Papa: A Poem and A Short Angry Review of A Doc

 

Papa

 

No one gets you, not really. How I suffer when I hear them argue.

I loved you when you woke in Paris

while Hadley slept and you washed the Bumby bottles

and afterwards, went down for the papers

then you wrote 

You taught me everything I know.

You raised me, word by word.

I listened carefully to your Zen description

of the elephant and the lion, the fish and the sea, the boxer and the bullfight.

How the old women went up the hill in the early morning

to drink the bravery and came down grey faced.

When Pilar washed her feet in the stream, I knew I’d come home.

You named your boat Pilar. Of course you did.

 

You were truly One.

 

Because of you,

I keep my baby picture on my windowsill

to remind me of my promise.

I cannot bear to hear lesser lights talk about him. I turn into a romantic hero who unsheathes his sword and cries out, “I will cut his name out of your foul mouth!” Complaining lesser lights, dim lights, alcoholic this, alcoholic that, whined Mary Karr. ("Who are these people and why would  care what they have to say about Hemingway?" my husband asked me as we watched the doc.) Write one true sentence and then you can speak about him! I remember one true sentence of Mary Karr's from The Liar's Club:“Jim’s dick was always rock hard!” She slammed her fist on the table as she spoke. I’m paraphrasing, so maybe I don't remember it.

After seeing Ken Burn’s and Lynn Novick’s documentary, “Hemingway,” I felt brutalized emotionally. That week, my daughter gifted me a book, a small yellow volume of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s remarks about drinking, called On Booze, and I, so very traumatized, carried this book with me for at least two days, cradled it to my bosom as a touchstone, you, Scotty, you understand.

I didn’t learn anything from the Burns doc that I hadn’t already known. But, I was absolutely appalled that Burns and Novick would abandon Hemingway as a doddering old damaged paranoid drunk when he complained and was terrified of possible FBI surveillance. True fans know that Hemingway was right about the FBI, but Burns does not mention what we now know and even Hemingway’s wife, Mary acknowledged, that yes, Hoover had a file on Hemingway for years, considered him a dangerous Communist sympathizer, surveilled him, followed him, wanted desperately to arrest him. Arrêter, to stop. Here’s a good article about Hemingway and the FBI, thank you Salon, thank you David Masciotra!

I always love to watch a good doc about artists. I’m usually pretty content to bask in the glory for an hour or so, but I was very disappointed when this one skipped lightly over Hemingway’s Paris years with the artists and writers who made Paris, well, Paris! Come on! Let’s face it, what we feel about Paris began with Hemingway and his friends! I loved Sylvia Beach spreading the legend of Hemingway liberating Paris after WWII - great stuff! But, why didn’t Burns mention how Hemingway’s little boy, Bumby, called her Silver Beaches? Or that when they were poor, Hemingway washed the Bumby bottles while Hadley slept? Or that he always regretted divorcing Hadley? 

Why leave out any of the true, good stuff? 

©Patricia Goodwin, 2021

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

Faith: A Writer's Life

 

Charlotte Bronte Resolute

Sometimes I think a writer’s life is really many writers’ lives. One of the most moving and illustrative examples of this idea is this image of Charlotte Bronte from the BBC drama, To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters. Charlotte has in her arms, safely tucked under her meager shawl, protected more than she is from the driving rain from which everyone else is running, the precious manuscript of Jane Eyre. Where would the generations of future writers be if not for the fortitude, determination, and faith of Charlotte Bronte? Faith, the thing that carries her forward along that stormy path out into the world. 

I remember Betty Smith walking her dog at midnight, mailing her manuscript and wondering if anyone would ever get excited enough about her book to publish it. They did; it was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I think of Jerome Salinger sending story after story to The New Yorker Magazine, rejected every time until Ernest Hemingway served with him in Europe and called him over to the bar, “Hey, Jerry! Jerry! Everyone, this guy’s a helluva writer!”

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby only sold a few copies until the United States Army wanted to create small paperbacks for soldiers to carry with them; they chose Fitzgerald’s little book. The soldiers loved the story of the girl, the car and the house, The American Dream, reading it over and over, sharing the hand  sized books, causing such a demand for the story that Fitzgerald was restored as a great writer.

I am struck anew by the long road of writing. I look at my own work - Telling Time By Apples And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, for instance. It took years and years of heavy yard work and gardening - me digging, planting, raking, weeding, pruning; me creating a wheelbarrow out of a huge tree branch to haul gigantic loads of yard waste, me planting the infinitesimal seeds, nurturing the tiniest seedlings that could drown if watered if not lifted patiently by hand out of the puddles, these would grow to be cosmos taller than me that the goldfinches used to sway on, chirping deliriously. It took the subsequent illness, followed by recovery and the slow regaining of strength, the tyranny of the garden, the terror of winter, the slow recovery of Spring, the clean, new, fresh garden! When I wrote that long poem, I was sure no one would appreciate it, but I was wrong. Everyone who has ever gardened can’t help but shudder and sigh when they read it.

