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    <title>Baked Beans and Grünkohl: The Boston&#45;Hannover Channel</title>
    <link>https://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/blog-joey/</link>
    <description></description>
    <dc:language>de</dc:language>
    <dc:rights>Copyright 2020</dc:rights>
    <dc:date>2020-09-29T16:09:00+00:00</dc:date>
    <atom:link href="https://www.fembio.org/woman/rss_2.0-joey" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
    

    <item>
      <title>Sigrid Nunez&#8217; The Friend. A Review</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/sigrid&#45;nunez&#45;the&#45;friend&#45;a&#45;review/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/sigrid-nunez-the-friend-a-review/#When:16:09:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Sigrid Nunez has just published a new novel, What Are You Going Through?,&nbsp;which I&#39;m just now reading.&nbsp;&nbsp;Its female narrator faces&nbsp;and reflects&nbsp;on the ending of a life, as did the narrator of her&nbsp;previous novel,&nbsp;The Friend. I went back to reread my notes on that thought-provoking book and decided to publish them on my blog, in case any of you are also tempted to dip into Nunez&#39; uniquely appealing prose!

The Friend. Sigrid Nunez. 2018. N.Y.: Riverhead: Penguin.

National Book Award for Fiction, 2018.

The first-person narrator of this winner of the 2018 National Book Award for fiction is a woman perhaps in her 60&#39;s, a writer and college teacher of writing. She recounts her reactions to and life after the suicide of a close "friend" and earlier, short-term lover. She often slips into the second person, speaking to the dead friend, who remains nameless, as do all creatures appearing in the book except for Apollo, the friend&rsquo;s statuesque Great Dane, whom she is persuaded to "adopt" by her ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2020-09-29T16:09:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Heat Advisory Amidst Pandemic</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/heat&#45;advisory&#45;amidst&#45;pandemic/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/heat-advisory-amidst-pandemic/#When:14:57:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Heat Advisory Amidst Pandemic

&nbsp;

You shouldn&rsquo;t go out today &ndash;
stay home and hydrate!
My daughter&rsquo;s texted warning
echoes my own good sense:
Only mad dogs and Englishmen
go out in the mid-day sun.

And yet I crave my forest fix
my walk past laughing gardens
into the wooded park
under a glass clear sky.

The months of social distancing
have left me strangely dulled,
devoid of motivation.
Thrown back upon myself
I&rsquo;m forced to inner contemplation
to find what&rsquo;s at my core.

Looking for wisdom,
longing for joy &ndash;
intensity of feeling&nbsp;
a ghost now in my memory,
I muster all my senses.

A welcome tender breeze
caresses neck and shoulders
so long so bare of touch.

My eyes lift skyward&nbsp;
drink in translucent blue,&nbsp;
fringed round the edges&nbsp;
by softly swaying green:
The canopy above,
where sharply structured branches&nbsp;
yield patterns, subtly shifting
in shadow and the sun.
Dizzying, dense &ndash; and etched into my brain.&nbsp;

Breathing deeply&nbsp;
the scents all around &ndash;
the fragrance of pine,&nbsp;
the hint of ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2020-08-02T14:57:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Unlatch</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/unlatch/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/unlatch/#When:21:17:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[This sonnet by&nbsp;Dorian Brooks was first published in Ibbetson Street in 2019.

&nbsp;

Unlatch

A woman from Honduras recalled how officials
took away her baby while she was breastfeeding.
&mdash;The Guardian, June 16, 2018 &nbsp;

&nbsp;

I wonder, when they came to take away
babies from nursing mothers, did they snatch
them off, or let the mothers finish, the way
midwives and manuals taught them &ndash; to &ldquo;unlatch&rdquo;&nbsp;

as naturally as breathing? &nbsp;Carefully
crook your pinky finger and slip it into
your baby&rsquo;s mouth.&nbsp; Turn your finger slowly
to break the suction, ease it nearer you&nbsp;

a little bit, then rest.&nbsp; I like to think&nbsp;
at least a few officials had the heart
to let a mother linger &ndash; giving one last drink
to her child &ndash; before they pulled the pair apart

&nbsp; and neither one knew where the other went,
&nbsp; both left with empty lives for nourishment.

