Back to School: Packing for PLU (at age 44!)

I have decided to re-activate my lit blog to document my exciting and upcoming experience at grad school. Facebook just won't fit the musings and findings I experience, so I thought a more organic diary documentation of this would be fitting on Blogger. Today, I am packing my bags to leave for college in the morning. I got two weeks off work (Nordstrom rocks). I will miss so many of the amazing women and new friends I have made in the Beauty division at the store, but I get to realize my dream and focus on my poems and give my entire heart to the love of my life: POETRY. I begin my Masters residency at PLU to get my MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry. I will only be gone at my residency for 2 weeks, then I will meet and partner with a professor/mentor and work on my writing one on one with them, in a low-residency fashion, by working at home in mail, emails and writing writing writing throughout the year. However, for this first meetup, I have to move into a dorm on campus in Harstad Hall and will be living there with all my other program peers who are flying in from around the world to attend the Rainier Writers Workshop program at PLU. We get food cards, to take our meals in the cafeteria, and have to pack all our things and bring them to campus by tomorrow! I never lived in a dorm EVER! I get my own little room, but I have to share a bathroom with other peeps on the floor, which sucks for too many reasons to list, but most of you don't need a lot of 'splainin' on that one. As I load up my suitcase and my car, I am bringing everything that I need for the duration. How telling it all is of my age as I load up on: BP meds, Pamprin, a portable fan, my beloved fur blanket, compression socks, my various wrinkle creams and tinctures and a solid supply of Starbucks Via....I haven't been in college since the 90s, so my list of stuff to bring has changed so greatly at this age, I find it comical. Its mostly all pharmaceutical! :/ doh!

I'm a Tour Guide for ART BUS in APRIL!

Toot toot. Yeahhh, Beep Beep!

Angela Jossy and ART BUS are partnering with the local poetry community to celebrate National Poetry Month. I get to be one of the celebrity tour guides this month as we visit lots of amazing galleries! VIP riders will receive a free, limited edition poetry book created especially for riders! Each poem speaks about art and creativity and poems are sourced from local poets about galleries, culture, writing and the muse. The booklets are handcrafted, signed and numbered by local artist and writer, Maria Gudaitis. ART BUS is sponsored by Tacoma Arts Commission & Weekly Volcano: http://​www.brownpapertickets.com/​event/242756

HOPE IN HARD TIMES—TACOMA POETS RESPOND TO ADVERSITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA & EVENT CONTACT
Tammy Robacker, Poet and Owner, Pearle Publications LLC, tamsugah@aol.com
RSVP on FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/362728650438263/

HOPE IN HARD TIMES—TACOMA POETS RESPOND TO ADVERSITY
Washington State History Museum Talk, Exhibit Walk & Poetry Reading April 29

TACOMA—In honor of National Poetry Month, join 2010-11 Tacoma Poet Laureate Tammy Robacker and writer Maria Gudaitis with special guest poets as they read poems in response to "Hope in Hard Times: Washington During the Great Depression"—an exhibit at the Washington State History Museum. The event takes place Sunday, April 29, from 2 - 4 p.m.

“The Museum, which celebrates and conserves images, words, artifacts and papers, is an appropriate, resonant location for this event that celebrates thoughtful writing about hope and suffering. Both the History Museum and poetry attempt to preserve community memories and individual experiences. Both also aim to preserve a sense of meaning associated with the human experience,” said Robacker.

At the “Hope for Hard Times” event, Robacker and Gudaitis will read with prominent Northwest poets, including 2011-13 Tacoma Poet Laureate Josie Emmons Turner, Allen Braden, Elijah Muied and Hans Ostrom. The poets will engage exhibit stories, artifacts and images. Like the exhibit, the reading will touch on poverty and resourcefulness—distress and courage—to show how artistic voices add meaning to memories of important eras.

“The Museum’s exhibit bears witness to Americans living through the worst economic crisis in our history. Survival and celebration go hand in hand. Even in the darkest time, people wrote poems. We see this in the Bible, in Holocaust art, in the poems of Prague Spring and in poets under house arrest in China today. Art lifts spirits. And the South Sound could use a creative boost, because the current economic downturn has depleted us,” said Gudaitis.

Admission to the event is $6 per person. At 2 p.m., the public will be invited to enjoy an exhibition briefing, a gallery walk through of the show, a break with refreshments provided by Anthem Coffee and Tea, and admission to the special poetry reading at 3 p.m. in the Auditorium. All proceeds go to the Washington State History Museum, a non-profit organization located at 1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 98402; 253.272.3500.