Besides all the living that is required, I also make my own books (with the help of my team, my daughter and husband). Perhaps every writer should have to physically make their books at least once! I decided to illustrate Telling Time By Apples. I didn’t know anything about making illustrations, which is very different from painting or drawing. These paintings or drawings are specifically made for print, which is a different matter. I could only paint on canvas, so that’s what I did, hoping the images would have a quaint, sampler look. 

I designed the cover, which was meant to have an apple flaming with autumn leaves. It was my husband who added the robin. Together, we chose the paper color to match the parchment look of the cover. We chose the typeface and the spacing of the lines and the margins. Then, I was propped up in a program called InDesign where I set the type and images. 

Thanks to Amazon’s publishing program, we are able to publish and sell books. This is pretty much the process of making our books: First, years of real life agony or joy, then writing, then the physical book. My daughter often created the covers, using my design joined with her art work or photography. She took the photos of the marble on the cover of my poetry book Atlantis and the deep blue water on the cover of Dreamwater. She painted the airplane on Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse, a cover designed around her original painting and the idea of daydreaming over coffee, plus the fact that the owner of the café had been a pilot. She designed the striking, glossy black cover for When Two Women Die. And, together, we bravely created the muted grey cover of Holy Days using a vintage photo of me at three-years-old. 

I am reminded of Virginia Woolf who, at Hogarth Press, set the type manually, letter by letter, with her husband, Leonard. Or, similarly, D.H. Lawrence having his banned books printed in Italy, letter by letter, by a printer who could not read English.

Woody Allen once said that he didn’t know where the words came from, no one really does, but they come and he’s grateful for them. I remember being extremely nervous at one of my first readings, in a little shop called Ironic, run by two women, one who made wrought iron furniture and objects, another who painted furniture. She had painted a lovely Italian countryside mural on the shop wall by which I was sitting. I loved being in such a charming, work-rich environment. I looked down at the book in my lap and saw my daughter’s graphic and exciting artwork on the cover of my poetry book, Marblehead Moon - a wild rendition of the  moon, the stars, and the ocean that she had made when she was quite young - and I thought, “What am I nervous about? The words are right here!” I still remember the warm rush of faith that enveloped me.

You see I believe the words come from God, or, if you will, the Universe. That is my faith. One’s talent and one’s work, they are a trust handed to the writer. The writer must then carry and carry and carry that work out into the world. I am grateful for my readers, the ones whose faces beam, who proudly tell me in the supermarket, “Patricia! I read your book!” chin jutted out in pride. I remember the woman at a reading who reached out and touched my arm as I passed her after reading, on my way back to my chair. Thank you, dear heart, I feel your touch every time I despair. I remember the gasps from the crowd. Gasps! Can I really be so lucky? Hey, I also remember the potato chip bag and the crunching of chips in the audience - infinitely more compelling than poetry at times!

Lately, we have just finished publishing Low Flying, a stunning dark green book with type that truly glimmers like gold though it is only gold in color. Though Low Flying is fictionalized, it came out of many painful conversations I had over the years with women telling me horror stories about their marriages; also plenty of lurid town gossip, as well as my own experiences with an abusive boss that I wished I could - well, the imagination can be very therapeutic. In Low Flying two women who suffer psychologically abusive marriages, gain strength from the simple act of working together in the nurturing environment of a beautiful old greenhouse. So, you see, years of suffering, years of writing, months of grunt work at the computer. In writing the book, I was especially proud of the “garden quotes” at the top of each chapter which I found over years of reading, some tidbit from the garden or from poetry, literature, even movies that enlightens the thought and action to follow.

Low Flying was finished in the late ‘90s. I’ve kept it close all that time, hoping one day to get it from manuscript to actual book form. My husband, who began in the book business, is very proud of this book. Right now, we have my author’s copy on the dining room table. He admires it every time he walks by, “You got yourself a beautiful book there!” Or “Look at that shine! You’d think it was gold leaf!” Or he’ll pick it up and say, “It even has a nice hand.” That’s the way a book feels if it feels good in your hand.

Faith.

©PatriciaGoodwin, 2020

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

I Must Be About The Work Of My Fathers

Daddy

All the girls cried that you looked like Alan Ladd, they asked me, 

“Do you know Alan Ladd, honey? Your Daddy looks just like him.” 

You were quick to point out that Alan Ladd was short and you were tall. 

You said, “They had to put his co-stars in a ditch so he could kiss them.”

