Tag: treadmill

jan 26/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 35 minutes
run: 1.35 miles
outside: 13 degrees

Read a few pages of the Alice Oswald interview in the Paris Review then watched the Las Culturistas podcast with Amy Poehler while I biked. I love Alice Oswald and I love Amy Poehler. So good! I don’t have time right now, but when I do, I want to post some quotes from the podcast episode.

Listened to the first 3 songs on TS’s “Reputation” while I ran. It felt good, and I felt more relaxed than I have in many days. I think it’s the combination of almost being done with my 2-week cold, and news that some Republicans are taking back some of their more extreme statements in support of ICE. But, I know that we’re not close to being done with this nightmare.

1

I think there are places you build in the imagination that become stable. I love the metrical forms, the sonnet and the ballad, but to me the real thing is what I call patience, the idea of creating your own stability within a length of time. I responded to that when I discovered Homer. There was something in that poetry, because it was orally composed—I could feel Homer making forms of patience within the poem, lines coming back and coming back and then coming back. It makes habits. There’s something steady and reliable about its way of moving, while at the same time, it loops wherever it wants to go, and remakes itself.

 an interview with Alice Oswald

2

I could feel straightaway that Homer was quite different from teh other types of poetry I’d read. I can remember, when I was told that he was blind, having this dizzy feeling of what a poem would be if you were hearing it and speaking it rather than reading it

 an interview with Alice Oswald

This year, I want to keep pushing at this question of what a poem would/could be if you’re hearing it and speaking it instead of reading it? I want to do more poetry that does just that.

Get Out Ice

A slightly more helpful, less terrifying day than Saturday. Some Republicans are speaking out against the shooting of Alex Pretti, Walz talked to Trump and he agreed to send Greg Bovino somewhere else; Rand Paul is asking for ICE to testify at the hearing next month. Only very small successes that are possibly only offered to get Democrats to pass the budget and give ICE even more funding by the end of this week. Don’t do it Democrats!

I surrounded myself with the loving words of other Minnesotans again this morning, and created 2 more love poems. Here’s one, both are posted here.

Love #6: How to Be a Better Person

Hold space for pain, anger, confusion.
Make hope happen for others.
Open the door for love, close it in hate’s face.
Wear boots, a lot of wool, scarves, and mittens. Bring extras to share.
Believe in small acts: they matter.
Demand the exit of ICE from our beautiful cities.

jan 25/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 35 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
outside: 0 degrees

Still too cold and too icy (and ICE-y?) outside, so more time in the basement. Watched the men’s 2024 Kona Ironman while I biked and tried to focus on my posture and my knee lift. As always, I’m wondering why my left knee often gets stiff after biking for a while. Listened to Lawrence, Acoustic-ish while I ran. I tried to empty my mind, but bad thoughts crept in: how far will the federal government go to keep power? I’m always thinking of Heather Cox Richardson’s refrain: it’s going to get worse before it gets better and her prediction that it will go one way (the people win) or the other (democracy in the U.S. dies) by March — or did she say May? Ugh.

Get Out Ice

Still reeling from the terrible murder yesterday, but going to my block’s vigil and witnessing how Minnesotans stayed peaceful and people around the country/world expressing outrage, is helping a little.

I read a post on facebook about how hundreds of Target employees have signed a letter pushing the CEO to do more against ICE. In the post, it was mentioned how people are going to Target at the same time, buying salt, the immediately returning it, as a way to disrupt business. This action is modeled after an earlier one at Home Depot: buying ice scrapers then immediately returning them. Is this effective? Looked it up and found this Guardian article which describes many different actions against Target, including the salt:

On Martin Luther King Day, SURJ-TC said it had gathered 70 people at a Minnesota Target to “interrupt business as usual”. Participants repeatedly lined up to purchase salt, return it and repeat the process as a way to hold up lines, representing a desire “to melt ICE”, the organization wrote online. The organization plans to repeat this tactic at five Twin Cities Target stores until the company speaks out against ICE.

sit-ins and salt purchases: activism takes many forms

Alice Oswald

Started an interview with Alice Oswald in the Paris Review (thanks to my library, which makes it possible to check out current issues of some journals online!). So far, she’s talking about teaching Palestinian kids via Zoom and then getting arrested for protesting against the UK’s designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist group. When she’s asked if she planned on being arrested when she joined the protest, she said she did and:

One direct consequence of allowing genocide, though, is that, in order to excuse it, you have to pass all kinds of laws that destroy democracy from the inside. I’d been angry for a while, and confused about what to do, and as soon as I was decided, I felt a relief.

