Where are you now Mr. J?

Far too long since we last spoke, decades really, and even then it was only in passing. Before that there were issues, disagreements and criticism; perhaps even disrespect from both sides.

It wasn’t always like that.

Years earlier, I was a teenager lost in the reality of high school, frustrated by the pointless task of education, and surviving only on the social side of life within the institution. I was just another student who floated through the classrooms.

You were, even then, frustrated by the task of educating young minds who either knew it all or didn’t care. Still you tried to connect. You tried to make a difference.

And you did. I know that. I know that because you made a major difference in my life, and I’m not sure I ever properly thanked you.

I remember when we processed the first roll of film in Grade 10 photography. At that time there were a group of us sharing a camera, going through the motions, and trying to have something to prove with our first assignment. We processed the black and white prints and handed them in at the end of the week.

Om Monday, my first project came back with the comment “I sense you’ve done this before.”

I had. I’d been pissing around with my Dad’s camera for years, but then it was only a tool I’d use to get backstage at local concerts, or as an excuse to hang out with the older, smarter girls on the yearbook committee.

I didn’t see photography could be anything more than a hobby until you told me I had potential. Those were, then, inspiring words to a kid who was struggling to find anything interesting about school.

Your classes acknowledged a curiosity I’d been harbouring for some time. Photography. I was too naïve to call it art; it was only fun. That’s all it needed to be.

You showed me; no, you taught me it could be more.

Yes, I was skeptical, at first, but you had this way. You showed me that way. A good teacher doesn’t just teach, a good teacher has that reach. You set an example. You told me a camera could change my life.

You were right.

Three years, right through high school, you challenged my potential. You made me work harder than the rest, you allowed me to experiment, you let me try. Those were the days when using a camera was only a third of the equation. There was the science (the magic) of the darkroom, and the science of capturing light. A photograph is a combination of composition, time, and light, all captured within a fraction of a second.

These were the days when we used real film, and when you had to think about things like exposure and focal length and shutter speed. There were no automatic settings on the cameras we used, but that was not a limitation. It was a chance to learn how things really worked.

You didn’t teach me to take pictures, you taught me how to make a photograph from the raw film. You taught me to not just look through a view finder, but to accept the lens as an extension of my self, and not to look at life as a potential photograph

You taught me to look, to wait, and to see. My perception of the world changed, even when the camera wasn’t strapped around my neck.

Life matters more than the split second you capture on film.

We became close. We didn’t use the word ‘mentor’, and we grew to become friends. But you were always the teacher. You inspired me; you gave me the confidence to apply for that first studio job in the summer. You gave me confidence — both personally and in my skills — to apply for my first newspaper job.

And you helped set the stage for my future journalism career because you showed me how to stay interested in the events and issues that make up the world. You showed me how a community worked, and how connect with the subject.

I’m not sure anybody else has ever inspired me like that, and I don’t think I’ve ever said that to your face.

I’m sorry we have lost touch.

I still look back on the people and places I photographed, decades ago. I have no photograph of you, but I see you there. I still hear you whispering those little tips you don’t learn in a book, even now.

A few years ago, in my new city, I spent the summer reacquainting myself with a new camera in a new format. It had been a few years since I had picked up camera, which is odd because for the longest time it was always with me.

It was everything to me. It became my career. It became my life. Then other things got in the way.

As I now use my camera with regularity, I realize how fortunate I was to have been given such a solid foundation. I realize, now, how fortunate I was to have a teacher who made me proud to be a photographer.

I still am.

A lot of my satisfaction comes from the experiences, the places, and the people the camera allowed me to capture. But some of it is you, and your presence in my life.

You took a kid with raw talent and inspired him to be more. You told me I could make a living and I did. You told me I could be something, and I was.

I still am.

©2018 j.g. lewis

WORDS FOR SOMEONE ELSE

By Whitney Poole

Eight years. They’ve passed in a blur. They’ve flown. And yet they’ve crept.

I remember, in your first year, I felt, “Finally. I’ve found what I’m meant to do with my life.” And then I forgot that. I thought it meant raising babies, but now I think it meant nurturing. Creating. Sharing Joy. Living in the light of now.

I lost that, baby girl. I tried to filter life through someone else’s lens. I didn’t sit with my soul. I forgot to be in the quiet until I felt the answers. I looked to others and asked what their answers were.

I took those answers and made them my walls. That’s where I went wrong, my sweet girl.

Then, when I finally started listening to my soul, I didn’t know what to do with the answers. So I turned again to others, and I asked what they thought of my answers.

I let their opinions become my truth.

So, baby, don’t let anyone else tell you who you are. Not me, not your Daddy, not your friends. You learn to sit and listen to your soul. Because you’re brave, my sweet girl. You’re brave enough to hear the answers and trust the truths whispered, even when it’s hard.

