Youth Media Conference

YOUTH MEDIA CONFERENCE FALL WHOSE BODY IS THIS?

We want to thank film-makers Junko Kajino and Ed M Koziarski for screening their film 'The First Breath of Tengan Rei' and Megan Twohey, an investigative journalist from Chicago Tribune for presenting for our first Youth Council meeting. It was an inspirational evening for all. The Youth Council will be meeting every two weeks throughout the summer firstly to discuss ideas related to the body and secondly, to start the planning of the Fall 2010 Youth Media Conference. If you are a young person who would like to get involved please contact: Carron Little Young Chicago Authors (773) 486-4331 ext. 15 carron@youngchicagoauthors.org TEACHER PROPOSALS FOR CONFERENCE DEADLINE AUGUST 31ST 2010 IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN FACILITATING A WORKSHOP PLEASE CONTACT CARRON LITTLE ON THE ABOVE INFORMATION.

Black Nature Poetry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkBs81CUcpg&feature=youtu.be

30/30

The poets around me are in a 30 poems in 30 days effort, and I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I'll post by midnight. (nevermind that I'm 2 days behind. I'll just go 'til May 2. whateva, whateva I do what I want.)

m.

Curriculum Bones

This project is can be tailored to Adult Basic Education (ABE) low literacy students, teens and children. The main theme is the body. Feel free to couple that with discussions which directly address the themes of class, gender, religion, nationality, sexuality, immigration status, accent, etc. As far as I am concerned thought (of which art/writing is a part) should lead to action. It is important to make people feel empowered. It is more important to make them recognize that each of us has a responsibility to make a difference. Discussing the way that institutionalized racism, sexism, and age-ism function is crucial to creating the praxis that is at the heart of popular education.

Notes—Curriculum Planning with Backward Design: Starting with the objectives results in greater student achievement.

--Write objectives first. Once the objectives are clear, the teacher can create a lesson or unit that will guide the students to the learning goal.

overall benefits:

promote mental health/encourage creativity

promote enivronmental health/ consciousness

promote physical exercise (for the elderly)

Project Summary:

Possible Readings:

Excerpts from Youthtopias: Towards a New Paradigm of Critical Youth Studies, Excerpts from The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “Poem for the Losers” by d.a. levy from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Poems from Aloud: Readings from the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, Poems from Bum Rush the Page, “Black Stacey” by Saul Williams (also listen to the song), “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (The Negro National Anthem) (play the song, too.), something about women in the third phase of life, readings on body image.

Materials:

Cardboard boxes

Scissors

Paint

Paper

Camera

Printer

Staples

Glue

Objectives:

• Each participant will write or illustrate a personal narrative about his or her body.

ü The evidence that each participant has realized some of his/her creative expression will be a complete narrative or drawing.

ü Evidence of physical exertion will be the dexterity required to open containers of paint, fold cardboard, use a pen.

ü Evidence of positive mental/emotional response will be observed during the sharing of community during the “show and tell” phase.

Week 1: 5-10 minute reading about Social Justice/Civic Engagement/Body Politics. 10-15 minute discussion. Fill out surveys.

• Each participant will complete 2 short narratives, 1 fill in the blank poem and a brief biography.

ü Basic ABE participants will write, dictate or design at least 1 complete movement in order.

ü Advanced ABE participants will write up to 4 complete movements.

ü Each participant will read and/or follow basic instructions and will be able to fill in the blanks with his/her own original thoughts.

ü Each participant will be able to find and tell something positive about himself/herself and/or his/her body.

§ important for aging populations because problems associated with advanced age and poverty can cause depression.

§ important for aging women because during and post menopause women lose confidence and/or belief in their physical beauty. This can have a negative impact on their mental/emotional well-being.

§ important for young populations because prevailing ideas about beauty cause severe and clandestine self esteem issues which can result in problems associated with body dysmorphic disorder.

ü Each person will be able to complete a cause and effect narrative (i.e. describe a time when you knew your own importance. What made you aware?)

ü Participants will become familiar with a poetic form.

Week 2: 5-10 minute reading about Social Justice/Civic Engagement/Body Politics. 10-15 minute discussion. Make book covers.