Paris Review

This is how she describe the arrest:

They read me my rights and asked whether I knew I was breaking the law, and did I want to come easily or did I want to be an obstruction. And I said, ‘I’m happy to be arrested, because I don’t believe it’s an offense,’ and that I didn’t want to come easily, and so I lay down and imagined my heaviest self. I was imagining I was made of gold or lead, just enjoying the difficulty the police were having picking me up.

Paris Review

I love this idea of imagining herself as her heaviest self, as gold or lead. Sometimes I like imagining myself as a boulder — I turned into some poetry lines: be a boulder/too big to/lift too much/trouble to/move.

When asked if she’s always considered herself an activist, she says:

Gilgamesh, the Illiad, the Bible, Paradise Lost — all teh poems that profoundly shake me are really about how we manage kings. The texture of a life devoted to poetry is activist, in the deep sense. Quite often it’s not activist in the superficial sense. You come at poetry with the momentum of having failed. It’s only when other communication is absolutely impossible that a poems has to exist.

Paris Review

Yes! I feel that with my poetry about vision loss and the new ways I’m learning to see and be now.

Wow, there is so much in this interview that I love, so much about Oswald that I love, including her discussion of insects as speaking with wings instead of mouths. And then there’s this bit about an old woman, “an angry old battle-ax,” who had only ever been one village over:

I used to go up the road just to talk to her, and during one of these conversations she broke off because she’d heard a bumblebee go into a foxglove and change the tone of its buzz. She said, ‘Did you hear that? I love that sound.’ I remember thinking, If you don’t move away from a village, that’s the sort of thing you notice. I made a determination at the point that I wanted to be that sort of person.

Me too! Oh, thank you Alice Oswald for saying such beautiful and interesting things and making me imagine the current world otherwise for a few minutes!

jan 24/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Minneapolis, filled with fierce love as thousands of Minnesotans (I heard 50,000, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate), marched downtown. Today was terrible; another Minneapolis resident was executed by ICE. I’m struggling to write any words right now, but I wanted to at least write that.

bike: 30 minutes
run: 1 mile
-5 degrees

I hoped that working out might help me feel a little less overwhelmed and it did but not much. Guess I’ll have to try more deep breathing.

jan 22/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 33 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement
outside: -4 / feels like -22

Brrrr! And that wind! I was outside this morning, shoveling, but otherwise I’ve been inside. Devoted much of the day to surrounding myself with other Minnesotans words of love and solidarity, then turning them into a cento.

At the start of my bike, I watched the first episode of “Pluribus.” So good! Then I got to the lab scene with the rat and I realized it was too much for me right now. I found an old, “from the vault” 2018 triathlon on youtube and watched that instead. By the end of the bike, my left knee was feeling stiff, like it sometimes does. Hopped on the treadmill and listened to “Mood: Energy” while I ran. The first song was, “Harder Faster Stronger” and somehow it made me feel more anxious instead of less. But, Ok Go’s “Here it goes Again” helped.

Get Out Ice

Here’s what I posted on my new page, Love, Minnesota-style:

After Consulting with our Team, We Are Choosing Love / Sara Lynne Puotinen

This is a call to everyone. This is a call to anyone. 

Here, now, in Minneapolis, our hearts are open.
Here, now, in St. Paul, our hearts beat strong.
Here, now, in Minnesota, we are choosing to take the day
and fill it with resistance, solidarity, reflection, love.

