly in love with Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot”.
Michelle Tea’s poems are gritty and make me laugh sometimes.
Andrea Gibson can bring me to tears and then more in love with my girlfriend. My favorite of hers is “I Do.
I’m excited for a chance to have new poetry introduced into my life and to introduce my work so enjoy and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I win :)
Love and stuff
Our shadows on concrete can be the reflection of lyrical love songs
the relationship between music and memories
like hands creating mystery animals when meshed together
the adoption of spoken words like some foreign language being deciphered
between lovers
and you know I know what that look means
without the separation of your gorgeous lips parting ways
and although you currently do not exist
this silhouette
this girl that moves my soul
you are my idealism
the thing that keeps me looking beyond the heaviest of rains
leaving me time to dream
you are my secret
my endless unbreakable bond
an abstract to my thoughts upon recycled lesbian flyers from something I fell into
you will not be the worlds perfection
but rather my own
to victual my heart with endless company
when other things are better left un-said
to color or rather paint my poetry
with stumbles …….
of the words Love & Stuff
-AJ Barnett
favorite poet: eileen myles. also mallarme, in the original french. i am a minimalist at heart, i want spare structure & understated emotions in poems.
I love Sandra Cisneros’ You Bring Out The Mexican In Me.
“You are the one I’d let go the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.”
Living in Vancouver BC, I know that I have had the opportunity to see Tara Hardy perform more then once, but I’ve never quite been able to pull it together enough. Maybe this will be the extra push I need, next time she is in town.
Regardless, this poem by a local queer slam poet is one that I just can’t get over, no matter how many times I’ve seen it performed.
I have recently discovered Rumi and discovered I like poetry. That’s all I’ve got, really.
Oooh, a new poet to swoon over. Even if I don’t end up with this, I will find myself some Tara Hardy somehow. (I am also in Canada, but can give a US address for shipping.)
These days my favorite poem is definitely “Wild Geese,” but one of my very longstanding favorite poems is “Sheltered Garden” by H.D. I’m about to have a line from it tattooed down my spine. It’s rather long, so I won’t include the whole thing, but it’s about longing to create a new beauty and a new femininity that breaks free of constraint and values resilience. The line for the tattoo is from this stanza:
For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves–
spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince–
leave half-trees torn, twisted
but showing the fight was valiant.
I have so many favorite poets and poems and books of poems, but recently, one that has stood out is Karen Finneyfrock’s Ceremony for the Choking Ghost.
This is one of my favorite poems from the book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t82BB-4WiUU
Andrea Gibson- Swingset
“Are you a boy or a girl?” he asks, staring up at me in all three feet of his pudding face grandeur, and I say “Dylan, you’ve been in this class for three years and you still don’t know if I’m a boy or a girl?” And he says “Uh-uh.” And I say “Well, at this point, I don’t really think it matters, do you?” And he says “Uhhhm, no. Can I have a push on the swing?” And this happens every day. It’s a tidal wave of kindergarten curiosity rushing straight for the rocks of me, whatever I am.
And the class, when we discuss the Milky Way galaxy, the orbit of the Sun around the Earth… or whatever. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and kids, do you know that some of the stars we see when we look up in the sky are so far away, they’ve already burned out? What do you think of that? Timmy? “Umm… my mom says that even though you got hairs that grow from your legs, and the hairs on your head grow short and poky, and that you smell really bad, like my dad, that you’re a girl.” “Thank you, Timmy.”
And so it goes. On the playground, she peers up at me from behind her pink power puff sunglasses and then asks, “Do you have a boyfriend?” And I say no, and she says “Oh, do you have a girlfriend?” And I say “No, but if by some miracle, twenty years from now, I ever finally do, then I’ll definitely bring her by to meet you. How’s that?” “Okay. Can I have a push on the swing?”
And that’s the thing. They don’t care. They don’t care. Us, on the other hand… My father sitting across the table at Christmas dinner, gritting his teeth over his still-full plate, his appetite ripped away by the intrusion of my haircut, “What were you thinking? You used to be such a pretty girl!” Frat boys, drunken, screaming, leaning out of the windows of their daddys’ SUVs, “Hey! Are you a faggot or a dyke?” And I wonder what would happen if I met up with them in the middle of the night.
Then of course there’s always the somehow not-quite-bright enough fluorescent light of the public restroom, “Sir! Sir, do you realize this is the ladies’ room?” “Yes, ma’am, I do, it’s just that I didn’t feel comfortable sticking this tampon up my penis in the men’s room.”
But the best, the best is always the mother at the market, sticking up her nose while pushing aside her daughter’s wide eyes, whispering “Don’t stare, it’s rude.” And I want to say, “Listen, lady, the only rude thing I see is your paranoid parental hand pushing aside the best education on self that little girl’s ever gonna get, living with your Maybelline lipstick after hips and pedi kiwi, vanilla-smelling beauty; so why don’t you take your pinks and blues, your boy-girl rules and shove them in that car with your fucking issue of Cosmo, because tomorrow, I start my day with twenty-eight minds who know a hell of a lot more than you. And if I show up in a pink frilly dress, those kids won’t love me any more, or less.”
“Hey, are you a boy or a — never mind, can I have a push on the swing?” And some day, y’all, when we grow up, it’s all gonna be that simple.
I am in love with Sierra DeMulder’s “Werewolf”. Stunning!
The video (which is sooo powerful):
I recommend Mindy Nettifee’s “Rise of the Trust Fall” – BUST magazine called it a “linguistic orgasm” and they couldn’t be more right! <3
My favorite Slam Poet is Andrea Gibson, i can’t decide between either of her books Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns, or The Madness Vase, but they are both outstanding. I thoroughly enjoy Tara’s Poetry and performances.
Mary Oliver!
I loved this piece so much, I tattooed “Loisfoeribari” on my shoulder!
http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/estefani-lora-third-grade-who-made-me-card
My favorite poem is “femme body bop” by Tamiko Beyer!
Tara profoundly changed the way i write and think about writing as a lesbian. Her words echoed in my soul long after they were witnessed. She is definitely one of my favorites and i am hoping to make a journey to the us very soon and would love to be a part of bent.
I am happy to pay for postage to australia and i would most likely be the only one in my country to have this book.
My favorite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forough_Farrokhzad
It’s hard to pick a single favorite poem, but this might be my favorite of hers:
http://www.forughfarrokhzad.org/selectedworks/selectedworks4.asp
From “One Fish Two Fish” by Dr. Seuss
My hat is old.
My teeth are gold.
I have a bird
I like to hold.
My shoe is off
My foot is cold.
My shoe is off
My foot is cold.
I have a bird
I like to hold.
My hat is old
My teeth are gold.
And now my story is all told.