Part ONE: Construction/Set-Up. You can use an assembly line method. Have someone trace the patterns. Have another person cut out the covers. Have another person fold the covers. Have another person distribute the covers. Have another committee cover the work area with plastic and set up paints and water. This group can change for clean-up.

Part TWO: Draw or paint covers.

• Each participant will learn a new use for cardboard. Using cardboard as the medium reduces waste by re-using something which has already served its purpose. (This project can also be used to promote re-use and literacy for grandchildren and little brothers and sisters. just sayin’.)

• Participants will (ideally) design body themed cover art.

ü potentially participants will be able to id and/or create themes between their covers and their narratives.

· For the elderly and the very young, painting, cutting, drawing and folding are exercises in dexterity and hand-eye coordination. This section allows freedom of visual expression (use any available materials).

Week 3: Photo Day/ Construction

• Make everyone an author (hi-fi or lo-fi)

ü You can assign the role of “photographer”

ü If you choose lo-fi. Have everyone cut and past his/her photo to the back of or the inside back cover of his or her book.

ü If you choose hi-fi, then have a graphic designer insert each photo into each book (and the anthology). Be sure to include a credits/thank you/dedications in appropriate spaces. Name your press. Title your project with your group (try to pull it from group discussion)

Week 4: 5-10 minute reading about Social Justice/Civic Engagement/Body Politics (participant chosen). 10-15 minute discussion (participant led). Show and Tell/ Presentation

• Discuss one of the first three sections (small group or with the whole group) show picture. Include an optional Q&A/autograph section.
• Discuss cover. If you and your group choose to stage a competition announce winner (s) and award prizes.
• Party.

raw stuff: the curriculum

Feel free to "tear it up". I can use the criticism. Any ideas are welcome.

This project is can be tailored to Adult Basic Education (ABE) low literacy students, teens and children. The main theme is the body. Feel free to couple that with discussions which directly address the themes of class, gender, religion, nationality, sexuality, immigration status, accent, etc. As far as I am concerned thought (of which art/writing is a part) should lead to action. It is important to make people feel empowered. It is more important to make them recognize that each of us has a responsibility to make a difference. Discussing the way that institutionalized racism, sexism, and age-ism function is crucial to creating the praxis that is at the heart of popular education.

Notes—Curriculum Planning with Backward Design: Starting with the objectives results in greater student achievement.

--Write objectives first. Once the objectives are clear, the teacher can create a lesson or unit that will guide the students to the learning goal.

overall benefits:

promote mental health/encourage creativity

promote enivronmental health/ consciousness

promote physical exercise (for the elderly)

Project Summary:

Possible Readings:

Excerpts from Youthtopias: Towards a New Paradigm of Critical Youth Studies, Excerpts from The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “Poem for the Losers” by d.a. levy from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Poems from Aloud: Readings from the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, Poems from Bum Rush the Page, “Black Stacey” by Saul Williams (also listen to the song), “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (The Negro National Anthem) (play the song, too.), something about women in the third phase of life, readings on body image.

Materials:

Cardboard boxes

Scissors

Paint

Paper

Camera

Printer

Staples

Glue

Objectives:

• Each participant will write or illustrate a personal narrative about his or her body.

ü The evidence that each participant has realized some of his/her creative expression will be a complete narrative or drawing.

ü Evidence of physical exertion will be the dexterity required to open containers of paint, fold cardboard, use a pen.

ü Evidence of positive mental/emotional response will be observed during the sharing of community during the “show and tell” phase.

Week 1: 5-10 minute reading about Social Justice/Civic Engagement/Body Politics. 10-15 minute discussion. Fill out surveys.

• Each participant will complete 2 short narratives, 1 fill in the blank poem and a brief biography.

ü Basic ABE participants will write, dictate or design at least 1 complete movement in order.

ü Advanced ABE participants will write up to 4 complete movements.

ü Each participant will read and/or follow basic instructions and will be able to fill in the blanks with his/her own original thoughts.

ü Each participant will be able to find and tell something positive about himself/herself and/or his/her body.

§ important for aging populations because problems associated with advanced age and poverty can cause depression.

§ important for aging women because during and post menopause women lose confidence and/or belief in their physical beauty. This can have a negative impact on their mental/emotional well-being.