Let us be clear: we are not powerless. 

We are not hopeless. 

Of course we have hope!
And we will find each other.
We will gather,
we will keep moving.

We must raise our voices 
to acknowledge, 
now is not okay.
ICE’s ongoing occupation is fascism.
We are afraid, we are angry, we are exhausted.
And we will continue to show up
and to fill the streets with love.

This is not about choosing sides,
this is about choosing love.

On Friday, January 23, 2026, there is a call for a general strike against ICE: ICE OUT MN. No work, no class, no shopping. As of 22 jan 2026, more than 500 local businesses are participating. 

Many of them have declared their show of solidarity through social media posts. For the past few days, I’ve been gathering their words and turning them into new poems. 

In today’s (1/22) practice, I typed up 3 pages of the words, printed them out, then sat at my desk and read and reread them. I wrote down words and phrases that I noticed on another blank sheet of paper with a jumbo pencil. Then I shifted those around and turned them into new lines. I don’t think it is finished, but I’ll post it here anyway.

jan 20/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 33 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement
outside: 11 degrees

Cold outside, ice on the paths, ICE on the streets. Even if the conditions were better, is it safe for me to go out for a run on my own? Since I am white, probably, but my vision is bad. It’s good enough to navigate the trail — cracks, bumps, curves — but not to get a sense of when I’m in danger. I can’t read signs — words, gestures, signals — and I can’t see faces or identify people well. Out by the river, if someone stopped me, would I be able to tell if they were ICE? If they were threatening me. I don’t know.

Am I being too cautious? Unsure. For now, I’ll go to the Y or the basement. I miss winter running.

Watched Jennifer Lawrence on Good Hang with Amy Poehler while I biked. It’s sponsored by Spotify, which I wish wasn’t the case. I thought it was funny when Amy asked Jennifer what her favorite song was and Jennifer said, ever since the radio went away, I can’t find new music. Where do you find it? I was expected Amy to answer with the obvious: I listen to Spotify. But she didn’t; she said she finds stuff on tik tok then buys it.

I listened to Mood: Energy again while I ran. Pressure / Billy Joel | No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn / Beastie Boys | Final Countdown / Europe | Iron Man / Black Sabbath. When I wasn’t thinking about ICE instead of iron, I heard a line about boots of lead and thought of Emily Dickinson and “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” — And then I heard them lift a Box/ And creaked across my Soul/ With those same boots of Lead again / Then Space begin to Toll. Love that poem!

Get Out Ice

Earlier today, writing about my bike and run yesterday, I was feeling a bit extremely overwhelmed by the headlines I encountered on Facebook. I sat with those feelings for several hours. Then, I saw this video from the Minneapolis Art Sled Rally this past weekend, and I snapped out of the deepest fear:

Minneapolis Art Sled Rally / 17 January 2026

Such love, as joy, as whimsy, as defiance! I had an idea: I should post an expression and example of Minneapolis / Twin Cities / Minnesota love every day. These examples are not suggesting that things aren’t bad (they are), but are claiming space for a powerful counter-narrative to fear and defeat and Minneapolis-as-lawless-hellscape: Love! solidarity, care, joy. I’m going to try and post something on facebook every day, something I haven’t ever done. I used to be much more comfortable with social media, and tweeted all the time. Then my vision declined a lot and I lost interest. Then I became too intimidated by it, afraid that I’d do something wrong — this is not an unfounded fear; there are many buttons/directions posted that are very clear to others, but are invisible to me and my cone-starved eyes. But, I have decided to try again, to be brave and share these examples with others.

