Where the Natural World Stood

'The Almighty Hand' by Rebecca Rebouche
Photo by Sarah Bonnette, Times-Picayune

The Unlikely Naturalist

by Donald G. Redman

Her magic was unveiled

on a warm night In November.

Twinkling lights led

along a wooded path

to a clearing

where gothic creatures are standing in for

humanity.

Birds and fish swarm together,

zebras fall from the sky,

foxes carried on the back of a buffalo.

I feel the beauty and the profound meaning

of the world,

her supernatural face
brightly colored.

I visualize swans at night

And stars falling to the ground;

The world in pieces,

pouring into the shore.

'The Unlikely Naturalist' was created by repurposing an article by Sarah Bonnette in the north shore edition of the Times-Picayune featuring the artwork of Rebecca Rebouche'.

The inspiration behind blackout poetry comes from Austin Kleon.

First draft attempt:

It was a night full of magic/with twinkling lights vodka and cocktails./Musicians/in the clearing/Waited./An ethereal scene/200 people Hanging/where the natural world stood./Creatures standing in for/humanity

dream-like,/birds and fish swarm,/zebras fall from the sky,/foxes carried on the back of a buffalo./I felt the beauty and the profound meaning/Of the world./Her supernatural face unveiled,/A brightly colored hand struck me,/the tip of each finger containing swans/Eyes all around but only two are visible/I visualize swans at night and all the stars falling/To the ground

And:

 It was a night full of magic/in the clearing/Gothic creatures are standing./birds and fish swarm,/zebras mingle with whales,/foxes carried on the back of a buffalo./I felt the beauty and the profound meaning/Of the world.

I observe her face and/can’t sleep because/I visualize swans at night and all the stars falling/To the ground

And:

Her magic was unveiled/On a warm night/in a horse pasture../Twinkling lights led/Along a wooded path/To a clearing./Musicians had been camping/And sharing/Food and vodka and stout./They were the reason/200 people had come to the woods./Gothic creature standing for humanity./Birds and fish swarm together,/zebras fall from the sky,/foxes in trees/A swan carried on the back of a buffalo./I felt the beauty and the profound meaning/of the world./Then the Almighty Hand struck me./I can’t sleep./I visualize swans at night/And the stars falling to the ground,/The world a piano turning into birds./Human existence gone/And I am better for it.

Copyright 2014 Donald G. Redman All Rights Reserved

Cowboy Sailor - a poem

E. Valjean Redman
1941

Cowboy Sailor

By Donald G. Redman

I found an old black & white of you -

You’re about twenty best as I can tell -

Cocksure in your Navy blues,

Hands on hips like a fashion model,

Bell bottoms tucked loosely

Inside a pair of cowboy boots.

A style of rebellion, maybe

Or just showing off those leather beauts?

Curls peeking under the Dixie Cup;

Puffing wisdom from a Canadian pipe.

You look ridiculous in that getup

And yet somehow rakish, the archetype

Of all young men off to war before

Knowing the horror of war.

An image of you so far-flung

From the old man residing in my mind -

My father, so incredibly young

And brash and unconfined.

I sift through time for your words

Like an archaeologist sieving

Sand dunes for ancient potsherds

Words of dismay, still disbelieving

The ravages of the relentless clock.

Having glimpsed your own reflection

You told me of your outright shock

Of having aged without detection.

The mirror reflected an old man;

You said that was impossible

For inside lived a much younger man -

A man still vigorous and vital.

I agreed with the mirror’s projection;

Standing before me was not a man of youth

But a relic from an ancient generation

How could you be so blind to the truth?

You’ve been gone for many years now

And I watch silently as time adds

New lines to my face as with a plow,

Carving up my youth with an adze.

I hear anew your lamentations

Understanding now that you had no choice

But to succumb to the depredations

Of time without consent or a voice.

The old man still lives large within -

I love the old you, I truly do -

But age has cleared my mind’s vision

And I can see the cowboy sailor, too.

You there, young buck in the photo,

With your arms akimbo

Like a comic book hero,

Where o where did you go?

Copyright 2014 Donald G. Redman All Rights Reserved.

‘No Hurricane Waltz” – by Richard Boyd

No Hurricane Waltz

By Richard Boyd

Come timidly, rippling, squalling you pesky wave,

Dimpling and dipping maybe off Cape Verde Isles,

Sashaying innocently up from deep South Atlantic

And swelling ever deceptively at the open mouth:

Go west into the Caribbean Sea or beeline north?

Ah, you rollicking, wretched monitored little wave,

Settle down, now relax and go ever now gently

Across the vapid placid expanse of some old Gulf.

