Michael Jackson: Defense Rests

This is a poem I wrote in May, 2005, right after Michael Jackson's acquittal and after a collage portrait of Michael Jackson by Rosie O'Donnell which is no longer available. I thought I'd post it here again. RIP. LDC
http://lornadice.blogspot.com/2005/05/michael-jackson-defense-rests-mixed.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Jackson: 'defense rests' (a mixed media on wood, a 3x5 Portrait)

~~~~~(from a portrait by the artist, Rosie O'Donnell)



You, laid out like a crazy
pathwork quilt on a bordered bed, a number
stamped in the left-hand pocket: "to prison,
with love." They got yours
slapped on like brown pigment,
the stain of your famous face
in caricature, a caricature of Am I Blue,
Little Boy? Little bouy, (blue?)
bobbing in the photos, the snap
shot of you, a graffittied plaque against
the Real McCoy. Perpetrator
of a Love Supreme fractured
against the pawl. Against the pale
portraits of a king, recessed
in flame and flourish, hides a checker
board past flaring in the distance
between a father and his dancing
son.... Between the sheets, a child's love
lies. Between the press, the next morning,
of the palate knife, centuries aged,
some duotone of passion and burn, some law
writ in the land and heart, that forgiven
species. And health: the child. What lies
ahead?




c May 27, 2005 by Lorna Dee Cervantes
All rights reserved between consenting adults in the privacy of your own home.

Ecopoetics: A Poet's Way of Knowledge, Intensive Poetry Workshop with Lorna Dee Cervantes, Sat., 6/27, Wash., DC

Split This Rock and the Sunday Kind of Love reading series invite you to participate in a writing workshop with Lorna Dee Cervantes (who is reading at Sunday Kind of Love on Sunday the 21), Saturday, June 27, from 1-4 pm. Thanks to support from the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities, the cost is $25. The workshop is open to all levels of writing from beginning to advanced—and will be geared towards helping you generate new work. (Our next and final writing workshop of the season will be in August with Terrance Hayes... stay tuned for more details on that).

Register today; send an email to melissa.dcpaw@gmail.com.

Workshop Description: Ecopoetics: A Poet's Way of Knowledge

There are about as many ways to write a poem as there are people on the planet. In poetry, as in love, there are no absolutes, and that's the only absolute. So, how does one make sense of the plethora? How, when faced with the whole enchilada, does one go about the process? For poetry is a process, above all else. As Coleridge once wrote, "Poetry is the pleasurable activity of the journey itself."

In this workshop we will map out the journey by dividing the poetic universe (multiverse) into four distinct phases of the creative/critical process: GENERATION, SELECTION, Re-VISION, and CRITICAL EVALUATION. Much the way we splay out the patterns on a globe into east, south, west and north in order to get anywhere, no individual phase is more important than another and each has its own distinct character and unique phenomena. We will participate in exercises designed to match each phase of the process - rather than focus undue or premature attention upon poetry as product. We will discuss and consider many roads leading us there, to the finished poem ("finished" in the orgasmic sense rather than as executioner or, worse, as taxidermist.) We should, by the end of the day, come away with at least 4 new poems and a sense of our own patterns and patterning (for better or worse) and we will acquire a new toolbox of techniques and methods, a new confidence and playfulness, a new sense of our own strengths and weaknesses as writers, and maybe even become acquainted with our own inner critic as well as become accustomed to the sound of our voice as well as our own individual "Voice" as a poet.

Each workshop will be unique to its participants. This workshop respects all and expects such from participants. Expect diversity. Expect to learn how to pleasure yourself - so to speak.

Lorna Dee Cervantes is the author of DRIVE: The First Quartet (Wing Press, 2006), From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (Arte Público Press, 1991) and Emplumada (1981), which won an American Book Award. Her work has been included in many anthologies including Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (eds. Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan, 1994), No More Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Women Poets (ed. Florence Howe, 1993), and After Aztlan: Latino Poets of the Nineties (ed. Ray González, 1992). In 1995 she received a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award.

Where In the World Is Lorna? Berkeley City College TONIGHT 7:30 6/19 w/ Al Young & Busboys and Poets DC 6/21, wkshp 6/27 Split This Rock, DC

Join me tonight as Al Young and I kick off the Summer Creative Writing Intensive at Berkeley City College, June 19, 20, 21 and then on-line for six weeks. Spend the summer exploring poetry, play and fiction writing, earn 3 units of transferable college credit and still travel.

Friday, June 19 at 7:30-9:30pm reading and discussion byprofessional writers: poet and musician Al Young, former Poet Laureate of California and author of numerous books including _Coastal Evenings and Inland Afternoons_ and _Something about the Blues_and poet, publisher and cultural critic Lorna Dee Cevantes, _Emplumada_ and _From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger_.


