A Crown of Autumn Leaves

Our voices press
from us
and twine
around the year's
fermenting wine


Yellow fall roars
Over the ground.
Loud, in the leafy sun that pours
Liquid through doors,
Yellow, the leaves twist down

as the winding
of the vine
pulls our curling
voices—

Glowing in wind and change,
The orange leaf tells

How one more season will alter and range,
Working the strange
Colors of clamor and bells

In the winding
of the vine
our voices press out
from us
to twine

When autumn gathers, the tree
That the leaves sang
Reddens dark slowly, then,
suddenly free,

Turns like a key,
Opening air where they hang

and the winding
of the vine
makes our voices
turn and wind
with the year’s
fermented wine

One of the hanging leaves,
Deeply maroon,
Tightens its final hold, receives,
Finally weaves
Through, and is covered soon

in the winding
of the vine—

Holding past summer's hold,
Open and strong,
One of the leaves in the crown is gold,
Set in the cold
Where the old seasons belong.

Here is my crown
Of winding vine,
Of leaves that dropped,
That fingers twined,
another crown
to yield and shine
with a year’s
fermented wine.

Annie Finch

For Mabon (fall equinox), Sept. 21
copyright Annie Finch 2011

title

i have to go into the hospital tomorrow and i'm scared.

i had a heart attack ten years ago, and apparently the stents need to be replaced.

i have recently been feeling poorly, so they did these big fancy tests on me and that's what they found.

i had this best friend for about 25 years, but a couple of years ago we drifted apart. but amazingly, we just became friends again, and she's going to drive me to and pick me up from the hospital. strange how these things happen.

i have to go in tomorrow, monday, at noon, for a procedure at 2:30pm. they don't put you completely asleep so you're aware of what's going on, and will remember it.

supposedly, if they turn out not to need replacing anything (they won't), i can go home later that same day, tomorrow night. as deeply as i wish to do that, i guess i more hope that they can fix me.

but this is the first night i will not sleep with ruby since we've been together, almost 5 years.

it's no accident that my anniversaries with both ruby and this blog are so close to the same amount of time. some part of my beginning it at about that time was because robert -- my cat before ruby -- had begun to die. and ruby came very shortly after he did.

but the hardest part of ten years ago was being away from home, from my garden, from my cat.

if i come back from this time feeling better,
maybe it will be a healing experience.

yellow silk @ 30

thirty years ago today i came home with cartons and cartons of the first issue of my new magazine, yellow silk. cartons and cartons would be piled into my car then unloaded into the middle of my (fortunately large) second bedroom which served as my office. as would become a habit, we threw a fundraiser to pay the printer; harry the baker made a cake that looked like a magazine cover, and bunches of poets came to read their work from the magazine. since the first issue was all women (they responded to a cal for manuscripts more quickly than the guys did), we had the reading at a local women's bar, the long-gone bacchanal. the place has been called britt-marie's for years now, and they've kept the old 'stained glass' B over the door.

a funny thing happened last night. i was reading over the excerpts from the magazine that i had put online long ago, and an amazing thing happened -- i felt really proud. i hadn't read that poetry for years, i guess, and it was like it was all new to me, and i loved it, and i wanted to share it with you, despite the fact that i saw the million typos for the first time too!

so please enjoy some little bits from the 15 years that it lasted.

there are many stories, ask if you want. i just might answer you.

or go see more. Yellow Silk

by the way, please don't order anything on the website. also, to progress from page to page, the easiest way is to start on any given issue. click on any word that is underlined. this will take you to another page with work from the same issue. on that second page, in eensy tiny letters, it will say, 'go to next issue' (or something like that. if there is no underlined word, the 'go to next issue' will be on that table of contents page.

don't call me rosie!

why are we always flowers? my love is like a red red rose. no she's not. a rose is a rose, and she is a person. she will not wilt within a week. she will not lose her color, turn brown, and dry out. and you know that if she does, max factor will have the solution she's looking for.

but since she is actually a living human, why should she? why is it so important to keep the appearances: colors, glows, silken-like qualities of youth? because why are women here but to reproduce.

no, i don't believe that, even if it's true. it's just that the older i get, the more a biological determinist i seem to get. to not be living your life as a woman whose main goal is to family and reproduce, is to consciously depart from your genes.

and face social retribution when you do. though defining one's self should be everyone's own private prerogative, it simply is not. each individual is a part of a larger social animal, and it is that animal's job to mind the bits and pieces. anyone who might question, or cause another to question, is a "Bad Influence." (maybe even mentally ill)

why must jennifer lopez be seen in a different outfit every week when she judges american idol? even i feel that pressure, even if i'm just going to the store. is it true, as i tell myself, that i just can't stand repetition, or something else, something much darker and inbred?

and we are not allowed to do anything that marks us as uninterested in reproducing. how often will you see an ad on tv telling you that you look beautiful in white hair, why change it? and in fact, where does it say that you needn't be beautiful?

i admit it, i'm
the odd one out. asperger's gives one distance. if you don't "get" the rules, you are more likely to notice their forms. but that does not invalidate my questions. is there a future role for women in which to be called a red, red rose would be an insult?

at one point,
will we be free enough to live without expectations? or are the expectations a necessity if our species is to survive? like sand through an hourglass, an individual life passes along its genes and then moves on. anyone who wants to stop it can must pay the price. and all this goes on beyond our ken and beyond our reach.


until someone reaches out to pluck that flower.

