GOODY TWO SHOES TWO * A SONG LOOKING FOR A TUNE by Joan Logghe

GOODY TWO SHOES TWO * A SONG LOOKING FOR A TUNE

Patti Smith cut the cuffs off her shirt
I would never do that, I would never do that.
Our friend Webb went AWOL from Vietnam
we hid him out. Now, I would never do that.

I hitchhiked to Harvard Square
while my bug was in the shop
Marquis de Sade was there
against an Ivy League backdrop,

Now would you ever? Time passes
people move around a lot and end up west.

Other people were dancing rock and roll
I was peeling the bark from a Ponderosa Pine
I was giving birth in a three-room house
with no running water and a full moon bass line.

Would you ever do that, would you ever?

The parrot ran off with the day
I would never do that, I would never do that
The magpies were making raucous hay
Their tuxedos and tails, their noisy ways

My mother was paying the bills, and soon
she’d be selling the shop. The photos
of movies stars would fall . All would
vanish from the Carlton House Hotel.

I said, Hey Lovey Dovey, yeah I said,
Hey, Lovey Dovey. We’ve been married these fast forty years
with our burgeoning bourgeois frames and our bank
roll in your back pocket.

I’d never do that, You know I’d never.

Bob Dylan was passing through but I never got
his name. Janis Joplin would soon be through
and nobody called her tame. I put on my goody two shoes
and stared out the window in flame.

I gave birth to you and you and you
and nobody called out my name. I was Mama
I was Joanie, I was Jane. I wore out
my Goody two shoes, I was wild and then I tamed.

You were tame and then you got wild.
Three times I handed you a child.
Just check it out, over here, all alone
It’s Paradise without a throne.

Six acres and my last good nerve
Patti Smith came back in a huff
I rolled up my shirt cuffs. I deposited notes
in the bank, gave myself a third chance.

The small coyote howled, the computer
ran out of ink. The latest was just a child
with a heart as deep as the sink.
I can’t stop finding the joy,

even when the meanings run out.
The evening was alive, it was evening’s turn
to shout. I won’t ever do this
I won’t ever…I said Hey Lovey Dovey, hey….

Friends and Gazillionaires by Joan Logghe

Friends and Gazillionaires
I know that if you are like me, you are probably sick of hearing about my hijinks and exploits of the Poet Laureate life. Sick of all the wonderful appearances I have been party to, sick of hearing me say I rocked them on the Plaza for the Fourth of July pancake breakfast, sick of my excuse that I have five planets in Leo which I translate as five planets in Ego. I am sick of myself, usually and on a daily basis, but I am also rejoicing. Who is this energetic woman who has now been mistaken for a man not once but twice in a week? Who is this poet who sometimes goes on stage with her skirt tucked in her undies (wear good ones)? And why isn’t she sending work off the major literary magazines? Is it because she is still trying to coax a bloom out of her flowers who have pretty much all given up, except the morning glories? Is it because she is in mourning for the fires that burned the canyons and now the black ash in the Rios which the fish can’t survive? How can she think life is a joy and a poem when all of this has just transpired her neighboring watersheds?

I think I got some of my questions answered this week. My friends and co-conspirators at Tres Chicas Books went to the big city, Albuquerque, for a radio interview on WOmen’s Focus and a reading at Acequia books the following day. I think you can hear the interview with Carol Boss, July 23 at noon for two weeks on KUNM.org. Check it out. But even better, check out friendship.

It is truly amazing. I have two friends, Renée Gregorio and Mirian Sagan, who feature an excellent driver with night vision, and women who are as free with money at restaurants and clothing stores as I am. Both of these qualities are great, but not as amazing as friends who listen to all of my plaints and worries, love me anyhow, and give me advice and perspectives. They have even come to realize that I am almost always right. Que milagro! We had a blast and laughed non stop. I had to come home and recover from laughter. I highly recommend finding friends to support your art, publish your work, and run off to a big city with at least once a year. Friends bring joy and endorphins, I know it. Hint: it’s good to have younger friends. Not to be ageist.