We embrace you undulating swells, we fondly do,

We chart your hoped for benign and steady progress.

Away, cascade away from Rigolets you timid wave,

Reject any big ideas from some misguided sea energy

And do not spew those waterwalls of churned anger

To surge across the calm face of our beloved old lake

And invade our waterfront and sanctity of our homes.

But we cringe, shudder from your oft howling anger.

Be not this time that scowling and slashing creature.

O, yes, now that is the admired correct way of wave.

Yes, go waltzing dear, hug fondly the calmer ocean,

Just a two step pleasing dance this sweet wave ripple.

Yes go slowly now, grand ballroom gestures abound,

Swirling skirts of mild foam topped dancing partners,

The rhythmic journey with the cold northern ocean

And we smile in relief of that dancing into oblivion.

Let no hurricane besmirch this splendid watery waltz.

Copyright Richard Boyd, 10/12/2014. All rights reserved. Reprinted here with permission.

Richard Boyd's poem, “No Hurricane Waltz” 

was the first poem selected to appear

in a new art project in Mandeville, La. –

poetry boxes – tiny public displays of work

 designed to encourage passersby

 to stop and appreciate poetry.

Photo by Donald G. Redman

Richard Boyd: A lifelong passion for poetry

By Donald G. Redman

 

Richard Boyd
Posing by a new Poetry Box stationed
on Mandeville's Lakefront
Photo by Donald G. Redman

NOTE: I first met Richard Boyd in the early 1990s. I was a cub reporter for a small town daily and he was a grizzled journalist covering the same small town, but for a much larger metropolitan newspaper. Despite the competitive nature of our business, Richard was always a kind and gracious man with a charming sense of humor. And he wrote some of the best ledes I’ve ever read.

Over the years and through career changes, I still managed to run into Richard every now and again, but in a different capacity – he as a poet and the unofficial curator of the Dew Drop Social and Benevolent JazzHall in Mandeville, La. In fact, it was at the Dew Drop that I caught up with Richard again and discussed music and poetry. His poem, “No Hurricane Waltz,” was selected as the first poem to be displayed in a new art project – poetry boxes – the first of which is stationed on the Mandeville lakefront with more planned for throughout the community. He graciously agreed to an interview with The Redman Writing Project.

RWP: What were your earliest writing experiences?

BOYD:  I started writing song lyrics around 1954-55 when I was 12-13 years old and listening to the radio. I would write lyrics with specific rock ‘n’ roll singers in mind. At Perkinston High School in Perkinston, Miss. I was editor of the Bulldog Barks in my junior and senior years. It was the Perkinston Jr. College paper actually, but the school asked me to be editor because those two years no college students were interested. Then I went on to Perkinston Jr. College for two years and continued as editor. I had some poems published in some student collections in high school but no longer recall those details.

RWP:  At what point did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

BOYD:  I don't recall ever thinking I wanted to ever do anything else but write. My mother was a writer for the Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald so I think she was the major influence and through her I was able to intern at the Daily Herald for four years of high school doing mostly sports, some general news and I also got paid to attend high school sports in upper Harrison County and file stories on scores. I was born in Gulfport on June 19, 1942 and from third grade on was raised 18 miles north of Gulfport.

RWP:  Did you fall into poetry or was it the other way around – you were a poet who fell into journalism?

BOYD:  My early years of writing song lyrics in the early 1950s soon evolved into writing poetry on topics beyond the scope of pop songs. Throughout  high school and college (I also attended and got degree at the University of Southern Mississippi) I always wrote poetry and over 55 years as professional journalist I always wrote poetry. I probably write more now since retiring 6 years ago after 31 years with The Times-Picayune.

RWP:  Tell us about your poetry:

BOYD:  Much of my poetry reflects my deep appreciation of nature and my deep interest in music, rhythm and the flowing vapor of the finely wrote and delicate line that will come quietly and often vanish like the vapor if not captured during its brief appearance.

  

RWP:  Most writers will tell you that there is a particular time of the day they feel they are most creative and do most of their writing. When do you do the bulk of your writing?

BOYD:  I do most of my writing in early to late afternoon sitting on my front porch in my rocking chair sipping on glass of red wine and writing in longhand in a yellow legal pad. I retype and edit and rework poems on the computer and keep them stored in an office program on my computer but I cannot compose originally on a computer. Old school for me -- all my poems began as handwritten on pages of legal pads and then later typed into and saved on my computer.

RWP:  What is the most difficult aspect of writing for you?

BOYD:  Carving out time to turn off all other influences and just concentrate on poetry made more difficult since I retired by my involved in more civic activities than I should be volunteering to do.

