BAY AREA POETS SEASONAL REVIEW 

Rebel with cause

Mary Rudge has served as the City of Alameda’s Poet Laureate for seven years. We spoke to her on May 11 in the Alameda Public Library. During the interview, a young woman came over to warmly greet the woman who has helped create poetry community, across generations, in her town and beyond. Thank you to Mary, and all other city laureates who work to expand and connect our communities.

It’s difficult to keep Mary Rudge, born Mary Woods, focused on herself during an interview. Somehow, the conversation begins to focus on others: a journalism teacher in Oklahoma, a victim of torture in China, the diversity of people in the Alameda Island chapter of the Chaparral Poets, or Leopold Senghor, the great Senegalese poet and liberation leader, whom she met at an international poetry conference.

You cannot separate Rudge’s identity as a poet from her identity as a member of both a local and worldwide community dedicated to peace and creativity. She has served Alameda as the town’s first Poet Laureate since December 2002. As a member of the World Congress of Poets, and other poetry societies and organizations, Rudge is both diplomat and doyenne of poetry‘s ability to heal and bring people from different backgrounds together.

From a family, place, and background that did not cherish her creativity, Rudge had to learn how to break out.

She says she "learned about the need for justice and peace from the very first in my own being." Her childhood home in Texas was poor and creativity was not encouraged. "Poetry was not a normal language." Even though there is a rich tradition in her ancestor’s Irish and Scottish roots that celebrates music and poetry, her father’s frustration and struggle to earn a living during the Depression meant that he often came home in a rage, Mary sometimes took the brunt of this in the form of slaps, kicks, and beatings with a belt. It’s not a history that she dwells on, to the point of hardly mentioning at all, except to point out that her own path as a poet was one she had to forge on her own.

In addition to Celtic bardic DNA, Rudge also inherited genetic rebelliousness. Much of the family history was destroyed when an aunt burned the records, but Rudge was told that some kin had fled Ireland with prices on their heads for being anti-king, and that her Scots’ MacFarlane relatives were Highland outlaws. She surmises that the secrecy about the family’s past might have had to do with the fact that "they probably didn’t want to be found here."

As a child, Mary retreated into reading the only books the family owned: a dictionary and the Bible. At school she discovered in poetry "a strong and safer inner world" that kept her going even though she hadn’t yet learned how to express herself. She was “amazed that I could figure out that words rhymed and that my classmates had been impressed too.“ One of her earliest poems was about Texas.
"It was dumb," she says. "It probably had blue bonnets in it and rhymed 'state' with 'great'." The school curriculum focused more on practical subjects as students were steered away from creative pursuits. Even though Mary was chosen to advance to a higher grade, a teacher once told Mary’s mother that the girl was wasting time in class writing poetry and scribbling in the margins of her papers.

These admonitions planted two seeds: one that grew into a fear of being judged or rejected for her creativity, the other fomenting her rebelliousness and spiritual will.

At her high school in Oklahoma City, a relatively nondescript journalism teacher took her class to an all-black school to hear Langston Hughes read. The teacher told her that “reporters can go anywhere“ which left a strong impression on her. A couple of years later, another poet visited her school. He  turned out to be the famed master of the classic Western novel, Louis L’Amour. “He was very handsome and brave,” she remembers, "but most of all it was what he said about his life."

He described tramping around the world on steamers, acquiring material for his poetry. Rudge says she “wanted a life like that but didn’t see how it could work out,” especially since she didn’t know how she would deal with the logistics of having menstrual periods and all that. Nevertheless, L’Amour’s example validated both the process and value of being a poet.

Mary Rudge and Claire J. Baker collaborated on Poems from Street Spirit: Justice News and Homeless Blues (2005).

A poem by German avant garde playwright, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), spurred Rudge to think about poetry’s place in society. “To Posterity” described “fellow travelers” going through the world “in the class war, despairing” and killing to make a better world. One line--“we who want a better world can not ourselves be kind”--made her want to “write right back to this poem always,“ to insist that it was as important to be kind, that change can also take place through compassion and kindness. 

Rudge married twice. Her first husband died suddenly in an auto accident, leaving her with an infant son. She remarried and had six more children. During her final pregnancy, her husband abandoned the family. She turned to welfare to support her family, but after raising her children, Rudge attended college where poetry became "the place she allowed herself to feel most free and fully herself.“"That hard-won identity was not about to test itself; she resisted taking any poetry classes or workshops. At California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, she had to take a poetry class to complete her degree. “I wrote an angry poem about having to do this.” She attended a meeting for a class taught by Michael McClure, the well-known Bay Area survivor of the Beat poets scene; he was screening students one-by-one.