For one weekend I needed to forget about the US Budget which is ridiculous and any of us could solve in a heartbeat if not for greed. Do you know that greed causes the same bio chemistry as addiction? Do you hear one single gazillionaire say, “Let’s experiment with altruism. Let’s share. Let’s just kick some green ass with our financial clout? Let’s end a few wars, divvy up the profits, look at taxes as a privilege of our success.” You blog readers know by now that I am an altruistic Scrabble player, and I am watching my husband, who is an altruistic carpenter, and has helped about five people move this month. This includes storing or adopting various things, from a full sized loom to two miniature horses. We have wandering Jews and two Crown of Thorns (altruistic and ecumenical), aloe vera galore, bougainvillea, A combo wine rack.plant stand, a large painting of a woman with two sabertooth tigers which takes up our entire guest room, a Maori mask which hangs over the TV and makes the news look cheerful by contrast, and a Norfolk Island pine which obviously never heard about what happened to our last two Norfolk Island pines.

Anyhow, I hope my second and finale year as Poet Laureate, not to keep dwelling on how cool and groovy it is, I hope this year is of use to people, that we get gentle rains, that my poetry isn’t all way too occasional and derivative, and that we are still friends at the end. I have over 500 Facebook Friends, but they have never driven at night with me or heard my stories more than five times. This is the week of my 40th Anniversary. I think our marriage has a fair amount of altruism, screw Ayn Rand. I hope living a life in poetry has purpose and increases endorphins. Viva la PL, even if it happens to be, just briefly and fleetingly, me.

And finally, we have ten days guys for the budget, get it ungreedily unstuck, get it TOGETHER!!

Check out Joanie’s blog at http://thepoemdifferent.blogspot.com/

Valentines Delivered To Nursing Homes–Make Them with Santa Fe Poet Laureate Joan Logghe

Still not too late to join in for a little Valentine merriment. What a wild and cold week. Come have the warming delight of making Valentines and delivering them to nursing homes. Change up the Vibe. Be Mine! XXx JOAN

Poetry à la Heart

A Valentine’s Day Drive-By Love-In

Marguerite Wilson, Rose Quilt Fiber Artist, and Joan Logghe, Poet Laureate of Santa Fe will lead a band of Artists and Poets in a Valentine-making Workshop that will

culminate in their poetic delivery to the four nursing homes in Santa Fe and to whomever is lucky enough to cross our path

Valentine Making

Marguerite’s Studio 9 Fido Lane, Santa Fe 992-8206

Directions to Studio: Get on the Old Las Vegas Highway, and turn onto Arroyo Hondo Road. When you come to Rabbit Junction, stay to the right. Go all the way down the skinny paved road until you come to the reflectors and you have to turn. Turn left. Go past the mail boxes and through the pink pillars that say “Fido Lane”. Stay straight on the dirt road until you see a marker with #9. Go right, and you are pulling into the driveway. The Studio is the building to the left.

February 5 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Bring Valentine’s materials and a dish to share while we create beautiful valentines. Besides short love poems, bring colored paper, glitter, glue, lace, flowers, ribbon, hearts, cherubs, markers, stamps, envelopes, chocolate kisses, etc.—whatever your heart tells you.

Valentine Delivery

February 14 Beginning at 2 p.m.