RWP:  What are you writing today?

BOYD:  Got beginnings of a couple of poems to work on this afternoon.

RWP:  What advice would you give to novice poets?

BOYD:  I tell novice poets to write as much as possible and to find outlets to read their work to others in poetry reading groups. I have moderated poetry readings at 5 different locations in western St. Tammany since 2000 and now belong to a group Poets! Alive! that meets near Madisonville the fourth Saturday of each month.

RWP:  Tell us your involvement in Dew Drop.

BOYD:  With the Dew Drop as a reporter for 10 years in the St. Tammany Bureau of The Times-Picayune I early upon arriving on the north shore became aware of the old building and started doing research and soon got directed to documentation about it in university collections in New Orleans and started writing various stories about it. My goal was to try to rekindle interest in the city of Mandeville to officially acknowledging this historic shrine and making sure it endured. Shortly after I retired, then Mandeville Council members Trilby Lenfant and Zella Walker created the non-profit Friends of the Dew Drop and asked me to be a charter member, which I agreed with delight to become. I have stayed with it ever since and helped write the application that got it National Register of Historic Places status and now I book most of the spring and fall shows, sell our merchandise and just volunteer for anything involving the Dew Drop.

List five of your favorite poets and or authors:

BOYD:  Favorite 5 poets: Ezra Pound, ee cummings, Jack Kerouac, T.S Eliot, Andrienne Rich 

List ten books you’ll never forget:

BOYD:  10 books: The Cantos by Ezra Pound; Wasteland; all of Jack Kerouac; Dune Trilogy; Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell; most of Zane Grey; Intruder In The Dust by Faulkner; poetry of W.B. Yeats; poetry of Robert Burns; Treasure of the Sierre Madre by B. Traven.

RWP:  What are you reading right now?

BOYD:  Reading now The Poem of a Life, a biography by Mark Scroggins of Louis Zukofsky, a poet and contemporary of Kerouac, Ginsburg and the Beats in New York City in the ’50s.

RWP:  Where can people find your work and where can they follow you?

BOYD:   I really do not have my poetry posted anywhere.  But anyone in the area who wants to hear me read can come to Christwood Retirement Center from 2:30-4:30 pm last Saturday of each month for readings by us in Poets! Alive! group.

An Interview with Playwright Kris Bauske

By Don Redman

NOTE: I recently had the opportunity to interview Kris while working in my volunteer capacity as editor of Prologue, an audience guide for Slidell Little Theatre, in advance of the theatre’s production of Kris’ A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Christmas: The Musical. “Redneck” was her first stab as a playwright, launching her into an entirely new career while in her forties …

Playwright Kris Bauske grew up in a rural town in Southwest Michigan and she credits years of hunting and fishing with her father for preparing her to easily write roles for men, especially country menfolk who play so prominently in her melodious comedy, A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Christmas: The Musical.

An avid reader and writer even at an early age, Bauske was involved in theatrical productions all during her high school and college years. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English and went on to be a professional technical writer for many years until her

Kris Bauske
Photo: Samuel French, Inc.

children were born. 

“You may not believe this, but I believe I was told to become a playwright,” she says. “The entire story of ‘Redneck Christmas’ came to me in a dream, and I felt very much compelled to write it down immediately.  I had never written for the theatre before, so here I was, in my forties, learning things like proper play format and how to submit scripts for consideration.  It was a big learning curve, but it came pretty easily.”

While the entire story may have come to her in a dream, the initial inspiration came from an odd combination of a church sermon and a chance viewing of a TV comedy special featuring comedians Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy.

On a December night in 2007, Bauske had been flipping channels on the television set looking for an interesting Christmas show to watch with the family when she stumbled across the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

“Sadly, it wasn't a Christmas show,” she says.  “I couldn't help but think they were missing out on a great opportunity by not having a Christmas special for their fans.  That same year, our pastor gave a sermon on how modern day Christians probably think we would be so much superior to the people who turned Mary away in Bethlehem.  Then he went on to remind us that Mary was an unwed teen mother, probably about 14 years old.  How many of us would take her in today knowing that?  Those two ideas intertwined in my head until the night I had the dream that became A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Christmas.”

Bauske’s church – Ocoee Oaks United Methodist Church in Ocoee, Fla. – provided her with an opportunity to workshop the play in 2008 when it produced the freshly-written play over two weekends as a dinner theatre.

“Seeing a play on stage is the best way for a writer to see what works and what needs improvement, so I did some rewriting and kept working to make it better,” she says. “In the meantime, I had sent it out to two publishers to consider.  The first one turned me down, and then Samuel French, the one I really wanted, told me they wanted to publish the script.  I was delighted.  The play has been done all over the country and in Canada since then!”