§ important for young populations because prevailing ideas about beauty cause severe and clandestine self esteem issues which can result in problems associated with body dysmorphic disorder.

ü Each person will be able to complete a cause and effect narrative (i.e. describe a time when you knew your own importance. What made you aware?)

ü Participants will become familiar with a poetic form.

Week 2: 5-10 minute reading about Social Justice/Civic Engagement/Body Politics. 10-15 minute discussion. Make book covers.

Part ONE: Construction/Set-Up. You can use an assembly line method. Have someone trace the patterns. Have another person cut out the covers. Have another person fold the covers. Have another person distribute the covers. Have another committee cover the work area with plastic and set up paints and water. This group can change for clean-up.

Part TWO: Draw or paint covers.

• Each participant will learn a new use for cardboard. Using cardboard as the medium reduces waste by re-using something which has already served its purpose. (This project can also be used to promote re-use and literacy for grandchildren and little brothers and sisters. just sayin’.)

• Participants will (ideally) design body themed cover art.

ü potentially participants will be able to id and/or create themes between their covers and their narratives.

· For the elderly and the very young, painting, cutting, drawing and folding are exercises in dexterity and hand-eye coordination. This section allows freedom of visual expression (use any available materials).

Week 3: Photo Day/ Construction

• Make everyone an author (hi-fi or lo-fi)

ü You can assign the role of “photographer”

ü If you choose lo-fi. Have everyone cut and past his/her photo to the back of or the inside back cover of his or her book.

ü If you choose hi-fi, then have a graphic designer insert each photo into each book (and the anthology). Be sure to include a credits/thank you/dedications in appropriate spaces. Name your press. Title your project with your group (try to pull it from group discussion)

Week 4: 5-10 minute reading about Social Justice/Civic Engagement/Body Politics (participant chosen). 10-15 minute discussion (participant led). Show and Tell/ Presentation

• Discuss one of the first three sections (small group or with the whole group) show picture. Include an optional Q&A/autograph section.
• Discuss cover. If you and your group choose to stage a competition announce winner (s) and award prizes.
• Party.

Process:

I don’t want modify their words because their mistakes are as important as their ideas.

This project requires a different method from workshops because there is no revision involved. How is borrowing effect the group? How did modeling effect the group?

For the covers, the Restinga women did not copy one another, instead they created their own images and showed them off. In other arts projects they use cookie cutter images. Even with the templates, each woman wrote about something distinctly her own. None of the sheets were completed in pairs, instead each woman (some with the help of someone who could read or take dictation)

For me it is a dual language experience.

The project takes little enough time that new comers can catch up quickly.

Research the effects of acknowledging feelings/ past experiences. How does emotional and mental health affect physical health?

How does the project with the elderly women compare to the project with the teens?

What I am doing cannot be called teaching. Instead I’m facilitating a safe space for personal expression in the hopes that this project will do some good in improving or maintaining the emotional health of these women. The project is in keeping with the mission statement of the organization and with the mission statement of this particular group.

Art therapy is a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages. It is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight.

http://www.arttherapy.org/aata-aboutus.html

http://quartorlifecrisis.blogspot.com

is the address to my current blog.

just sayin'.

art book project

Project: Create books which include poems, drawings and personal stories of the group members (maybe 4 pages each). Take pictures of each participant and place it above 2 line biographies about the authors. Bind the books with book covers made out of cardboard boxes. Have the participants paint their own book covers.

Objective: to encourage personal and creative expression of aging people. To create a series documenting their voices. To promote environmental and mental/emotional health.

Benefits: The people in the group receive an opportunity to tell their personal histories to people who are interested. They can create artwork. The people who do not read or write can give dictation or draw. The participants can see themselves as published authors which will inspire confidence which is integral to emotional health. The project encourages environmental health by utilizing recycled materials.

Who: the members of the Namaskar groups in Restinga and Belém Novo
What: art books about life, health and aging and happiness
Where: Restinga and Belém Novo
When: 3/11, 13/11; 18/11, 20/11; 24/11, 26/11

Methodology:

This is a three part project.

(Week 1)

1st step: We can provide the participants with templates for an "I Am" poem, a "Letter to my Body" text, and a "Why My Life Matters" prompt and a 2 sentence biography.