I have also decided to archive all these examples on a page in my “How to Be” project on UN || DISCIPLINED: Love, Minnesota-style

jan 19/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 10 minutes
run: 10 minutes
basement
4 degrees / feels like -5

note: I’m writing this first section the next morning because I exercised too late to write it then. I’m writing it after reading several headlines/accounts, watching a tiktok that describes how ICE agents are driving around looking for people who look black, brown, or asian to take. Without any cause, they pull these people out of their cars and take them away, leaving the car abandoned, sometimes still running, in the street. Or they break down their doors, pull them out of their houses, half-dressed (in below zero weather), and take them. I read a headline, posted by Senator Amy Klochubar,”St Paul mayor Kaohly Her “livid” after ICE wrongly targets family friend, escorts him undressed into cold and one from the city of St. Paul putting a temporary ban on towing abandoned vehicles. Unreal. Oh, and this was also after reading the message Trump sent to Norway explaining why he wanted Greenland (he didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize) and Heather Cox Richardson’s discussion of the significance of this — could this be the final straw? the one that removes him from office?

A quick bike and run in the early evening. Too late and too cold to be outside, and probably too dangerous. Being sick has also made me not want to go outside. Because I’m inside, I haven’t witnessed a lot of ICE activity. Although, even if I was outside, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t see it with my bad vision. I know it’s out there. They target schools, taking parents/kids who look black or brown or Asian, and we live less than 2 blocks from two of them. Just yesterday they were spotted driving through the alley near the end of school.

I watched a running youtuber’s latest video while I biked, listened to a Mood: Energy playlist while I ran. Didn’t think about much. I don’t remembering noticing much either. One thing: after getting off the bike, before putting in my headphones and firing up the treadmill, I could hear the music Scott was playing upstairs while he made popovers. I asked him later what it was, something by Debussy. That’s his comfort music, I think.

Get Out Ice

note: I wrote this on 19 jan, in the morning

Yesterday, I had a great idea: gather together statements by local businesses on social media about what’s happening here, then turn it into a cento poem. And that’s what I did this morning! So wonderful to spend time with words of solidarity and love (and not hate).

What is happening in Minneapolis is terrifying; what is happening in Minneapolis is full of hope. Earlier today, or was it yesterday?, someone posted on facebook about how NBC needs to work on its sloppy reporting, then gave an example: a reporter suggesting Minnesotans are reeling from the protests. Reeling? Not from the protests. The non-violent and fierce ways so many people in Minneapolis and St. Paul are bearing witness and standing together against ICE is inspiring and beautiful and powerful embodiments of love. Here’s my poem:

Love

Love is not
business as
usual.
Love is not
a business.
Love is
a warm place
to land.
Generous
open
big enough
to hold
all who sit
who stand
who show up
for each other
even in fear
and in grief.

Love is a
space where
our hearts our
mouths our feet
our hands
our eyes
activate
love making
love living
love resisting.

In this heavy
moment, we
want to be
clear: we
no longer
accept hate.

And with
these words, we
affirm
what we know
always
to be true:
We love, we love, we love.

The statements I used come from the following businesses: Lynette, Hai Hai, Dogwood Coffee, Fireroast Coffee, Arbeiter Brewing, Venn Brewing, Mother Earth Gardens, Bull’s Horn, Black Coffee and Waffle Bar, Wrecktangle Pizza, Carbone’s, Longfellow Grill, Merlins Rest.

I’d like to do more of these. I’d also like to use this practice as a way to: develop a rich, messy understanding of love, to counter the narratives that suggest Minneapolis is violent and dangerous and needs/deserves to be occupied and punished.

jan 18/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 30 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement
outside: 100% snow-covered / 12 degrees

I’m inside partly because I’m congested, partly because it’s cold, and partly because I’m a little more nervous to be out there alone these days. I miss the gorge. If I’m feeling better tomorrow, maybe I’ll go out for a short run. At the start of the bike, I struggled to stick with something to watch. I started with The Terminator — too dystopian — then switched to the first season of “The Traitors,” which I’ve been meaning to check out (for some reason I can’t quite remember). It was too much about manipulation and tricking people and not trusting anyone. Finally I landed on the first season of Schmigadoon. Will I return to on my next bike? I’m not sure. I love the show, I watched it when it came out, but I’m not sure I want to watch it again.

For the run, I put in a Mood: Energy playlist. It started with Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” then “Hip to be Square,” then a song I can’t remember, then ended with “Bust a Move.” A strange mix. The run wasn’t too hard, but it wasn’t easy, and I sweat a lot.