The idea of making her play into a musical came later, after several performers from the straight version suggested it.

“Fortunately, I have a lot of musicians in my life, and I've been known to write a song or two,” she says. “I really took that suggestion to heart and started looking at sections of the original play that could be reworked as songs.  My husband and children are all super talented musicians, and I can sing a tune to at least get across the idea of what I'm hearing in my head.  I wrote all the lyrics and had the ideas for most of the music.  My husband then orchestrated the songs and played them into the computer so we could create an accompaniment CD and send it off to Samuel French for their patrons who prefer musicals.  It has been extremely successful.”

Bauske says the residents of her fictional town of Christmas really resonated with her audiences, many of whom clamored for more. She obliged by penning a sequel -- A Good Old Fashioned Redneck Country Wedding, which happens the Valentine's Day after the original Christmas story.

“I'm also working on another Redneck sequel having to do with Halloween,” she says. “Pretty soon, I'll have all the major holidays covered.  I would like to add music to the sequels too, but there are only so many hours in a day.  We'll see...”

Asked to describe her writing habits – whether she works nine-to-five or is a binge writer hibernating from the world – Bauske says she’s “definitely a hibernator.” 

“I once got an idea for a play while we were on vacation, and I had no paper and no computer.  The children were little, and they really needed me to be a fun Mom that week and not a writer, so I didn't try to write it down.  That idea distracted me the entire week, and the day we got home, I barricaded myself in my office for about 10 hours with only occasional water and bathroom breaks.  I put an entire play on paper that day, and it really hasn't changed much since that first version.

“I feel plays require intensity.  If a playwright doesn't feel intense emotion when he or she's putting on the page, the audience won't feel much when they see it on the stage.  If I don't capture an idea immediately, it usually starts to dim, and that's no good.  However, if it dims too quickly, I usually know it probably wasn't a good choice to be a play anyway.  Ideas that stay with me and demand to be written are the best.  That's how it was with ‘Redneck Christmas.’  There are still times I hear those voices in my head - especially when I'm working on a sequel or a rewrite.  They are with you until they are satisfied I get it right.  Then they let me rest.”

Despite writing several award-winning plays, Bauske says she wouldn’t recommend her method of creating scripts to anyone.

“I am the worst person to emulate for play writing,” she says. “I don't chart anything, and I am often surprised by how my plays end or various twists they take along the way.  I can write during the day, although it seems most often I am up in the middle of the night (insomnia) and tear off 30-40 pages before crawling back to bed.  I only know I have an idea or a situation that must be explored, and then I let the characters take their own route to see it to completion.  I never really know where a play will take me, and I'm as surprised as anyone when it turns out to be a hit.”

Bauske penned a stage adaptation of the novel Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy, and while it provided a definite roadmap, it wasn’t without its own pitfalls.

“Adaptations are both easier and harder than original works,” she explains. “They are easier because I always have a map, and I know what the characters must do and where they need to get to.  They are harder for the same reason.  I have no leeway, and I sometimes disagree with a choice the author gave to a certain character. It's a matter of balance.”

Finding balance among various ongoing projects isn’t so easy either.

“I have a few ideas for original plays, and I can't wait to get to the Halloween sequel of Redneck Christmas,” she says. “However, I'm editing the biography of a WWII vet right now, and it's taking all my time. This man was quite amazing, and I have the rights to adapt his story for the stage and screen, so I'm doing my best to get the book in great shape before it's published.

“I'm also hoping to get back to Michigan to visit my mother and sister soon, so I do try to take breaks, but even my extended family will tell you that if I'm struck by an idea, I have been known to work on a play any time, any where, and to the exclusion of all else until it's finished.  I'm not the best person to invite to a party.” 

Bauske's other plays include Chloe Nelson and the Remarkable, Unusual, Foolproof Retirement Plan, a top 10 finalist for the Reva Shiner Comedy Award; Simon Says, a comedy; Grandma’s Little Helper, a comedic drama named the winner in the Chameleon Theatre Circle’s 2011 Festival of New Plays; and a stage adaptation of the novel Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy. Her latest play, The Growers, is based on actual events during WWII and is being adapted for film.

Bauske continues to write from her home near Orlando, Fla., and mentors a number of writers and playwrights.

Out of the Wild - A poem by Donald G. Redman

Illustration by Donald G. Redman

Out of the Wild

By Donald G. Redman

You want to paint it

It’s absolutely beautiful

She allows you

to put her heart

on canvas

A tangle of constantly changing light

Her wild places are

Holy

and Quiet.