“McClure turned to me, gave me a dirty look, then told me I could stay.”

Rudge entered the lively readings circuit, at first experiencing anxiety every time she got up to read. After one event at the Intersection in San Francisco, a woman approached her in the bathroom and said she had noticed how fearful Rudge had seemed. Rudge realized that she needed to overcome what was a conditioned response from childhood when she had learned that self-expression could lead to being judged or hurt. She convinced herself to stay focused on the audience. “I knew I loved humanity, and was a great defender of others, but I couldn’t do it for myself.”


Mary Rudge with fellow poets (from left), Ken Peterson of Alameda, Bob Stanley of Sacramento, Mike Tuggle of Sonoma, Mary, Viola Weinberg and Judy Hardin Cheung, both of Sacramento.

For many years, Rudge (who declines to state her age) has written and published chapbooks by herself and in collaboration with other writers and artists, such as Claire J. Baker, Amy B. Estrada, and poet-dancer Natica Angilly. In addition to her laureate duties, she serves on the board of the California Federation of Chaparral Poets (www.chaparralpoets.org) and has been involved with Ina Coolbrith Circle (www.coolpoetry.org). 

As a member of the World Congress of Poets, (www.worldcongressofpoets.com) she will travel to Managua, Nicaragua, in July as a U.S. delegate to the organization’s annual conference. She is an historian for the island of Alameda and notes how many great writers have lived or spent time there, including Jack London, William Saroyan, Jim Morrison, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Rudge has the notable distinction of printing the first poem by famed comedian Phyllis Diller, who lived in Alameda for a time. “I was putting together an anthology  and sought work from anyone on the island who claimed to be a poet.”

And, yes, she finally got to board a ship to teach poetry as it sailed to strange and exotic parts of the world, perhaps besting some of her earliest mentors. To learn more about Mary Rudge, listen to an interview with Nina Serrano at http://kpfa.org/archive/id/50500.


The Wild Geese

White wings sail against the sky
white sails furl over stormy sea,
before land’s end is the land we know,
before cliff’s drop
and tempest-wave crest
beyond is where we are going
a place we never knew, or wanted to,
but for need for words of rest and nest.
Wild geese,
we are flying against the wind
leaving Ireland, leaving our land.

By Mary Rudge (Alameda) from For Ireland (2007)



“Mary Rudge . . . returns to the origins of humanity and its art, to Poiesis which meant artistic creation to the ancient Greeks. She returns to ancient Egypt to mother Africa, where the same word means poetry, song and dance.” -- from the introduction to Mary Rudge’s book Water Planet (1986), by Leopold Senghor, poet and former president of Senegal.

Reflections of a Leaving Laureate

We asked Connie Post, the City of Livermore’s Poet Laureate from May 2005 until June 2009 to write about her experience. Thank you to Connie, and all other city laureates who work to expand and connect the communities of poets.

It’s amazing how quickly four years can go by, even more amazing how time slows down when your term as Poet Laureate is ending. On May 3rd, I held my last “Wine and Words” reading in Livermore. I will never forget how moved I was by the kindness from the audience and it made me realize that a laureate can make a difference.

I wanted Livermore to become a place for poetry. I enjoyed creating a reading series at Ravenswood and the “Wine and Words” series, because they accentuated, in their beauty, the exquisite joys of poetry and language. I was privileged to host many wonderful poets at both: Kay Ryan, Jane Hirshfield, Kim Addonizio, Al Young, Chad Sweeney, Lynne Knight, Fady Joudah, Ellen Bass and many more. Each brought a unique voice to the venues.

When I started out, I had no idea I would meet so many wonderful people and make connections to last a lifetime. Good friends became better friends. Distant friends became closer friends. Poets like David Alpaugh mentored me with unyielding kindness and dedication. I got to know poets laureate from all over the state.

As I continued my journey, I felt strongly that poets laureate within California, should know each other, know what one another is doing, share struggles and bring a collective sense to the larger effort of community-building.

