Ellen Bass The Thing Is The New Black

July 4, 2024, 8:16 pm
Ellen: I think… Really. POEM] The Thing Is by Ellen Bass. And I guess my question is, how much of a lens do you think we need to supply as a poet for someone else to be invited into our work? "More happy, happy love! " To the sterile diapers and pale-yellow sleeper. When I confront a blank page, I don't know how it will turn out or whether I'm capable of doing it. In this one image, Bass joins our beauty to our wounding. I had no idea that it would be such an important book, but I knew that I had to work on it. I was never ashamed. I felt very tentative every time I had to show her a poem and then as we were looking at the whole manuscript. And they've done brain imaging of people reading metaphors. So here's the view, the breeze, the pulse. That's the answer I'm looking for. Thickening the air, heavy as water.

Ellen Bass The Thing Is The New

In this most recent book, Indigo, I didn't start to try to put these poems together until maybe a month or six weeks before it had to be delivered which is really the latest I've ever waited. Marion: It's a joy to meet you. When he wrote that poem, he never imagined that miles and years after he died, that there'd be a white lesbian in Santa Cruz, California, holding onto his poem to get her through the day, and get her through the night. And I often think, there's Langston Hughes. There were very few MFA programs and no one was going to be interested in hiring me. Watch her on YouTube. As I'm talking to you, I'm just looking ahead on my wall, and there's a tiny poem by Langston Hughes, who we know was black and was very publicly, actively important, writing about race and writing about being black. Elizabeth Jacobson: Thank you, Ellen, for this poignant response. Ellen Bass: I sure wish I did! So this is what I'm here for, to see inside. What drove you back to poetry? Your tomatoes will grow a fungus. Last night you told me you liked my eyebrows.

Ellen Bass The Thing Is Beautiful

Rogers' theory of listening and working respectfully with clients, of unconditional positive regard, was really helpful to me. When I left him, I just was fed up with him and with men in general. So, there's not much left to be afraid of there. Well, yours is Ellen Bass dot com, and I recommend everybody go there and listen to you read, and to see the many, many books you've written. Surely, we're not just merely showing our lives to others. I could be looking up at the night sky, this wispy band of brilliance. Because my husband slept.

The Thing Is Ellen Bass

Readers will be captured by the intimate human moments, and poets will gorge themselves on the careful, attentive craft Bass brings to each piece. What is the experience of this poem for you? To the radiance haloed around him. Had I not encountered her, I think I may have given up. WE ALL KNOW THAT writing informs us.

The Thing Is By Ellen Bass Meaning

And then, it'll come up for us. And I try not to give into the fear of revealing myself to myself. I am always apprehensive about my ability to write any specific poem and often when I've agreed to such requests, I've been disappointed in what I was able to produce. The doctor asked for permission to cut. I try to see how the poem works, what makes it tick.

Emotions run high in this poem, but the repetition of "because" keeps us grounded and far from melodrama or panic even as the situation may warrant those responses. I think it does feel intellectually gorgeous. Ellen: Actually, I've read about that a bit. That meant… This was before, way before computers. Crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. I didn't have formal training as a psychologist, but in Boston I had worked with teens at risk. We had moved to Aptos by the time I had my daughter. But when you get up and speak, when you get up, when you have to represent yourself, when you have to sell yourself, to say you're a gay, white, multi-platform, contemporary poet is a mouthful, but accurate. My use is less stringent, but it still sets up an expectation. I didn't work on it continually, of course, but every couple years I'd give it another try.