&nbsp;

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&copy; Dorian ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2020-07-30T21:17:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Poetry Editor</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/poetry&#45;editor/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/poetry-editor/#When:15:08:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Dorian Brooks wrote the two poems &ldquo;Thalassa&rdquo; and &ldquo;Poetry Editor&rdquo; in memory of her friend and fellow poet Mary Rice, who died in 2011. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Mary Rice was an essayist and videographer as well as a poet; her poems, articles, and reviews were published in several magazines, including&nbsp;Ms. and&nbsp;Sojourner.&nbsp; A feminist and proud graduate of all-women Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, USA, she also held a master&#39;s degree in art history from Boston University.&nbsp; She was an editor of the feminist magazine&nbsp;Second Wave, and later, poetry editor of&nbsp;Ibbetson Street, a poetry journal published in Somerville, MA. &nbsp;Both "Thalassa" and "Poetry Edotor" were published in Ibbetson Street.&nbsp;Dorian also edited Mary Rice&rsquo;s uncompleted poetry manuscript together with additional poems and arranged for their publication as&nbsp;Angels and Anarchists&nbsp;(Cambridge, MA: Shepard St. Press, 2014).

&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Poetry Editor

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;for Mary Rice

After you finish
seeing your doctor,
we meet ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2018-10-23T15:08:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Thalassa</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/thalassa/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/thalassa/#When:14:58:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Dorian Brooks wrote the two poems &ldquo;Thalassa&rdquo; and &ldquo;Poetry Editor&rdquo; in memory of her friend and fellow poet Mary Rice, who died in 2011. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Mary Rice was an essayist and videographer as well as a poet; her poems, articles, and reviews were published in several magazines, including&nbsp;Ms. and&nbsp;Sojourner.&nbsp; A feminist and proud graduate of all-women Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, USA, she also held a master&#39;s degree in art history from Boston University.&nbsp; She was an editor of the feminist magazine&nbsp;Second Wave, and later, poetry editor of&nbsp;Ibbetson Street, a poetry journal published in Somerville, MA.&nbsp;Both "Thalassa" and "Poetry Edotor" were published in&nbsp;Ibbetson Street.&nbsp; Dorian also edited Mary Rice&rsquo;s uncompleted poetry manuscript together with additional poems and arranged for their publication as&nbsp;Angels and Anarchists&nbsp;(Cambridge, MA: Shepard St. Press, 2014).

Thalassa

for Mary Rice,&nbsp;
who loved Melissa Green&rsquo;s poem
&ldquo;At the Seashore&rdquo; with its ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2018-10-23T14:58:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Magic Mushroom</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/magic&#45;mushroom/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/magic-mushroom/#When:01:44:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Magic Mushroom
September 2018

&nbsp;



Entering the park
I am greeted by
a giant yellow mushroom
sprouting brilliant from
an ash tree&rsquo;s trunk,
bursting with multiple shelves,
a proudly swelling corolla.

My first thought:
someone has tied a celebratory rose
around that tree,
for yesterday the trunk was bare.
But stepping closer
I can see
it&rsquo;s Chicken of the Woods.

Mother Nature has worked her magic
and left
a gift from Gaea
to lift my spirits,
wake me from my worries
and call me loudly:
attend to the world around you!

Walking on
to the pulse of the cricket,
the hum of cicadas,
and into the woods,
my sacred space,
I raise my gaze
to the crests of the trees
and worship.
Surrounded by
my deities,
these private goddesses,
I slip into a mystic bliss.

Quiet titans they stand,
and offer themselves
like models posing
for the artist&rsquo;s eye,
branches arrayed in
endless patterns
against the sky,
straight and strong
or bent in shapes surprising.