El Castillo

Casa Real Care Center

Rosemont

Sierra Vista

Joan Logghe: On the Via of la Vida Local

On the Via of la Vida Local
The first words I heard my old poetry teacher say when I met him was, ”Any place can be Paris.” That was in 1991 and the man was Gerald Stern, another former Pittsburgher. It may have been then, or earlier, that I formulated a way of looking at my life. While many poets have their eyes out there, on the national arena, I realized that in a country as big as the United States, to have a function and presence in the local community was what appealed to me. New Mexico has a geography half large as France. I had three children at the time, ranging from 6-17, and didn’t want to jettison my strong family boat. All along, since moving here in 1973, I have been living la Vida Local only now I named it so.
I have grown my art with my friends in community, and have tried to serve community in a variety of ways. After food coops, play groups, and quilt making I reconnected with poetry. I volunteered at the John Hyson school in Chimayo. I wrote a poem for Robert Winson’s death and Mirabai and Eddie’s marriage. I wrote with Ricardo on his deathbed for 13 months and published a book of his work and our collaboration. I wrote with a support group called Write Action for the AIDS community and published two books of their work. The group evolved into more general crisis, illness, and loss focus. Write Action met for 13 years almost weekly. Three of its members showed up last week to support me on Labor Day.
Even more locally, down the road two miles in Arroyo Seco, for seven years I have hired local artists and run a free monthly art workshop called Artist of the Month. It serves as a community gathering at The Teen Center of Hands Across Cultures, and celebrates young and not so young artists with art forms as varied as traditional tin work and henna tattoo.
I am not telling you this to brag. I am trying to make sense out of my life and see its trajectory as I carry it into the two years as Poet Laureate. In my days I have learned to persevere, write grants, publicize the events, and often work for free. New Mexico is my Paris and has everything needed to grow a rich life, even cafés. To live in useful context is my goal and being Poet Laureate helps me to focus on how good the community has been back to me. Tres Chicas Books, founded in 1993, as another small press is another undertaking that flourishes in the 505 as youth calls it after our area code.
This is not to say that I didn’t jump at the chance to teach in Bratislava, Vienna, and Zagreb when it came along in 1994. But that was a side dish in my locavore life. I am trying to think of a word for local writer, locascribe, locajot, loca pen.

Live La Vida Local. Write locally, shop locally, donate locally, dream locally, love locally, dance locally, and sing locally.

In Amazement, Joan Logghe

Living La Vida Local with Santa Fe’s Poet Laureate Joan Logghe

Living La Vida Local with Santa Fe’s Poet Laureate

— joanlogghe@hotmail.com

— http://thepoemdifferent.blogspot.com check archive for dates

Labor Day at the Railyard Park

Monday, September 6, 12:00-3:00 pm, at noon I’ll read a Labor Day poem. There will be free food and Democrats!

Premier reading at Collected Works::

Thursday, September 23, 6:00. note new date because Jimmy Santiago Baca was reading at old date!

Joan Logghe with read with Alvaro Cardona-Hine, her dear and inspiring friend. His recent book from UNM Press is The Curvature of the Earth with the late Gene Frumkin.and Joan will read from works in progress.

Cardona-Hine is a poet, painter, and composer and lives beside the gallery in Truchas with his wife, Barbara McCauley, who also paints and writes beautifully.

Joan and the Giant Pencil::

Sunday, September 26, 2-4:00 PM at the NM Museum of Art. In a program for young children and their parents, Joan Logghe, will be accompanied by musician Jeremy Bleich. They will present a program suitable for the early elementary years, ages 6-9 give or take. After the performance children will be invited to write in the galleries, accompanied by an adult. This launches similar programs to be offered to four schools during the school year. Free admission to all.

Women’s Festival of the Book:: October 1-3

Anne Lamott’s kick-off reading at the Lensic, Tuesday, September 28 at 7:00

Intro by Joan Logghe. Tickets at the Lensic or http://www.ticketssantafe.org

Check out New Mexico Creates web site. Friday there are workshops all day for a small fee.

Saturday and Sunday, at The New Mexico History Museum off the SF Plaza.

All day readings and book signings by women authors. I will be reading at 1:30 on Saturday in the Meem Room. Free.

Ghost Ranch: Living Life twice, Writing the Sacred Down

October 3-9 http://www.ghostranch.org or 505-685-4333, check it out, it is happening for sure.

Southside Library, Tuesday, October 19, 4:00, Joan and the Giant Pencil. For young kids and their adults.

Broadside Exhibit and A Spirited Reading and exhibit. Friday, Oct 29, 6-8PM. The Meem room at the New Mexico Museum of History has a show of poetry broadsides by Tom Leech of the Palace Press. These are printed on a letter press on handmade paper. Poets will read and celebrate Tom’s generous and beautiful work and support of the Poet Laureate Program. Readers are Arthur Sze, Valerie Martinez, John Brandi, Renée Gregorio, Miriam Sagan, James Bixler, Gary “Mex” Glazner, Jane Hilberry from Colorado College, and myself.