Even though I was in the dark, windowless basement, and it was boring on the bike and the treadmill, it felt good to move. The crud in my throat cleared up some, and I felt less tired. Ah, I love moving!

Get Out Ice (written earlier)

Still a little sick — crud in my throat, creaky voice, sinus headache — but feeling much better. I’m so proud of my city and my neighbors and the mayors of Minneapolis (Jacob Frey) and St. Paul (Kaohey Her — the first Hmong American mayor!) and my governor and senators and the attorney general and the congressional representative for my district (Ihlan Omar) and so many of the businesses nearby. All standing up with a fierce love for the people of Minnesota. Such beautiful and powerful expressions of resistance and love!

Keeping the Receipts

Speaking of neighborhood businesses, I’ve been struck by how powerful expressions of love and solidarity are in this moment, and how damning silence is. At the very least, I think a restaurant/business should express a concern for their own workers and acknowledge a need for the safety. This is not a political statement; it is a statement of concern and care for their workers and the community. Scott, FWA, and I were talking about it, and Scott mentioned examples around the city that he has encountered/read about, like, “No ICE” or “We love our immigrant neighbors.” I wrote about Lynette’s instagram statement two days ago and here are some other statements by nearby businesses:

1

At Merlins, hospitality isn’t just what’s on the table. It’s how we show up for the people around us. We stand with our immigrant community. We stand with those feeling shaken, overwhelmed, or unsure. And we stand for the innocent people who deserve to feel safe, seen, and welcome.

If you need a warm place to land, a moment of normalcy, or just to sit among neighbors who care—our doors are open. Always.

Community first. People first. Humanity first.

Merlins Rest Facebook post / 15 jan

2

Closing Early Wednesday January 7th

Out of an abundance of caution we will be closing early today to help protect our neighbors, guests, and staff as we stand with our community.

We truly appreciate your understanding and look forward to serving you again soon.

Hi-Lo Diner / Facebook post, 7th January

3

Everything going on in our city is horrific, that is true. It is also true that we are resilient and adaptable and fueled by our love and care for one another. We will continue to show up, stay alert, and support the growing needs of our community.

Mother Earth Gardens / 14 january

4

You know where we stand. We are stronger together! We know how familiar this feels. We know how to activate our hearts and stand with our community. 

We will always create space to support our neighbors who have been participating in the “good trouble, necessary trouble”, to gather and be together. 

Join us on Saturday, bring your ICE Whistle in solidarity for one free beer with the community. Thank you Southside for taking care of each other and showing up!

Arbeiter Brewing / Instagram Post / 10 January

5

Our posture & sentiment as we stand alongside & amidst our hometown:

May our collective hearts be moved by loss & injustice,
our eyes see past the vain theatre of division.

May our hands open widely in generosity towards all others,
our feet move us in the direction of restorative peace.

May our minds construct new pathways for welcome & belonging,
our mouths speak with empathy & devotion.

May we not forget,
We are all bound to each other – siblings across this earth.

Dogwood Coffee / Instagram post / 10 January

The nearby pub that we’ve been haunting for the past few years — literally haunting; we go there at least once a week — has made no statement, is only using social media to advertise their specials. Scott has reached out to them several times asking why they haven’t said anything about what’s going on. So far, no response. It’s (long past) time to only haunt places that are here for our community.

And, here’s another example of love and support for the community. Hai Hai is not in my neighborhood, but it’s a restaurant I’ve been wanting to go to for almost a year. Now is the time — just not next Friday, when it’s closed for the protest!

Hola Arepa & Hai Hai will be closed on Friday, January 23 in support of the general strike to remove ICE from our cities and get justice for Renee Good. It is important to us to stand with our community in fighting against these injustices and to allow our teams the opportunity to protest or to take a day off for much needed rest and reflection. 