(Week 2)

2nd step: We can take pictures of each participant individually, and have them paint the cardboard for their book covers with original designs.

3rd step: I will type all of the text and print it at UFRGS. I can staple all of the books together.

(Week 3)

4th Step: The participants can glue their fotos to the book covers above their biographies. Prof. Dra. Jacqueline has asked to speak with the women about their project when they're finished. Then they can take their books home, and UFRGS can publish an anthology of their work. I can write a preface.

litany

So in the spirit or refusing to consent through silence, I'll mimick a black queer woman I know (only through her work) and trust. thank you Audre Lorde. So I wrote this poem which is not as good as Litany for Survival, but I wrote this one, and I'm glad.

I've also read this in front of big 'ol groups of people. One group liked it, the other not so much. Audience is important. Bombing is also important.

litany: 1. a prayer consisting of a series of invocations and supplications by the leader with alternate responses by the congregation. 2. a resonant or repetitive chant. b. a usually lengthy recitation or enumeration. c a sizable series or set.

supplicate: 1. ask humbly and earnestly of. 2. to ask for earnestly and humbly.

Litany for the Wordless

"Dear god almighty," has become a curse in my mouth.
A lashing
reaching from fissured enamel
and tongue tip
to say:

I want meat and gnashing teeth--
Meaning to supplement the open mouths.

I give words from sounds.
"Say: Ni. Th. Cu. Cat.
Say: A. a. ah. aa. I i am.

Then I hand her the pen to scribe the words
"He hurts me. When my baby cries
My breasts leak. He bites, and it feels like rape."

dear, christ almighty, save me from the futility of prayer.

Oh, method and practice,
grant me the aptitude to
teach a woman with worn hands,
wooly mammoth hair--
to give her the words to protect
the gash between her thighs--
to save her sons from the wrath of misunderstanding--
to prevent the unraveling of another generation of
passing, of yes sirs, vapid noddings, poverty,
endless migration.

This is for the wordless and the undersexed--
The wordless who mimic for want of identity.
The undersexed who
sleep and
eat and
work alone
for want of mixing love with status.
For the undersexed who's names are
Older than the histories they're allowed to remember.

For the XY's coupling with the XX's I say
We want proud rounded curved bodies to
touch other hard/soft bodies
kindly, gently and with deference.

In acts of work
and
love and
education
I want phonemes and in strokes
to collide
roughly with passion
like an ax to bark or
gracefully like whittling.

Dear god, let them read to know the words
to write to say, "I am, too."

minority voices

2/22/09

o que o voce fazendo?

This is what I'm doing.

I went to the AWP Conference last week, so I've been reading these journals. I went to the biggest book fair I've ever seen. 800 tables. 1 table was manned by black people. 1. And 6 or 7 times while I was browsing--I walked by every single table--a nice white lady or two would say--Do you write, and I'd say yes and she would say, "we're looking for marginalized voices," we want to give voice to the women of color (like you), the apostrophized parenthetical. I don't know if you know this about me, ya'll, but I'm black and my snatch is black too. Mostly. Except for the pink park--she's red when she's bleeding.

So I'm reading thee journals, and all of the poems by black women are about erasure and rubbing out the blackness, combating the Bulest Eye Syndrome--violently fighting back. We're ( we meaning the African American women of color) are forced to fight the actions of oppressors 'cause silence still equals consent. I'm so sick of the top tier.

Readings and Music and Books, Oh, My!

I spent the last few days at the AWP conference, and I'm still a little overwhelmed. I walked away with my weight in pieces of paper with stories and poems, non-fiction and memoirs. I shook hands, collected buttons, listened to some of the best contemporary writers in the world. Titillated. Curious. Driven. I felt these things and a lack of focus, like I still haven't found a niche. Still, I have deadlines. I have a deadline in 4 hours. In 6 hours I will be on a stage reading a thing called a poem about a moment or moments or people or a person, and I want to make sure I say something right.
I spent the weekend with a good friend and friends. I drank beer and ate food and lusted after pretty bicycles. I studied portuguese and learned how to say, "Eu sou uma mulher," and I'm beginning to belive it because I am no longer "uma crianca," and I don't want to go back to that. Now I have to look up at "uma ceu azul" and dream grown up dreams, then make them come true. So I'm going to quit procrastinating now. I'll read a poem and then write a poem. Then I'll submit a story. bye bye.

