Poets are given a very heavy dose of life experience in order to fulfill their life's purpose, which is to transpose their tragedies or circumstances using the spoken and written word to reach others, those in need of a similar healing.
At the podium, the poet reads from a collection of scars, battle wounds and divine mishap. And, even if one person out of an audience of one hundred comes forward to thank the Poet for their message, then the work of the poet or poetess is done.
For LA Poet Susan Hayden, her life path as the Poetess in regard to her life work has been a most difficult one, as her medicine and healing for others had to be derived at with a most painfully dramatic experience. With the loss of her Soul mate and Spouse the late actor/musician, Christopher Allport, Hayden has created the "Library Girl" Reading series, delivering and using poetry for her healing and the healing of others. Others who have experienced such a loss of their soul mate and spouse are still struggling to make each day worth going through alone.
"The first year he died, I was in a frenzy of pure adrenaline. I wrote two Cafe Plays, a handful of poems and an essay for The Black Body, Meri Danquah's exquisitely edited collection from Seven Stories Press. Last year was a slow-go with one Cafe Play and a few more poems, and a lot of long walks with girlfriends and long talks in cafes. And then Library Girl emerged....
"Library Girl--the name came from my then-10 year old son, Mason Summit (he's 13 now). It was a real middle-age moment; the first time he'd ever seen me in my reading glasses! He said, "Library Girl...Bookworm Beauty..." And then my longtime husband, the late actor/musician, Christopher Allport, wrote a song called "Library Girl" in my honor. Three years later, I created this series and was grasping for what to call it. And then I remembered all that.
Library Girl is not unlike what we used to do at Poetry In Motion: writers reading from their own work, based on a theme. It's the second Sunday of every month (except this month) at the Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica. Five or six writers, including me, read everything from poems to excerpts from short stories to comedy. I've brought back a lot of familiar faces from Poetry In Motion days.
This series has been a way for me to reconnect with other writers and my own work again after suffering the trauma of losing Chris so suddenly. He literally left one day to go backcountry skiing and never returned; was killed in an avalanche in the local mountains. During our years together, he and I produced Gas/Food/Lodging @ the Lost Studio, intermittently in the 90s. That was a performance-fiction series: actors performing directed fiction, literally off the page with no stage alterations. I had also produced several other events including tributes to writers Raymond Carver and Robert Olmstead--a former teacher of mine. The last thing I produced was my husband's one man show, The Backroad Home. So this seemed a natural for me.
When I met my husband, in 1990, I was reading every night of the week at a different venue. At a certain point, Chris asked, "Can we just stay home tonight?" I was so used to being a part of the poetry scene, I had to literally wean myself from it to be in a serious relationship where you do things like cook and rent videos, raise kids and stay home (most of the time.) I did read from my work off and on throughout the years, but spent a lot of time up all night writing a novel based on my adolescence in the San Fernando Valley.
And I had this low-level, flu-like feeling, as if I was straddling two worlds: bohemian vs. bourgeois. I guess for me, that's always been the ongoing battle ..."
Paris, 2003
by Susan Hayden
Flushed with the energy of art and alliance,
the rocket science of materia prima,
he takes me by the hand to wisteria and secrets,
steals my breath and kisses me
like I’m his new mistress, not his old wife.
This is our life and love is earned,
sealed with an alchemist’s loyalty
and candle wax
from sticky long nights of burning.
Singular as a field holler,
a worn-out blues tune written for us alone
yet universal in skin and bone;
his attendance, his inscription,
a hermetic cabinet of curiosities
called home.
The Boulevard glows with our footprints,
stable and so slippery.
Walking on ice has never been this easy.
Hang on.
Husband, man of the house, best friend.
Any minute this could end.
"My work is inspired by that (struggle) and is definitely an exploration of identity, belonging and the search for a home on this Earth. Before losing Chris, the writing was steeped much more in nostalgia, but of late, I am in a place of "What Is" as opposed to "What Was" or "What's Next." For the first time in 25 years, I am discovering who I am without the springboard, the man next to me to share each moment with. This has been my "autonomy lesson" and I pray that some new writing continues to emerge in a voice that will surprise me.
And so, besides my ongoing arm-wrestle with writer's block from the trauma--P.T.S.D. galore--when I have been able to write, it's been from a place of fresh questions and, dare I say, a more positive standpoint. Nothing like losing one's everyday life to jar you into appreciation for those blessings all around, you know? Chris was my soulmate and best friend and love for nearly 18 years--we weren't an easy match--we were defiant and volatile, but also familiar as those bookends from that Paul Simon song; I once referred to he and I as that "naked swordfight of a marriage."
Full of Life: A Thanksgiving Poem
by Susan Hayden
And so I wonder
Will I ever walk in snow again?
Begin to let go of the hand
of my frozen man,
lured by powder and ice--
enticed and betrayed by crystalline flakes.
Will I let another skate on the cracked lake
of my heart,
re-shaped and newly landscaped
by nature's perils?
It’s Thanksgiving time
and the radio is playing Christmas carols.
I can smell last year’s goose
like it was cooked last night.
Am I right to save the Sorels,
the hand-knit scarves of prickly wool?
Full of life I am, and thankful.
I had no idea I had it all,
until now.
And how I have even more
of an awareness
of what came before
the white-out conditions.
Ten Novembers ago,
we drove to a backcountry cabin
in a storm,
kept warm by kerosene and skin on skin
“Goodnight, I love you,” we said again and again
then fell into slumber under winter coats.
By morning, he was reading John Muir quotes
and teasing me
about talking in my sleep.
“You keep doing it, but this time,
it was the most beautiful word.
I heard it and awoke.
When you spoke, you said ‘flurry’.”
Flurry: "A brief light snowfall;
the call of a sudden gust of wind
a stirring mass, as of dust or leaves;
a shower; a powerful burst of commotion, a stir."
And we were just that, only we didn't know it:
Full of life, and so thankful.
Susan's upcoming Library Girl on Sunday, July 11th includes a fine group of Los Angeles' Literary talent. Don't miss it, RSVP here. With the following link, join the Library Girl group on Facebook!
Library Girl 7/112010 featured readers:
Paul Linke,
Brenda Varda,
Leon Martell,
Chiwan Choi
Susan Hayden.
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