Choosing to close on a Friday night in January is not an easy decision for a small business during a notoriously slow time of the year, but we feel it’s important to take a stand and acknowledge that as long as ICE is occupying our city, it’s not business as usual.

Hai Hai / Fadebook post / 27 January

This is not business as usual. Yes! They continue with some useful ways for supporting them:

If you want to support us and your other favorite restaurants, please choose a different night this week as your Friday. Taco Wednesday date night? Sunday family brunch hang? Or buy a gift card for a future visit. It’s a difficult time for Mpls & St Paul small businesses everywhere, so every bit counts and your support means the world to all of us and our teams.

an idea! Tomorrow, gather a range of statements from local businesses and turn them into a cento poem about love.

Silence Will Not Protect You

As I think about the importance of publicly acknowledging what is happening, I keep thinking about Audre Lorde and her powerful essay, “The Transformation of Silence Into Language” from Sister Outsider. I studied this essay/book 25 years ago in grad school and taught in 15 or so years ago.

My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?

We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

Beast Mode Mary

I continue to be shocked/delightfully surprised by the relevance of Little House on the Prairie to life in the US these days. Last night, Scott and I watched “The Bully Boys” (season 3, episode 9). Three brothers — 2 adults, 1 teenager — move into Walnut Grove and begin conning, intimidating, assaulting Walnut Grove. They buy stuff from the Olesons on credit, but never pay; they “buy” lumber from Mr. Hanson, then sell it to another of his customers; they “assault” Ma (in the scene they harass her, make her drop her eggs, restrain her, but there seems to be a suggestion of even worse things happening); they beat the shit out of Pa when he confronts them, breaking 3! of his ribs; and the youngest brother punches Mary and gives her a black eye. Reverend Alden counsels his congregation to turn the other cheek and to welcome the men. Mary tries to cover up what happened and to avoid Bubba — that’s the kid-bully’s name. But near the end, during recess, he steals her school tablet, and that, along with learning what has happened to Ma and Pa at the hands of the older brothers, is a bridge too far for Mary. She goes Beast Mode on Bubba — tackling and punching him. When he fends her off, another girl tackles him, then another. Finally, all the girls — maybe a dozen — jump on him and whoop his ass. Silent, weakened by fear and separation, they suffered alone at the hands of the bully. Together, they were strong and defiant and powerful. Inspired by the girls, Reverend Alden calls out the men at church as doing the devil’s work, pins one of them against the wall (Beast Mode Reverend!), and rallies the men of Walnut Grove to run the bullies out of town — Take only what you brought with you! As they march out in disgrace, the women sing, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. No, I don’t agree with everything in this episode, but wow, was it wonderful to watch it and recognize what Minneapolis is doing right now (just one example for yesterday)

One more thing: I love this woman.

dec 20/BIKERUN

bike: 30 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement

Windy, icy, cold, so I decided to stay inside. Finally began watching The Thursday Murder Club while I biked. I like it; especially with audio descriptions. Listened to my new audiobook, Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars, while I ran.

No great thoughts or images on the bike or the treadmill. Just a chance to be distracted from difficult feelings — frustration, worry, regret, sadness — felt as I try to help FWA figure out his future.

a fun experiment

For many years now, I’ve been thinking about how I might be able to use a text that’s been meaningful to me in my thinking and writing about the Mississippi River Gorge: a 2002 Gorge Management Plan prepared by Great River Greening. In writing about the gorge, I’ve often referred back to this 140 page document for information about the geography, geology, ecology, and cultural/social history of the area. And I’ve thought about using its text in some way. An erasure poem? A blackout? Those are the two types of found poetry that I’m most familiar with. Today, reading an interview with Lisa Olstein about her new collection, Distinguished Office of Echoes, I was reminded of a third type of found poetry: cut-outs. Here’s an excerpt and another from the book. My first reaction: yes, I should try this! But then, as I (tried to) read Olstein’s examples, I realized that these poems aren’t accessible and are almost impossible for me to read. I don’t want to write in a form that I can’t even read myself. But, maybe I can think about/think through another version of found poetry that is accessible to readers (like me) that have low vision or no vision.