A lover in abundance

Beautiful

and

Wounded

Precariously perched on the edge of

War

Like something

Out of the wild

'Out of the Wild' was created by repurposing an article by Sarah Bonnette in the north shore editions of the Times-Picayune featuring the artist Peggy Hesse. The poem is an experiment in blackout poetry inspired by Austin Kleon

Copyright 2014 Donald G. Redman All rights reserved.

'Three Rivers' - by Donald G. Redman

Painting by Tami Curtis

Three Rivers
by Donald G. Redman

She fell in love years before.
Recently, she has only
quiet.
Sitting by the water's edge,
The tower and clock in the background,
Her love comes,
Beautiful like the storm.
Music and time and color collided on canvas.
She's painting a dream.
Physically,
Spiritually,
She remembers every stroke.





‘Three Rivers' was created by repurposing an article by Sarah Bonnette in the north shore editions of the Times-Picayune featuring the artist Tami Curtis. The poem is an experiment in blackout poetry inspired by Austin Kleon




Copyright 2014 Donald G. Redman. All rights reserved.

'Blindsided'

Blindsided

by Donald G. Redman

Mary Jane kisses me in traffic.

Long.

I hurry to exit the vehicle

And shyly began to apologize.

“I just … you …”

She was amused.

I had been standing

As a rodent

On the side of the road.

She smiled

Slightly

And told me that it would be best

If I just got back

in the car.

I was nervous

But my mouth

So glad.

Blindsided is a “blackout” poem, created by blacking out large swaths of words in a newspaper article while preserving others to create poetry.

The original article appeared in the Slidell community section of the Times-Picayune. It was a columnist’s recounting of an earlier Halloween experience when she had dressed in costume as one of three blind mice and caused an auto accident. It contained a lot of references to being blind and being angry. At first, that’s the direction I took while trying to cobble together a poem. The name Mary Jane (as in the traditional Halloween candy) was a keeper from the start.

First stab:

Mary Jane,

dressed in black.

Dark Glasses.

Blind

And extremely heavy….

Second attempt:

Mary Jane kisses me

And two of my closest friends …

OK, that left me with nowhere to go.

Third try (I return to the black dress):

Mary Jane

Dressed in black.

Amusing and clever.

Blind and extremely heavy,

I did not want to miss the princess.

Too much of a hurry,

I walk up

And began to apologize.

“I am blind.”

She was not amused.

I summoned the dark for an eternity….

Dreadful!

So another attempt… back to the kisses:

Mary Jane Kisses me.

That is not amusing.

I did not want to.

I apologize.

She is not amused.

She summoned the dark.

She’s mad.

I think she’s going to

Cut off

My mouth…

Nope. Worse than dreadful.

Again …

Mary Jane kisses me.

That is not my idea of fun …

Scratch.

And then I finally let go of the angry aspects of the story and embraced the kiss and the nervous tension and the sensual Mary Jane. The title, Blindsided, pays homage to the three blind mice of the original article, while describing the unexpected passionate kiss from Mary Jane.

The idea of blackout newspaper poetry comes from poet Austin Kleon.

'August White' - Blackout Poetry Experiment

AUGUST WHITE

by Cheryl Backes

Thrill seekers came here.

Surrendering to a strange land,

Hiking boots and layered in fleeces far

from home

White-knuckled drive up spiraling

switchbacks in swirling snow.

A weird experience in August.

Enchanted and ethereal, forbidding

and intimidating –

Ready to fall on you at any time.

“You’ll fall in love, you will.”

I had never given much thought.

A luminous smile, offering a comforting

pat on my shoulder.

“Nothin to stress over darling.”

I shivered with relief,

Stacked between my chowder and cold

beer

Like a deck of cards.

Up the mountain where the sheep

huddled against one another for acres, I

saw her dressed as a fairy godmother,

A celestial white bathed in golden light.

Forces of nature; good for the soul.

We feel alive.

Cheryl Backes wrote August White in response to my invitation to my friends to create poetry from newspaper articles by deleting or blacking out filler words while leaving some words and phrases untouched, yet connected poetically.

The source of inspiration for this technique, which I’ve dubbed “blackout poetry,” Comes from Texas-based poet/writer/illustrator Austin Kleon. I write about Kleon’s technique here.

Cheryl says she’d be amiss if she didn’t give credit to the author of the article, Joe Drape of The New York Times. “All of these beautiful phrases were penned by him,” she says.

Indeed, but Cheryl’s repurposing of Drape’s words has created a beauty of its own.

Copyright 2014 Cheryl Backes. All Rights Reserved.