I enjoyed working with Ronna Leon to gather informa-tion on all of the state’s poet laureates. She took amaz-ing photos and traveled the state. I’d like to believe that our efforts made communities become part of a larger plan to make poetry matter all around Califor-nia. I’d like to think that bringing the information to the California Arts Council had something to do with the CAC publishing Sometimes in the Open, an anthology featuring the state’s laureates. I also wanted to merge poetry with other art forms. Working with local artists and poets, I hosted two “Ekphrasis” events in Livermore in 2006 and 2008,  a rewarding and wonderful marriage of the arts. Also, incredibly gratifying, was mentoring young poets in Livermore. I received inexpressible joy in meeting with them each month to critique their poems and work on refining the art. Two of my students were published in “Hardpan.” It is great to know that I had my hands in building relationships with young people.
  
During my term, I wrote over 30 poems for various community or civic events. It tested me as a poet, but I think I became a better writer.

Poems of occasion must achieve several goals:
they must reach a general audience, stand in the moment for which they were meant to commemorate, yet last beyond that moment as a poem that someone would enjoy on any occasion. 

When a young child or a parent came up after a civic event and ask for a copy of the poem I had written, it meant that poetry was reaching beyond the boundaries of the poet community and into the larger world.

I wanted to make poetry accessible to my town in a way that was meaningful. I could not have imple-mented the programs I created without the incredible support of the [Livermore] city council, arts commis-sion, and local government. I can’t believe they in-stalled a beautiful plaque of my poem in the center of downtown. It’s nice to have been “plauquerized.”

People ask how I feel about having been Poet Laureate of Livermore for four years. I know I hoped to make an imprint that would last.  More importantly, I have been changed by the incredible passion, dedication, and kindness of those who shared this remarkable journey. I will look back every day with gratitude. Finally, I will do what I keep telling everyone I would: Take a nice long nap!

By Connie Post, Poet Laureate of the City of Livermore, Alameda County, May 2005–June 2009

When she called

the moon salmon
I saw it
arc upstream
in a river of sky
    —Jeanne Lupton (Berkeley)


Jeanne Lupton’s

Autumn of Love

Jeanne Lupton, 63, “worked her way up to living in Berkeley.” She first came to the Bay Area in 1967, during the ‘Summer of Love’ but it took 35 years, breast cancer, and 9/11 to return. “I always felt my life would be better here and it has been.”

Born in Kansas, Lupton was raised in Arlington, Virginia, but visited Quaker relatives in Winchester near Willa Cather’s birthplace, Back Creek Valley (it turns out that Cather is a distant relation). In 2001, Lupton was diagnosed with breast cancer a day after 9/11.  The two traumatic events propelled her to make dramatic changes in her life. She packed up and moved across country with the help of a supportive aunt living in the Oakland hills.
   

Lupton jumped into the local poetry scene. For three years, she has coordinated and hosted the second Saturday reading series at the Frank Bette Center (http://www.frankbettecenter.org), an artists’ community center and showcase in Alameda. Every month, Lupton showcases two featured readers and hosts an open mic, which has allowed her to quickly recognize the regulars on the open-mic scene. She acknowledges Debra Owen, the center’s administra-tor who endorses the poetry program. In a relatively short time, Lupton has considerably grown the audience which she says “has a sweet energy.”

After a 45-year career doing legal transcription and administrative work, Lupton now focuses on her writing and submission service “The Poet Genie.” (In her spare time, she maintains a foot reflexology business: www.thefootgenie.com). She founded and leads the Lakeview Writers, which usually meets every fourth Monday from 6-8 p.m. at the Lakeview Library in Oakland; the free drop-in group has future dates set for June 22, July 27 and August 24 (www.oakland library.org). She also leads a women’s writing group on Friday evenings (email her at jeany98@aol.com for information). Next February she is taking a group to write in Sedona, Arizona. “I believe in writing together so much and love how people reveal things that even their friends may not know about them.”
   

Lupton likes to invoke her distant cousin, Cather, who once said that only great artists know how difficult it is to tell the truth. Lupton takes Cather’s admonition to write truthfully to heart. “I like to invoke the spirits of my writing ancestors,” Lupton says, “and I often feel them smiling down on me.” Lupton enjoys writing Japanese tanka. Her chapbook, but then you danced, is written entirely in this form; it was published in 2007 by Raw Art Press.   

You can meet Lupton at Frank Bette on the 2nd Saturday evening of each month at the Frank Bette Center in Alameda.