Writers' Studio

Give in.
Go ahead, 
Slice my soma.
Violate my 
Parotid stroma.
Just please don't let me 
Wake up in a coma.
Pleomorphic Adenoma.

lines and colors of menacing lullaby, a child
trapped inside a wooden sub
my brave painting --

changes.
ribbons  cuts   and    writings.
watchful eyes of a figure at the top
turn to loops, now

magnets.
also small gently pillared dwellings,
mini mausolea maybe

now when the cradle starts to fall
the magnets pull it to

now somebody sings a yellow song
now a swirled one
now a baby bounces

when the wind blows
the artist breathes

-- Alice Lesnick, 2012

Morning Radio Sonnet
by Alice Lesnick

I must be getting old.
This morning I listened with deep feeling 
To a story of research chimps held by the NIH
Now recommended for retirement to
Sanctuaries, where they would be let to forage for food,
Build nests, live in groups (of at least 7), and
Go outside when they want to. I want that these chimpanzees 
Should retire in a state of grace
Like my grandmother after she stepped down from Met Life
(Her first paying job) – a position she held for 12 years 
After my grandfather died young. 

She retired to Glen Cove to live with my cousins:
Kept house in their house,
Met them with milk and cookies after school;
Volunteered in the hospital gift shop where she got me
jewels and chocolates when I came to visit.

I would visit the research chimps and tell them:
We are sorry for your loss.

Your souvenirs:

Icelandic horse carving, fleece sleeping bag, hardback

Which left me longing for a translation that doesn’t exist;

What to do with a text I can’t read?

Old book Ritsafn, old tee-shirt soft,

The paper shines; signed by Fra Sigurdardottir a Hlodum.

She was a writer of fairy tales and poems married to a carpenter,

Ever after farmers.

We are the writer and the carpenter;

My caretaker, I shall translate into the genitive case romantic.

Book and word are English cognates of the Icelandic language,

Word list and word lust.

I learned enough Icelandic;

Now let us make like old people and read in bed!

Sat down by the cookstove
in a dirt-old house
on a bump on the lip
of a moraine.
Wind, winter, ocean cloistered sandbar.
Shut inside by cold fat sticky rain.

Pondering the knot upon 
               my jawbone.
Sorting stuff I think 
I own. 
Mapping out a fortnight on a train.

A loan, alone, a rolling stone.
Resolve, evolve, remove, escape........remain.
                   Plenilunar overdriven brain.

We're old
enough to know
we're young,
this winter's snow
shining far as
we can see
which isn't far
but sure is
beautiful.
Nothing is
as pure as this 
and it isn't.
However we walk
soft this solstice 
through our mother's
bare forests
whiter than our
mind before dreams.  
The sky darkens
early and our
parents sleep.
I hold your
hand and
we go bravely
into that
sweetness. 

Or Graduate School Application Responses...

The good writing teacher helps students express ideas clearly and concisely through writing in the form appropriate to their discipline.  The great writing teacher helps students develop the relationship between their thinking and their writing.  The purpose of student writing assignments is not a regurgitation of the material the teacher feed to the class.  It is to continue a conversation started in class and reading assignments.  While the teacher may initiate the conversation, it is the students’ responsibility to extend the classroom discussion with their own insights.  Students are supposed to learn about the relationship of words to ideas. 

Even in the work of the best writers, words fail a little.  Words always incompletely capture the world.  Acknowledging the limitations of language is essential to the practice of writing and interpreting.  However, the gap between intention and interpretation is where real learning occurs, for the writer and the teacher too.  As the technique of the writer improves, the gap decreases.  It is the work of the student and the teacher together to bridge that gap.  The teacher should deploy a variety of strategies to help the student realize their ideas in their writing.  Repeated revisions, experimentation with form, and face-to-face conversations are some good methods.  This story about teaching writing holds true across all disciplines. 

up with the wide
end of an August morning
you turned into the

warm sheet of sun
brushing your cheek --

whatever god is

I found it in your 
flushed breath when with
a close-eyed smile you

folded me into your sleep
and I fell deep in the
glow of your collarbone

a ridge of yellow 
rustling birch a susserous 
that murmured dream

in the amber below
the canopy of your hair --

god it was there.

Look at us hiding on the roofs!

Atop hotels and restaurants lining
the square looking at
each other's blanched faces 
looking at
the street
below: 

souped crowds 
rickshaws and bikes
bellowing through the smoking
trash that I 
feel is all our fault

and the cows, just
eating it

beside the hawkers' 
cries, 

       a woman
in yellow, a glimmer
hair so neatly
plaited
is weaving in
the thick
throngs
and out
and out
finding no
one's eye 

especially
not mine
on the roof
watching.