A first thought: find phrases or one syllable words that can be made into chants/running rhythms.

Another thought: expand the words I’m using to include original sources from Horace WS (William Shaler) Cleveland. Maybe, find something in here?

And, I’m realizing that this idea of writing something with Cleveland’s words is leading me a project I’ve been thinking about for a few years: ekphrastic poems + how I see + writing about the gorge/gorge management as a work of art as ekphrastic + anti/anti-pastoral poems. Just the other day I was thinking — maybe I wrote about it, too — about 2 directions I could go for 2026: M(e)y(e) Emily Dickinson, on ED’s vision poems and their importance for me, and How I See — ekphrastic/pastoral/visual art.

dec 18/RUNBIKERUN

run: 1.7 miles
neighborhood / river road trail
29 degrees
50% very slick ice

Not ideal weather for a run. Were there any other runners out there? I can’t remember; I do recall seeing one walker. A lot of the sidewalk, road, trail was fine — not slick at all — until it wasn’t. Every so often, a slippery spot, some I could see, some I couldn’t. I skittered several times, having to take little half-steps. No sense that I was almost about to fall. I think I was lucky today that I didn’t twist or strain or break anything.

My body didn’t tense up in anticipation of sliding or falling, but I also wasn’t relaxed. Constantly trying to see or feel the ice. Did I notice anything else?

10 Things

  1. flitting birds, emerging from trees
  2. rusted orange in the floodplain forest
  3. the loud scraaaape from a neighbor’s shovel
  4. na ice-covered river
  5. a strong wind — not heard or seen but felt, burning my ears and my face
  6. car wheels losing traction on snow/ice, turning around in the middle of the street
  7. puddles on the path
  8. the edges of the road, dry then super slick then wet
  9. puddles on the sidewalk, not in the usual spots — the house on the next block, the house past 46th — but just around the corner
  10. noisy trucks near a school, doing some sort of repair work involving banging and backing up and scraping and pounding — heard, not seen

bats!

Reviewing old entries, as part of my On This Day morning ritual, I encountered a poem with the great line,

Fix your gaze upward and
give bats their due,
holy with quickness and echolocation
(Abecedarian for Dangerous Animals/ Catherine Pierce

Give bats their due. Yes! This line led me to other bat poems — last year or the year before I created a bats tag — and to these wonderful lines which I’ve written about before:

Think of it—to navigate by adjustment, by the beauty
of adjustment. All those shifts and echoes.
(Threshold Gods/ Jenny George)

To navigate by adjustment, shifts, echoes. Can I do something with these lines, add them to my echolocated poem at the end, Ringing Still, or another poem in the final echolocated section? Hmmm….echolocated is about being located/found by others. The (current) title of this collection is echolocate || echolocated. There’s a gap/tension between locating and being located, the one doing the locating and the one being located. In past years, I’ve imagined these two subjects (the locater, the located) as one Sara (the Speaker) trying to located another Sara (the reader), a You and simultaneously an I. No. Too much explanation. There’s is a swirl of something in my implied speaker addressing a You which is not me, and also me, and my consistent reference to the person going to the gorge and running and noticing (which is what I am doing) as the girl or she — which, if I haven’t already mentioned it is an actual girl — me, age 8:

Sara, age 8, in my soccer team uniform.

Instead of spelling this out, I’d like this to haunt this collection. Does it?

bike: 30 minutes
run: 1.3 miles
basement

Scott and I were planning to go to the y, but it started sleeting and snowing, and the wind was blowing, so we didn’t. Instead I went to the basement and biked. I started watching a documentary that I’ve been wanting to watch for more than a month: Come See Me in the Good Light. It’s about the poet, Andrea Gibson. Beautiful.