Museum of International Folk Art::

Sunday, November 14, 2:00-4:00, Writing in the Galleries, in conjunction with the show, Material World, Textiles and dress from the collection. Free with NM license.

“My candle burns at both ends

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-

It gives a lovely light.” Edna St. Vincent Millay 1920 (Us Poet 1892-1950)

3 Questions for Joan Logghe

1. What is your personal/aesthetic relationship to the poetic line?
That is, how do you understand it, use it, etc.

Breath, sense, visual effect, and attention to the last word all influence my lines.
Short lines make me extremely antsy and nervous, except for Neruda’s Odes which I adore.
I read them as long lines, they just look short.  A high school student suggested that maybe
he made his poems long and skinny like Chile.

I like to write and to read fast, and the long line is working with me.  Maybe this is a Back East
line or a Biblical line, though I am not much of a Bible reader.  More likely the Whitman/Ginsberg line
and these two I read a lot more.

If I see a line much longer than others, I will tame it back in, get rid of extraneous words.
I feel as if it is a rogue line, an alert that I am being off, and wordy.

I also want the poem to look like something on the page, a vessel.  Having line lengths
fairly uniform helps me edit the poem into shape, and hopefully be more selective after
the initial instinctive writing of the poem.  I don’t typically count syllables (except haiku
when I am being compulsive and I really dig it).   Maybe I should count.
Maybe I will.

2. Do you find a relationship between words and writing and the human
body? Or between your writing and your body?

I can sit and write for long periods of time.  I just got an electric typewriter back in my life and
I am so happy as it has always been my favorite way to write especially in the middle of the
night.  It has a physical aspect for me, and was how I trained as a young girl on an Olivetti.
I like the sounds a typewriter makes and seeing the words in print right away.

Some days I sit and write and it seems timeless, so I guess my body and time are linked.
But there is the obvious conflict always.
If I am writing I want to take a walk.  If I am swimming I want to be writing.
I am always wanting to do the opposite.

I also feel that the body holds in its memory things that are of use in my writing.
For example, I teach a lot and use many of  the same poems over and over.  They
then get into me and when I am writing, come through in various ways.  A phrase
of Rilke or a poem by Linda Gregg have infused me.  They become physical in that
I know them, I don’t own them but they own me, and they leak into my writing.

I personally sense the relation between physicality and poetic form.  By reading and learning poems in a form, such as pantoum, ghazal, or haiku, I feel as if I have the templates in my body.  Then, when I need to write something that emotionally or rhythmically fits those templates, I have them internalized and I’m physically prepared to write in a form.
The hearing of a phrase in my head, which is meta-physical and the recognition of the form the words want to take can come very sweetly and simply.  The forms are waiting inside my body.

3. Is there anything you dislike about being a poet?

Right now, you caught me in an extremely happy place.  I dislike not working and that was my reality for many years.  Now I have just about the perfect amount of work, but I know that will change.  When it does, talk to me, and I will have plenty to kvetch about.

I do dislike the big deal about fame and being nationally known.  I have made my place locally, work in my community, and feel that Santa Fe is, while not exactly my Paris, at least my Left Bank.  I dislike snobbery, competition and what a friend calls the corporate model.  Poems that are so abstract and so much smarter than I am make me want to weep.

I dislike people who say they don’t like and don’t get poetry.  Then I have to give them my speech about not finding their poetry soul-mate, someone who speaks their language, just as in music  they may hate classical and love reggae, or  in painting love Van Gogh and not get Roethko.  I don’t want to give my speech.  Or how about on an airplane?  If you say you’re a poet they look at you with such pity and ask if you have anything published.

I guess don’t get me started.  But I have looked at ways to be happy within my chosen field and avoid the bitterness.  Poetry has been very very good to me.  Considering. Everything about poetry.
I could have done well in advertising.