Of Woodblocks and Puppets

German-born Gustave Baumann found his way to Brown County [Indiana] in the early part of the 20th century via the Art Institute
of Chicago and a return to Germany. After studying printmaking in both locales, Baumann set up a press in a vacant store in Nashville and
there perfected his skills.

A trip into Brown County to investigate art possibilities led the artist to tell a biographer that "Brown County was easy to commute to, and I found that restful something we all yearn for. Life was simple. I could stay two months for $100."Baumann leased or rented the rooms over Genolin's drug store—four rooms for $4 a month.

During his time in Brown County, Baumann was commissioned by Indianapolis based children's poet James Whitcomb Riley to create
12 illustrations for his book, "All the Year Round." "I did the book,
but not knowing the rules of the game, it turned out to be a Baumann book with Riley text. It consequently was a dismal flop," Baumann
told a biographer.

"I liked the place," Baumann said. "Someone has said that literature and art flourish wherever people give themselves time to think. Indiana was one of those places. The artist was accepted with amused tolerance. As such, he could move around freely without being exploited as a strange creature who radiated publicity value. But art is a kind of tyrant. It pushes you around. It came to me dressed up in wanderlust."

The same wanderlust that brought the printmaker to Brown County
is the same wanderlust that took him away. He once wrote, "Instead
of being tied to a musty museum, the artist likes to herd in colonies where life and landscape are a source of inspiration. There are
many of these all over the United States. Some of them have worn themselves out. Of those that persist, Provincetown, Brown County, Indiana, Taos, New Mexico, and Laguna Beach, California, are perhaps the best known."

It was New Mexico that lured him from Brown County. The Baumann's home in Santa Fe became a meeting place for all kinds of poets and writers. "In fact, the whole artistic community met there," said one
of their friends. "Jane had a sort of open house tea every single day,
and anyone who wanted to could come and join. She was a wonderful cook and baker."

Baumann had started making marionettes around 1930 for a change from prints and oil painting. "He never worked them, though," said his daughter Ann. "He couldn't coordinate speaking and manipulating them. Mother could and he advised." Over time the collection of carved wooden marionettes grew to about 60, with three modeled after Ann, Jane and Gustave himself. And the family and their friends began putting on puppet shows in the Baumanns' living room. They also took the show to various schools, to Colorado, and to Albuquerque.

The artist's talented work in the wood for blocks for his prints carried over into his marionettes, leading one of his New Mexico friends to say, "They're remarkable things, just as artistic as his wood blocks. He loved working in wood, was a master carver, and this is where he put his creativity. They [the marionettes] brought an awful lot of enjoyment
to a lot of people."

Joanne Nesbit
Our Brown County

see more of these wonderful marionettes

work your best!... (for me?)

conditions in the US during the twenties, the period during which all four of these poster series were published. also, it was the period which resembled conditions here today in many ways.

these four series, two of which are new to me, all of which seem to me to have very different views of human nature. the mather posters are boosters, 'you go get'm, guys!' the bill jones ones are frequently scolding. the a.h.brand ones, which are to be found nowhere but swann's aug 3 2011 catalogue, at least not that i could find; they are elegant and kind -- more reminders than instructions.

the buzza mottos are so charming. i've come across them now and then over the years, but they are only rarely photographed well enough to reproduce here. and their favorite subject is mothers. still, they are also boosters. see finsbry's flickr for more.

the thing is, why did they all appear at just that moment? this was the 'roaring twenties,' and a time in our history in which the separation between the rich and the poor was devastatingly vast, much like it is today.

power was held by the few, and rights were being stolen from their workers. the lopsidedness toppled the economy, again, much as it has today. workers with no money in their pockets can't consume, and without consumers a business will fail.

so why these posters at that moment, and what, if any- thing, can they teach us about today?
i just can't see myself clear to understand.
are they morale boosters handed out instead of power?
are they the greedy trying to squeeze just that penny more?
(if we're going to fund FEMA we have to cut social security!)

what do you think?

read more
• heller posters
• international posters

involved in the minutiae

(interview between ada calhoun & michael lewis, here)

Ada: I was taken aback by some of the things in [your new book, Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood], like, if I can read you one quote: "At some point in the last few decades the American male sat down at the dining room table with the American female, and let us be frank, got fleeced." I was shocked by that, because when I look it our generation, it seems like men are happy to play their part.

Michael: Ah, well, you must know different men than me.

Ada: I think I do.

Michael: Bear in mind that most of the men I'm surrounded by are in Berkeley, California. So, the men I know are very much in the left end of the spectrum. Relatively highly involved dads. On the one hand, it is completely true that there are a lot of men who take great satisfaction in being involved in the minutiae and messiness of actually raising children. But, it is a much smaller universe of men who take any pleasure in the newborn stage. Men, I think, tend to engage once they start to be able to play with the thing and talk to it and have some kind of communication.

But, even so, there is just a wealth of bitching and moaning about the responsibility that I hear and it never really gets voiced. In the universe I'm talking about it's men who are potentially breadwinners at the same time that they are having all these new caretaking responsibilities and they don't have a real mental model to use....

But I do think that there is just enormous friction about who is supposed to do what. I think, actually, that when men are made to do things they don't want to do, like take care of a child, which they assumed the mother was going to take care of — I think they can get enormous rewards from it, but nevertheless it can be messy getting to that place.

(continued here)