Brazil or Bust/ 25th Birthday Party

Event Info

Host:	Maya Marshall
Type:	Birthday Party/Benefit

Time and Place

Start Time:	Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 7:00pm
End Time:	Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 3:00am
Location:	Poitin Stil
Street:	1502 W Jarvis
City/Town:	Chicago, IL

Here's the skinny: DJ PERV spins from 7-10 & intermittently raffles off prizes; Bachelor Auction from 10-10:30; Karaoke from 11-2am; Pool Tournament begins at 7; Dart Tournament begins at 8; Euchre Tournament begins at 9. Buy into it! Come on out.

The Cause: Send Maya to Brazil for 6 months to teach English and serve the Elderly.

I'm preparing for my mid-twenties identity crisis, and I'd like for you to come dance with me. Play pool with me. Be my Euchre partner. Beat me in Darts. Sing Karaoke, win a basket with wine and cheese in it or an hour long massage. Win lunch or a free cut and color by a lovely licensed cosmotologist. Win one of several other prizes. Come have a beer and talk to some folks you haven't seen in a while.

Green Mill

So I'm getting over my fear of reading on stage. As part of this initiative I went to the Green Mill and read a poem I wrote. It received a good response. Here's the poem I read:

She and I are the daughters of top tier abstractions.
I swallow haloed theories of difference. She plucks
strums, fingers nerves like cello strings vying decency
to escape all things traditional. We're glorified young
women free to drink and tromp along glistening Chicago concrete,
gnash teeth at lascivious old men, use our bodies to free our minds.

With a smoke full mouth this semi-Sappho speaks her mind
into sound symbols--syllables meant to concretize abstractions.
She holds my elbow, sure that this way only her feet will hit the concrete.
"I had a baby once, well twice," she admits. She had them plucked
in time to stop their first breathes. She claimed she'd saved her young
fellow the trouble of trying to care. "It's not about decency,

just time and space." I listen: sirens, jingling spokes, "decency."
On the corner a wrinkled woman squats to piss. I wonder what mind
could think this? The young
in the wilderness are in the wilderness everywhere. Flesh is not abstract,
morals aside. Listen. See Sappho push flesh from flesh, too concrete
a liminal breakage. In the alley by my back gate, a little boy is plucking

the face of an action figure. Index nail to plastic. thump. pluck,
pluck. thump. The sound is eighth notes. "Decency"
is not his concept. His is a night of simple destruction: crush plastic into concrete
walk, resume--thump,pluck,pluck. There is no one around to mind.
This little one is alone in an alley at 1 or 2 or 3 am. Abstractly,
I begin to flick the gate--pling, pling, pling--my focus entirely on the young

boy just steps ahead of me. Sappho speaks, "Aren't you too young
to be out here alone?' No response, just--thump. pluck, pluck.
"Are you lost?" His eyes are grey, milky, He looks up abstractly.
"Doesn't your mom want you in bed at a decent
hour?" He turned to leave calling out, "she ain't here, so she don't mind."
She turns her smile on me, laughs, shrugs. I pull the gate, iron scrapes concrete.

He could be my nightmares made concrete,
The epitome of all things frightening about the young.
Too much to hold on to. Too much to keep in mind.
Sappho says, "grab me another drink. Let me finger then pluck
som music out of you." She's on my nerves, but I concede. Decency
degenerates into ambiguity. Whiskey and want cause abstracton.

Tonight I'll make a mistake characteristic of the young.
It would be indecent to deny an artist the chance to pluck
song into creation, to concretize the lush lust, eliminate the abstraction.

Striving and Nausea

The following is a late night e-mail composed for someone I care about.

I had this three hour long conversation today that only felt like an hour. There were mentions of: political platforms, AA meetings, shame, damnation, laughter, love, foreskin, the loss of virginity, moments of fraternity. The thing that is sticking with me is the idea that a person who is happy must strive to maintain that satisfaction by constantly replenishing herself/himself. That is, we must eat, sleep, fuck, laugh, cry, do without until we get more, etc. Further, there's the business of life's purpose being to work where work equals satisfy; if one loves to draw or write or dance, organize or eat grass, and one does these/that thing, then that someone has set about doing the work of life and is sustaining happiness. To be happy is to grow because by consistently supplying one's self with fuel is to change--is to do whatever fills the void. That is work in its most healthful form.