Remember, Daddy how you ran from bed to catch the arsonist who was throwing fire in our doorway? You gave him such a beating he never came back.

You rolled your cigarette pack under your T-shirt sleeve. Lucky Strikes.

Papa

No one gets you, not really. How I suffer when I hear them argue.

I loved you when you woke in Paris

while Hadley slept and you washed the Bumby bottles, fed him

and afterwards, went down for the papers

then you wrote 

You taught me everything I know.

You raised me, word by word.

I listened carefully to your Zen description

of the elephant and the lion, the fish and the sea, the boxer and the bullfight.

How the old women went up the hill in the early morning

to drink the bravery and came down grey faced.

When Pilar washed her feet in the stream, I knew I’d come home.

You named your boat Pilar. Of course you did.

You were truly One.

Because of you,

I keep my baby picture on my windowsill

to remind me of my promise.

Fitzgerald

You touched God.

A word like a flower in a valley of ash: robin’s egg blue.

You were the finest champagne.

I loved that you died with your head slamming to the typewriter,

as Hemingway said, “Without ceremony.”

I want to die like that. I want to live like that.

Stephen Crane

You helped me understand my red badge of courage.

Because of you I was not afraid of the pain,

no, nor the yellow pus or the dark blood.

Because of you, I knew I could sleep

under the green bough in the dappled grass,

a chapel more holy than church.

You gave me the prayer book: Maggie, Girl of the Streets.

The first modern novel.

 D.H.

You.

Had to be published in Italy where the printer could not speak English.

He could see only the purity of letters.

You taught me where and why everything was.

I am not afraid to get wet, to stand in the rain.

I am not afraid of words or animals.

I am only afraid when a rich man is in the last of Sherwood Forest.

Robin Hood

Nobility cannot be taken away.

Maid Marian was a better archer than you, and a better horseman.

I remember how you listened to her ideas – and then – followed her

though you were a leader!

You laughed! Stole from the rich, gave to the poor.

You died, finally

Betrayed by your cousin, a nun.

Tarzan

What did you teach the boy?

Tarzan teach Boy where to find water when thirsty, where to find food when hungry.  

Tarzan teach Boy to be strong like lion and happy like bird.

You find everything you need in the jungle do you?

Wise man need little.

Have you ever thought what will become of Boy if he grows up in the jungle?

Boy grow up to be brother of sun and friend of rain.  Hurt nobody.  Want nothing people have.  Grow old like cedar tree.  Boy will be good man, happy man.

No one can want more than that.

Virginia Woolf

Words are waves and waves are words. I let the words take me like waves.

I do not try to understand them.

The shark fin races to find you. The lighthouse is dark.

You stood to work because Vanessa stood to paint.

You walked every day.

I read your letter to Clive on Christmas afternoons, when all is quiet.

“It is past nine o’clock and people still sing carols beneath my window.”

Colette

Earthly Paradise.

How you reminded me of my Nona,

her blue velvet slippers with toes cut out to relieve the pain,

shuffling ahead of me, taking longer in old age than my quick baby steps,

going down the stairs, three flights to the garden

with a heavy bucket of water and back again.

Devotion.

Forbidden pleasures: The chocolate pan sizzling before dawn.

How Sido laughed when the infant crushed the rose in his little palm.

The cool flesh of Cheri, Leah’s pearls about his throat.

All these nurtured me through my girlhood. I close my eyes to write.

Georgia

You were not afraid to follow the Great God of Where the Line Goes

The shapes of Nature repeat themselves

line may be lip or bone

round may be breast or stone

Flowers so precious they became Mountains

You were a black sculpture tracing lines of yourself on the sand

which only the ancient may understand

Patti Smith

You do not think it’s bravery. I do. Because I need to be quiet.

But, I adore your horses and your ties.

Kiss me with your words and your beats, Oh Prince!

I do not know if you are father or mother, but I love you.

Gloria!

Jesus

You are too beautiful to look at directly.

I can only follow you.

I think of you living.

I know your Father and Mother gave us yang and yin.

And the Holy Spirit, which is life and love.

You wanted us to love each other and to marry.

To have children and to live well.

From the time I first heard of you

I believed someone who loved so much

must have fallen in love with a woman.

I am a Magdalena. I carry a rose.

Husband

Guru.

You taught me how to read life

and how to cook brown rice.

When I first met you, your house was art.

I knew I had come to the right place.

We gave each other life beyond our own – a family.

You take care of us in a storm and build an ark

out of a Mini-Cooper.

We love you!

Thank you.

Happy Father’s Day!

UPDATE: Found out exactly what Dad is doing in this photo! Seems the little one stepped in dog poo! What a guy!

©Patricia Goodwin, 2013

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.