Sign up for English 10, Creative Writing taught by Sharon Coleman, MFA in
Poetics, editor at Poetry Flash, poet and essayist, or English 70: Autobiography
into Creative Writing taught by Robyn Brooks, MFA in English and Creative Writing (with a focus in Poetry), poet and playwright. Cost is $60 for California residents. For Information, email:
scoleman@peralta.edu or rbrooks@peralta.edu. You must sign up in advance: www.peralta.edu or at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center Street, Berkeley (one half block from Downtown Berkeley BART)

--------------------------------

Washington, DC: June 21st, 4-6 pm., Father's Day (Bring your dad! Buy him a love poem from me to him!) - "A Sunday Kind of Love" at Bus-Boys and Poets with my favorite poet (I don't know how she buses), Reb Livingston! Join us for good eats and good poetry. Guaranteed to be hot and spicy in the Langston Room.

Intensive Poetry Workshop: "Ecopoetics, A Writer's Way of Knowledge" With Lorna Dee Cervantes, June 27th, the following Saturday, 1-4 pm. in Washington, DC for Split This Rock. Sign-up info to follow; or, come to the reading!

--------------------------------

July 12th: Intensive Poetry Workshop with Lorna Dee Cervantes in Santa Cruz, 10 am - 3 or 4. Info to follow. Don't miss this rare opportunity, thanks to Poetry Santa Cruz which also presents:

Lorna Dee Cervantes and Francisco Alarcon, Tuesday, July 14 at 7:30 PM, Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz. $3 suggested donation to Poetry Santa Cruz.

Come and buy my love. I'll write you a personalized love poem for whomever, whatever, or, just for you. Hey, it's all for the book... 100 LOVE POEMS TO STRANGERS.

--------------------------------

Your gig? Book me now! Have Poems. Will Travel. I'm looking for whatever in the East: DC, VA, NYC, NY. I'll be staying near NW VA, flying in an out of DC or train out of VA. I can stay through early July.

Also: COLORADO. Come on, homies. Boulder? I still need to move, and, frankly, haven't been able to afford it.

I'll be in Alabama the first week of October.

I'm available anytime for anything ASAP.

AND, I have a new book! 100 100-WORD LOVE POEMS maybe from my favorite press... (shhh, announcement to follow.)

I'm producing 150 self-designed books hand-stitched in signatures in its own gift box. Desperate times require desperate measures, requires love. These are lovingly produced and all about love. Desperate price of $10 each. $12.50 to mail ($15+ if you're nice.) Send by snail to:

Lorna Dee Cervantes
3181 Mission Street, #16
San Francisco, CA 94110

I may even write you a hay(na)ku on each one.

$25 for a signed copy of DRIVE: The First Quartet (while they last!)

Email: I don't like to post it due to the bots. Just send to my full name, don't forget the dee, at MAC, the usual dot and the typical COMmercial domain. You can also send to same AT ME and the usual. Don't ask. They changed. It's all the same. It's all good. Hope to hear from you soon. Or, see you there!

Lorna Dee's Keynote Address to El Sausal Middle School Promotion Ceremony, 6/10, Salinas, CA

Keynote Address to El Sausal Middle School Promotion Ceremony,
Salinas, California, held at Hartnell College, June 10, 2009


8th grade was the worst year of my life. I'm fifty-four now. Perhaps when I'm 86 I'll have a worse year than 1968. That year nothing happened and everything happened.

(sings): "Willow, weep for me./ Willow, weep for me./ Bend your branches down,/ down to the ground and cover me."

Yeah, I liked that goofy song. I wanted the willow to bend down and cover me. I saw myself in the willow trees that grew along the creeks and empty lots. Skinny, but strong. I liked to think I had a changing beauty, too, just like that willow tree growing green to yellow to brown and back to lime-colored swishing in the wind.

To bend, but never break. That's what the willow represents to me. El Sausal, a sacred tree to my native California ancestors who wove baskets and fishing gear from its leaves and limbs. Adaptable, able to change with the conditions and forces. To bend, but never break.

I come here today to wish you the Spirit of the willow; The Spirit of change; The Spirit of strength; The willow's protection; To tell you, as a poet once told me, when he was 86: "It gets better."

It gets better. 8th grade was the worse year of my life. Bad things happened. But people change. I changed. And you CAN change for the better. I learned that you may not be able to change what happens to you, but you can change how you're going to react. You can change what you become.

I became a poet. Maybe because I liked that song (sings): "When the shadows fall/ hear me, Willow,/ and weep for me." Maybe because the poets I read always seemed to be writing songs that wept for me.

You can weep. You can bend. You can change for your friends. You can change for your family. You can change for yourself. You can change for the better. You can't change somebody else. But you can set an example, just like the willow sets: el sausal, fuerte y suave; To be strong and never break; To do right; To hold.

You will hold. This is just one of many promotions. You are kids of el sausal, the willow. You may bend, but never break. You have seen nothing and you have seen everything. And, just like the willow tree, the kids of El Sausal will grow strong and give back.

Thank you for inviting me.