They invite to visual contrast:
light and ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2018-09-06T01:44:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Fairy Tales</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/fairy&#45;tales/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/fairy-tales/#When:14:43:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[
Fairy Tales

Dorian Brooks wrote this poem about a class she took in Harvard&nbsp;Extension School, taught by a legendary professor at Harvard&nbsp;and the University of Massachusetts Boston. Bob Spaethling was also one of my Doktorv&auml;ter and a mentor to me for much of my career.&nbsp;Many readers may also have known him, and we hope that all will enjoy this evocation of his magic in the classroom!


&nbsp;Fairy Tales
for Robert Spaethling


In continuing Ed.,
we read Grimms&rsquo; fairy tales
in translation.&nbsp; Herr Spaethling,
Professor Emeritus,
all but dances his lectures.
With charming accent
he compares the brothers,
Jacob and Wilhelm, one
the scientist, one the poet.
He makes us love the colors
in Snow White, the girl&rsquo;s
white skin and ebony hair,
the scarlet apple.&nbsp; But the dwarfs,
he fumes (cursing Disney),
must never be named, mysterious
beings from earth&rsquo;s depths.


When we come to The Juniper Tree
he reads the beginning aloud,
lyric hymn to the mother
whose pregnancy advances
with the tree&rsquo;s seasons ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2018-07-20T14:43:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Juneteenth, 2018</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/juneteenth&#45;2018/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/juneteenth-2018/#When:14:15:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Juneteenth, 2018

&nbsp;

Walking to the park I hear
the strains of celebration &ndash;
Juneteenth!
Booming from loudspeakers
the music of jubilation echoes
across the fields.

The day that freedom came
to Texas, belated news:
the war was won and
slavery dead.

The park is full
of happy revellers,
families with their coolers,
smoking grills and wild balloons.
Their autos line the road.

I leave the pavement
and move into the woods,
no longer hear
the throbbing bass
or beating drums,
but notice with new clarity
that summer has arrived.

The green is almost overpowering &ndash;
from luxuriant grasses
weaving and bowing along the track
to twisting vines and vibrant shrubs
and a gracious canopy above.
Mock orange fades already
but cicadas start to sing,
and butterflies flit past,
one white, one black
one viceroy, I think!

Lost in all this beauty
I fail to watch
my step as suddenly
I come upon a path
so full of stones
I almost stumble.
&ldquo;Pay attention!&rdquo;
I tell myself,
and think about the
&ldquo;stumbling ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2018-06-22T14:15:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Omen</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/omen/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/omen/#When:14:07:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Omen

Walking through the woods
in search of solace
in need of comfort &ndash;&nbsp;
too many friends are stricken

the threats of age loom large
there is no cure
you lose all muscle movement
and yet your mind stays clear
to suffer through
in full awareness

or else your brain surrenders
erases more and more
of who you are
full of tangled twisting neurons
like gnarly branches
black against the sky.

How can one bear the knowledge
the ineluctable decline
encroaching on all sides?

Above my head an owl
glides through the trees
a giant shadow
massive yet silent
graceful and solemn
coasting home.&nbsp; ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2017-10-12T14:07:00+00:00</dc:date>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Meditation at Year&#8217;s End</title>
      <link>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments&#45;joey/meditation&#45;at&#45;years&#45;end/</link>
      <guid>https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/comments-joey/meditation-at-years-end/#When:20:23:00Z</guid>
      <description><![CDATA[Meditation at Year&rsquo;s End
(with a nod to William Butler Yeats)

Poling along an uneven path
and grateful for my walking sticks,&nbsp;
a bit off-balance,
out of breath,
I ponder what to write;
what message can I send
on this year&rsquo;s greeting card?

Against a pallid heaven
the leafless branches etch
a dark and twisted pattern:
twilight nears.

Could this be the time,
foretold of old,
when some rough beast
comes slouching to be born?
The slaughter of the innocents,
the reigns of anarchy
and of false gods
appear the order of the day.

Where are the wise men,
where their gifts,
the proclamation:
peace on earth
good will to all?

A star to guide,
in darkest night
our hope
a little child?&nbsp;

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &ndash; 12/23/2016 ]]></description>
      <dc:date>2017-01-01T20:23:00+00:00</dc:date>
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