Guests are also invited to join the poets at a post-event poetry party from 4 - 6 p.m. at Anthem Coffee and Tea (right next door to the Museum).


ARTIST BIO

Tammy Robacker
2011-12 Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence Award; 2010-2011 Tacoma Poet Laureate, co-editor of Tacoma poetry anthology, In Tahoma's Shadow: Poems from the City of Destiny; Author/Poet of The Vicissitudes (2010). Ms. Robacker's poetry manuscript, We Ate Our Mothers, Girls, was selected as a finalist in the 2009 Floating Bridge Press chapbook contest in Seattle, WA. Tammy runs her own freelance writing company, Pearle Publications. Her editorial writing has appeared in SHOWCASE Magazine, CITY ARTS Magazine, and the Weekly Volcano.

Maria Gudaitis
2012 Tacoma News Tribune Reader Columnist; 2007 40 Under 40 Business Examiner honoree; principal and owner of Maria Gudaitis Design.

great quote

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. ~ G.K. Chesterton ~

Blog-Free Monday

Due to the unavailability of the author, there will be no blogging from Hedgebrook today. :)

Sugah Spotlight: Poet, Writer & Yoga Master, Margi Shindler

Date: 08.28.11
Time: 9:30 a.m.
Mood: Honored
RE: Sugah Spotlight

Today I dedicate my blog to a dear friend who moved far away, but stays close in my heart and in my email :). Margi lived in Tacoma for a very short but crucial time for us to build a friendship after we met through a transitory writers group. We walked Wright Park all through the rainy, freezing winter while I was writing my first book. She was a constant source of support to me outdoors in our terrible mismatched warm weather outfits and runny noses. We cried and laughed and dished and dreamed. She's also an outstanding cook. I scammed many free dinners off of her at her beautiful house. Thank you for the best beet salad and the pie, Margi!

She commemorated me in her blog this week, so I'm giving her center stage in mine. Miss you Margi!

Click here to visit her blog, Heaven Now:
http://yogapeeps.blogspot.com/2011/08/letter-to-writer-pal-at-hedgebrook.html

The Diary is in the Details

Date: 08.17.11
Time: 9:03 p.m.
Mood: Content
RE: The Diary is in the Details

The first day I got here, I was introduced to the fantastic journals on my cottage bookshelf. The cottage journals are known for being a total Hedgebrook tradition. Each writer’s cottage has backdated diaries to read, with entries written by the women writers who have stayed here before you. They are full of musings, quotes, photos, dried flowers, poems, tears, coffee stains, smiley faces, parental rants, break up woes, travels, fears, and overall great and sage advice. I read 3 years worth of entries just today….by the women who have all stayed at Willow Cottage. There’s a type of simple magic in the advice they each impart in their own distinctive ways, while staying here. Here are some important pearls of wisdom I took away:

Pick fresh flowers each day
Search for lucky rocks
Take naps
There is a dark spot in Willow’s main room hardwood floor that looks like a slug (I found it; it really does)
Even on days you don’t write, don’t feel bad; you will be a better writer just for being here
Build a fire every night
Host a party in someone’s cottage, play music, drink wine and read poetry out loud
Open the windows
Read Wolfs Room of One’s Own while you’re here
Read Gloria Steinem’s journals (she stayed in Fir Cottage) while you’re here (where's that?)
Two girls who stayed here in this cottage were pregnant
My favorite college lit prof stayed here one summer (JT Stewart: thank you for making me fall in love with poetry. Especially with writing my own.)
Well water makes your hair shiny


In the farmhouse tonight, where all of the women gather to eat a more formal dinner together that the chef has prepared each evening, some of us gals stayed late to shoot the breeze and I mentioned how one of my journals suggested someone throw a party while staying here. The idea was WELL received! So, I named Saturday night at party night. Poet K, a cool African American woman (near 50), offered up her swanky cottage as the party pad cuz she has the biggest space at H—-plus she is leaving next week so it seemed fitting to me that she was in on it. We can say goodbye to her in style. Fiction Writer E was TOTALLY into it too. She is 24 and I really like her. She’s like having a younger sister around that actually wants your advice and you can make her laugh quite easily. Oh, and she plays the guitar, sings and writes, so I told her she was a triple threat, and that means she could get a lot of stage time. Looks like a party is underway…we will go into town this week to buy Wine, but Poet K calls it “hooch.” I like the ring of that word. Which reminds me... I better close now and get to writing. Sounds like there will be an audience Saturday night.