For me institutional changes are invaluable, because it is during the transition periods that I find what I have and lack and need. So when I change my home and my job or just when I travel/change my pattern, I find out little daunting and crucial things. I don't like to eat grass, but I love trains. I don't need grand gestures, I need the comfort of sharing minutia. My heart likes to be grounded and constantly moving. When I write about myself now, I do so without referencing people that I care about. Perhaps as you send off two of your loves you can send them with letters in their hands about how you've best learned to be happy--sated. I'm sure you'll use your own definition
(your ability to find this is part of your beauty), and then they'll be engaged in conversation with you as they take off. It would be rude not to answer, no? *Poof* a paper bridge between your heart and theirs.

Still, the transition is a rough one. Being more alone makes me feel like I'm preparing for another pubescent phase--I feel like I'm at the part where I have to redefine all of my terms because they're relevant only to the people/places/things in my life that are changing all at once. It is a type of nausea, a sea sickness that stays until you get your legs. It seems to me that you're in a phase like this--will I have a new job? Will some friends become closer as other move toward different bodies of water? The beautiful part is all of the living that happens just before we get a hold on things--just before we finish defining our terms. Those are the feelings we're fully experiencing--all of those sensations without specific terms. These are the conversations that friendships are made of, no matter how far away our bodies are.

It is late, and while I can feel what I'm trying to say, I suspect that I haven't made it all very clear. I told you that I would write to you. I told you that I like to spend time thinking about you while I'm doing something for you. So, I've written, and I'm glad. All I really wanted to say to you, specifically, is that I hope you don't feel more alone in the world, because no matter where they are you've got people loving and thinking about you.

Published Review

Not my best work, but I didn't have the best raw materials. Here's my latest review.

http://www.talesofourtime.com/novelreviewexcerpts.html

One must start somewhere.

Bender

I don't know if spring is traditionally the time for bittersweet breakups and sudden and ill advised hookups, but this one has been for me. Celibacy, take me and do with me what you will.

My lungs hurt from smoking to keep my hands busy and my mouth shut. I have bills. Lots of bills. Bills that I can't pay. I've been looking for an office job for 3 months with no luck, and now I have to take a food/beverage job just to make my payments. I already have a job and an internship, and I've already done the three job thing. It makes me miserable. It make me want to crawl into a hole and forget that I ever loved anyone. I'm totally disinterested in reliving that type of life. After 6 years of school and $100,000 dollars, I can't find gainful employment. It is not for want of trying. I know that no one is going to pay me for my stories. They're not polished enough. I'm just asking to teach kids how to write poems or to copyedit dry business texts. Jeeez.

I've been drinking (which may be becoming synonymous with thinking) a lot lately about the early twenties (I've been thinking about the mid twenties, really. I am in my mid twenties. I am an actual adult with opinions and a home, but no sustainable job. No retirement fund. No property.). So, world of youth and older, I pose this question to you: what do I do? Write. Yes. I am doing that right now. No, Marshall. Write a book. Take all six of those stories and revise them. Then write six more. Right. This is what I say to myself before during and after the drinking. Well, where can I hide it? Cyberspace works. Now, instead of writing a story, here I am journaling about alcohol and jobs and debt and credit and a girl with nice tortoise shell looking glasses and long hair who wants to share intimate secrets may or may not be deep/ profound. But this is how I see that working out: poorly.

Culling

This poem is two years old.

Removed

A woman friend of mine
is sleeping in Boston
dreaming of how to remove
me from her.
She's reworking her concept;
Her tattoo
stretches from her
right shoulder to her
left breast,
covers formerly blank
skin with
tiny branches, shaded bark,
a trunk identical
to the one
supporting the full form
of my tattoo.
Stripped winter bare,
tendril branches
crawl up from
my right breast,
grip
my shoulder.
I scratch,
feel her tissue
raised thin puckered
colored in.

Progress

I wrote some stories. Months ago. A year ago. Years ago. I'm going to put them here. I'm going to revise them here. Probably.