Then I got on the treadmill and ran while listening to my new “Eye Tunes” playlist on shuffle:

  1. Breakfast in America/ Supertramp
  2. Double Vision/ Foreigner
  3. See You Again/ Miley Cyris
  4. Tell Me What You See/ The Beatles
  5. Eyesight to the Blind / The Who
  6. Eye of the Tiger / Survivor

Open up your eyes now, tell me what you see
It is no surprise now, what you see is me
(Tell Me What You See/ The Beatles)

tell me what you see, I can’t wait to see you again, take a look at my girlfriend, not seeing straight, she’ll give eyesight to the blind, he’s watching us all with the eye of the tiger.

look at/stare/gaze/encounter/watch/stalk

dec 13/BIKERUN

bike: 36 minutes
basement
outside: 2 degrees / feels like -6

Feels like -6 isn’t too cold for me, but I’m still trying to be careful with my right glute/hip and the snowy, uneven paths seemed like a bad idea. So, I biked and ran in the basement instead. While I biked, I watched the Brooks High School Girls Cross Country Championships. Wow, those girls are fast! And mentally tough. The hills on that course look awful.

As I finished my bike, RJP came down the stairs. She comes over almost every day (from her apartment) to say hi and see Delia. I took a break and we had a great talk about her latest success with knitting and using breathing patterns in deciding how often to knit and purl and the value of small goals that are designed to be about cumulative success instead of one big achievement. I mentioned SWOLF and asked her if she had any good acronyms for it:

Swimming with octopi, looking for fish
Sara wishes October lasted forever

run!: 1.25 miles
treadmill

Last week, Scott tried the treadmill and the belt wouldn’t move, but it did today. Hooray! And I ran without pain during or after the run. Excellent. Did my old treadmill routine of listening to the first few songs of Taylor Swift’s Reputation as I ran. I listened to “Look What You Made Me Do” on my cool down walk and decided that it would be a good song to listen to on the track while doing some speed work. Moderate pace in the verses, much faster in the chorus. I’ll have to try it next week.

Echoes, a Quarry and hybridizing echolocations

A few hours earlier, I came across and wonderful submissions call for the journal, Waxwing:

 Send us your work that hybridizes, blends, resists the boundaries between fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art.

Waxwing wants to publish fiction and nonfiction that can stand alongside poetry: stories and essays where language is the primary concern. We seek writing that is like the characters and creatures we named the journal after—Daedalus made something that had never before existed, Icarus joyfully dared to do what hadn’t been done, and the eponymous birds seem to be what they’re not. We’re interested in narratives that risk, that come close to failing but land on the other side, not in the sea, and like the red tips of feathers that look like sealing wax, we love flourishes. We’re not interested in virtuosity that pleases the masses, but we do crave intensity, and stories that feel a little dangerous. We seek to showcase the particular and the peculiar, the odd and the revelatory—we want to read stories and essays that make us feel like we are learning something, even if it’s something we can’t quite explain. 

Waxwing Submissions

I’m trying to put something together from my manuscript and my echolocation project. At the end of my draft, I have a piece titled, “Echoes: a Quarry.” It is a list of all of the one, two, and three syllable words from my poems. I collected them and used them to create my rock, river, and air echo/chant poems. I want to do some thing with sound (me reading the words altogether, and online — Scott said he could do write code that would scramble up the words to make new chants) and with visuals (a map locating the echoes. I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to think through it.

An experiment with quarrying words. Find all of the one, two, and three syllable words in a favorite poem. Turn them into a new poem that offers echoes of the original.

Before I got my eye put out/ Emily Dickinson

1

I
got
my

eye

put

out
liked
well
see
have
know
way
told
me
might
Sky
mine
tell
heart
would
split
size
stars
much
noon
take
could
birds
road
look
when
news
strike
dead
so
guess
just
soul
pane
sun

2

before
other
creatures
today
meadows
mountains
forest
stintless
between
finite
motions
dipping
morning’s
amber
safer
upon
window

3

incautious

My poem:

Today stars
are in 

motion, in-
cautious

of birds, Sun.
I see

my way split
before

the noon sky.
Tell me,
dead eyes (mine) —
finite,

dipping be-
tween soul’s

meadow and
heart’s forest —
when it
is safer
to look.