(shares closing poem written in 8th grade):


THINKING


I think I grew up last year
or maybe today is just a phase
like autumn's bright red foliage
just before winter's death.
Sometimes I think that life is nothing
but one big phase waiting for the next
and death is what you have
when you run out of phases.
I think that maybe I did grow up
some.


Fall, 1968


Lorna Dee Cervantes
June 10, 2009

Where In The World Is Lorna? Berk. Com. Coll. w/ AL YOUNG! 6/19, DC: Bus-Boys & Poets, 4-6 pm, 6/21 & wkshp 6/27; Santa Cruz wkshp 7/12, 7/14

Summer Creative Writing Intensive at Berkeley City College, June 19, 20, 21 and
then on-line for six weeks. Spend the summer exploring poetry, play and fiction
writing, earn 3 units of transferable college credit and still travel.

We'll begin Friday, June 19 at 6:00-9:30pm with a reading a discussion by
professional writers: poet and musician Al Young, former Poet Laureate of
California and author of numerous books including _Coastal Evenings and Inland
Afternoons_ and _Something about the Blues_and poet, publisher and cultural
critic Lorna Dee Cevantes, _Emplumada_ and _From the Cables of Genocide: Poems
on Love and Hunger_.

On Saturday June 21 from 10:00 am to 6:00pm will be writing, discussion, and an
introduction to three genres. From 7:30-9:30 are reading by novelist Shawna
Yang Ryan, _Water Ghosts_ (_Lock 1929_) and poet and novelist Jerry Ratch,
author of 14 books of poetry and one novel. His _A Body Divided: A Memoir on
Growing up with Polio_ comes out this year.

Sunday afternoon from noon to 3:30, we discuss workshopping, public readings and publishing.

For the next six weeks, you'll write two pages of creative work per week
and comment on the work of four other students. By July 31, you'll turn in
a twelve page portfolio of creative writing in any or all of the genres.
We'll also have a potluck and open mike on Friday July 24 from 6:30-9:30.

Sign up for English 10, Creative Writing taught by Sharon Coleman, MFA in
Poetics, editor at Poetry Flash, poet and essayist, or English 70: Autobiography
into Creative Writing taught by Robyn Brooks, MFA in English and Creative Writing (with a focus in Poetry), poet and
playwright. Cost is $60 for California residents. For Information, email:
scoleman@peralta.edu or rbrooks@peralta.edu. You must sign up in advance: www.peralta.edu or at
Berkeley City College, 2050 Center Street, Berkeley (one half block from
Downtown Berkeley BART)

--------------------------------

Washington, DC: June 21st, 4-6 pm., Father's Day (Bring your dad! Buy him a love poem from me to him!) - "A Sunday Kind of Love" at Bus-Boys and Poets with my favorite poet (I don't know how she buses), Reb Livingston! Join us for good eats and good poetry. Guaranteed to be hot and spicy.

Intensive Poetry Workshop: "Ecopoetics, A Writer's Way of Knowledge" With Lorna Dee Cervantes, June 27th, the following Saturday, 1-4 pm. in Washington, DC. Sign-up info to follow; or, come to the reading!

--------------------------------

July 12th: Intensive Poetry Workshop with Lorna Dee Cervantes in Santa Cruz, 10 am - 3 or 4. Info to follow. Don't miss this rare opportunity, thanks to Poetry Santa Cruz which also presents:

Lorna Dee Cervantes and Francisco Alarcon, Tuesday, July 14 at 7:30 PM, Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz. $3 suggested donation to Poetry Santa Cruz.

Come and buy my love. I'll write you a personalized love poem for whomever, whatever, or, just for you. Hey, it's all for the book... 100 LOVE POEMS TO STRANGERS.

--------------------------------

Your gig? Book me now! Have Poems. Will Travel. I'm looking for whatever in the East: DC, VA, NYC, NY. I'll be staying near NW VA, flying in an out of DC or train out of VA. I can stay through early July.

Also: COLORADO. Come on, homies. Boulder? I still need to move, and, frankly, haven't been able to afford it.

I'll be in Alabama the first week of October.

I'm available anytime for anything ASAP.

AND, I have a new book! 100 100-WORD LOVE POEMS maybe from my favorite press... (shhh, announcement to follow.)

I'm producing 150 self-designed books hand-stitched in signatures in its own gift box. Desperate times require desperate measures, requires love. These are lovingly produced and all about love. Desperate price of $10 each. $12.50 to mail ($15+ if you're nice.) Send by snail to:

Lorna Dee Cervantes
3181 Mission Street, #16
San Francisco, CA 94110

I may even write you a hay(na)ku on each one.

$25 for a signed copy of DRIVE: The First Quartet (while they last!)

Email: I don't like to post it due to the bots. Just send to my full name, don't forget the dee, at MAC, the usual dot and the typical COMmercial domain. You can also send to same AT ME and the usual. Don't ask. They changed. It's all the same. It's all good. Hope to hear from you soon. Or, see you there!