Calvin

Maggie makes mittens. They’re good for extra cash if she can find buyers, and this week, no takers. Maggie’s footsteps mixed with the sound of bicycle tires masticating pavement. She stepped into an alcove in front of the Harold Washington library. Fifteen foot archways in dark shadow for the night. She stopped to light a cigarette. It was six o’clock. She had an hour before her boyfriend would meet her there. In the breath before lighting her cigarette she smelled toothpaste on her cuff and exhaust as a bus heaved itself from its stop. She released a breath looked up at the passers by. Young black women laughing and singing out. Teenaged boys with corn rows. An old Asian man in nurse shoes. Just to her right stood a wide sturdy black man wearing black construction pants. He had bruises on his hands.

Maggie looked from Calvin’s brown worn callused face still soft toward the windows of the monolithic building in front of her. It reminded her of a Magritte painting—gargoyles and moon reflected in the windows across the street. The street lights bronzing the already yellowing leaves in front of her. She knotted yarn with a crochet hook and Calvin looked down at her. He held and unlit cigarette. Maggie held up her lighter and lit it for him. The man said thank you and turned to face the street.

“Hey Captain,” he said to a little white man in a sailor cap.

Eight or nine homeless men with bags of personal affects and runny noses and tattered gloves made their way to the entrance of the library. Maggie assumed that they were there to get out of the cold. She assumed Calvin was one of them. He looked back toward her and said, “What’s your name?” “Maggie.” “How old you is? Look like you just a baby.” She answered. “Girl, I can’t understand what you saying. You talk so fast. You ain’t from here, huh? Where you from?” “Texas. I’m a mumbler.” “Yeah, you is.” “Are you from Chicago?” “Nope. I’m from the south.” “Well, how did you end up here?” She was really asking, ‘how did you end up homeless,’ but he looked at her with the almost lucid eyes of a sick man. “What you making there? “Mittens.” “Those for your man?”

Maggie bit the smile on her lips. “Tell him, he better treat you right. Ought to treat you like a queen. Some of these mens—“ “Yes, he treats me well.” “You married?” Maggie was surprised at the question, but didn’t let on. It seemed strange to her that someone in her early twenties could be married. “I was married for a long time.” he said, pushing down on his stomach like it hurt him. “You can make skull caps? You’ll make one for me? It is ‘bout to get cold out here.”

Maggie looked at the yarn in her hands. White isn’t a very good color for gloves, she thought. “Yes, I’ll make you a hat, right now.” “How much you want for that. I’ll give you a little bit for your trouble.” “I just want to know how you ended up here. What are you doing in Chicago?” “You sure you don’t want nothing for it? I can give you a little bit of money.” “I believe you could, but I don’t need it.” “Of course you believe me, I ain’t given you no reason not to.”

On the State street, Maggie heard more arthritic busses, car doors closing, high heels splashing water. She could hear the slow procession of trains, the redline grumbling to the ground beneath her, the brown line, snaking round and clacking above her. And she looped a tie of yarn around her hook.

“I got a job here. I’m from Georgia. Grew up on a lot of land. Wasn’t always out here tryin’ to run from the cold. Now, I ain’t given you no reason not to believe me. So you work on that skull-cap for me, and I’ll answer your question.

“I moved up to Chicago in ’79. Yeah, you lookin’ at me like I’m old, baby girl. Hehehe. You musta been born ‘bout then, but I already had me two children and a woman. Well, she got sick, and they got grown, and I moved up here.

My wife. We wasn’t never really married but we lived like it. She got sick. Started complaining of the flu. Kept touching her side and her middle in her sleep. I got worried, but she didn’t want anything to do with a doctor. Well then I got it, the same symptoms. I went to the doctor. Man said, “these days, there’s all kind of viruses spreading.” He asked me if I’m gay, say there this HIV going around. I said, no, I don’t fuck no mens. He asked me if I partied---oooh, we used to get down. Yeah. We used to go to the disco. Place called Braille—that’s what the call the writing for blind folks. Makes sense. It was so dark in there you had to walk around by feel. That is where I met my Martha.

Calvin smiled and wiped his lips with the hand that held his cigarette. That place was big as a skating rink, warm with bodies bouncing round to James Brown and the Commodores. All kinda treats. Well, Martha, my pretty dark-skinned girl with flashing white teeth and her big proud nappy hair spread in a dome round her head. Look like she’d get lost in a shadow somebody didn’t grab her.

Well that doctor man asked me if my wife or I had ever had other “partners.” I said, hell nah, I hadn’t. And no, my Martha wouldn’t. We’d been together then for, oh, I don’t know. Maybe about five years, and I couldn’t imagine she mess around on me. The doctor went on ahead and tested my blood, said I had some virus. Not that gay man virus, Hepatitis C. You mix blood to get that. I was sitting there on that table, mad with rage. My heart broke right there on that table. Couldn’t believe she’d bring that mess home to me—to my bed. Well, I sat right there and remembered when I met her.

Maggie pulled a length of yarn from her back pack and looked up at Calvin. He’d stopped talking for a long pause. She put the hook and yarn in the space between her bag and her hip, and pulled a cigarette out of her pocket. The evening had grown a little closer to night. The blue of the sky deepened, and the early evening crowds had thinned. Now college students ruled the sidewalk. All of the homeless fellows tucked warmly away in the stacks of the library. Just she and Calvin stood in the alcove. They stood shielded from the wind. She lit the cigarette, put her lighter away, and pulled out her phone to look at the clock. Six thirty. Another train crawled by. “Hey,” Maggie said. “Are you okay?” She worried now that she’d dredged up something too painful for him. He blinked hard hiding the blue rings around his brown eyes. “Yeah, boy I remember the night I met her.

“I watched my friend Athena walking fast to the bar behind Martha’s booth. All I could see was that yellow scarf that Athena always had on. She always had it on top of her head---her hair wrapped up like a baby is swaddled. Athena bent to pick something up from in front of the bar, and then I saw some little young buck make eyes at my Martha. Course at the time, I didn’t know here name. I was whiskey warm, you know, and all the lights in the place were purple, slow and crystal clear. I felt like my eyes were looking down on the crowd, while my body waded through what felt like lukewarm ocean water. I toked with my boys before I walked into the club, and I was high as the moon. Then I heard a little screech. Must have been a crunch just before that, cause I could see Martha holding her hand, looking like some little bird was dying in it. And that no good next to her was justa smilin’ and rolling his eyes back in his head, like he was ready to cum. He must been on something good, but I never did find out what it was. I walked over to them, and took her little hand in mine. Wasn’t a bad cut. She had a trickles of blood all over her palm, moving in tiny rivulets down the brown of her palm lines. I asked her to come with me. She put her pocket book under her arm and stood up from the booth. We left that buck laughing. I crimped my nose up at him, and slid my hand around her waist as I led; she wore an orange and green skin-tight cocktail dress. We walked under the exit sign, and had to dance slowly, through the crowd. I remember Otis Redding was playing, and her hips were pressed against mine, and I held her hand up above our heads til we made it to the exit.

That’s what I was remembering when that doctor told me what she’d done. He said it took six months for the symptoms to show. She’d been sick for two, so I knew she’d been cheating on me. Well, I went home, and there she was lying on my bed. I took to the dressers. We had two big chests of drawers, one on each side of the room. It was the middle of the after noon, and the sun was shining through the slats of the blinds on our windows. She looked just as regal as a lioness, but she was filthy, and I had to go. I stood and watched her sleeping. I picked up some red nail polish she kept on her dresser, and I poured it all over her hands. It seeped into our blanket, but I didn’t care. I just packed my bags and left her there. I got on a train that evening. To this day I don’t now how she is. I’m sure she know why I left, but I didn’t tell here where I went. I didn’t know where I was gonna go.

Maggie lifted her face to Calvin’s, then looked back down at her hands. She slipped the cloth from the hook, and said, “Here, try this on.” The gritty soft fabric felt electric on his chapped fingers, but he slid the cap on over his woolen hair. He smiled, and said, “I bet I look sharp.” Maggie, smiled and said, “Yeah you do.” She looked at her phone again. Five to seven. “Well, it was nice to talk to you. Thank you for sharing with me. Stay warm.” “Thank you, little sister. You take care.” Maggie turned south to search for that broad butterscotch face with the full smile she’d been looking forward to seeing all day, and there he was walking toward her, rolled cigarette in hand.