If you will ask the questions, be honest enough to hear the answers and brave enough to trust what you hear, then you will not be led astray. You will not fall off your own path. You will not neglect your soul purpose.

I want for you more than I have ever wanted for myself.

So, I want to let you know that I am finding my way. And my way; my path back to my soul purpose, will cause you pain. And for that I am so very sorry. But I hope that my example of living a life of ‘less than’ and making my way back to my truest potential will someday be one that shows you how to be true to you.

And I hope you will find a way to always be the perfect being I know you to be. Perhaps I can be the reminder to you that the pain and the fear you must overcome to be your best self are so very worth it.

May every year between this and your last be spent in the light of who you are.

All my love for all of my lives,
Mama

©2015 Whitney Poole

Whitney Poole is a Virginia-based writer, though her poetry reflects her own deep Southern roots. Whitney has found her voice while writing her way through personal transformation, discovering that true beauty lies within the rubble. Her self-appointed task is to show this truth to others.

I’ve been a caged bird most of my life,

Creating a melody I’ve kept to myself,

But there comes a time in each life

When a choice must be made,

To confess the secrets that confine,

Or not.

 

I’d waited,

Wasted

Too many years,

Thinking a time would come

When the holder of the key would return to me,

Then, I’d sing my song.

 

But that isn’t how it happened.

The melody in my heart grew too loud in my chest.

I had to escape,

Find a way to the one my tune was for,

Say all the words I’d locked away

For another person.

 

I sang my song,

Loud and clear.

I sang my song.

I’d like to say I received the same in return,

But my reward was little more than silence,

Silence and freedom.

©2018 B.L. Stonaker

B.L. Stonaker is an American poet, writer and editor living in Illinois, USA.  She Studied English Literature and Political Science at The University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ.  Her book, Between Athens and God, was published in 2016.  She is currently working on her second publication.

@photo by Chris Riley

by Jenn Marr

It is hard not to be consumed by blemishes when we are taught to strive for perfection and nothing else. Again, it is difficult to not place your focus on feelings of being insubstantial and flimsy, and that everything around you is collapsing, when all you want is to simply feel good enough.
    All the time you hear and see people preaching their plastic positivity on how they have it under control and you can too! They say all you have to do is follow this very simple plan that everyone else does and get inside the box and everything will be okay.
    How do you come to terms with the fact that, maybe, not all of us can fit inside of one box?
    Perhaps, one size does not fit all? It seems incredibly unrealistic that in this vast world we are to be contained in one way and on one path. Yet this is often what we are told.
    Apparently happiness is attained by reaching landmarks and not actually by feeling and following your heart. Isn’t that confusing? All these beautiful humans born into happiness and worth right from the get-go, but then we are forced to come away from that into places of uncertainty and insecurity just to fit into the masses. No one is taught what happiness is, let alone how to maintain it. Instead you are presented with endless examples of how to let go of feelings and sight, and told to just put one foot in front on the other to simply make it through the day.
    It is time to learn to differentiate the different types of discomfort and pain. Just like you, these feelings do not deserve to be stuffed inside a box where they cannot be noticed or felt. Despite what you have been lead to believe, those parts of you are worthy of being recognized and heard.
    Remember growing pains when you were a kid? Your body was then shifting from the inside and allowing your outer physical body to change. Yes, it was uncomfortable but you trusted this discomfort because you knew and understood that this growth was necessary to move forward into the next version of yourself.
    Emotional discomfort? You are taught to bottle it and save it for later; hell maybe even never if you choose. You are told to just push it down deeper and deeper into a place where you can no longer hear the cries and tantrums of your past self-trying to escape.
    How’s that working for you?
    Are you tired yet? Exhausted from holding onto everything that you think you are pushing away, you are actuality pushing down and creating an anchor of emotional weight that gravitates somewhere deep and dark wherever you go. You don’t even realize that is happening because you blend in seamlessly with the crowd surrounding you.
    What they don’t tell you is that you’re going to drown soon if you don’t start to letting go.
    You have choices.
    You can choose the discomfort of feeling and dealing to lessen the load so you can make your way back up to the surface of light and understanding, or you can hold tight to everything you know and gasp for air until there’s nothing left.
    Let go or be dragged.
©2018 Jenn Marr

Jenn Marr is an instructor at Studio 26 Hot Yoga in Winnipeg.

Chris Riley is a photographer and filmmaker from Detroit currently in the midst of creating a documentary web series about her city’s neighbourhood rebirth. You can find more of her work at www.rileycreates.com

It’s not what you read, but what you see, that goes to the core of what you will believe.

I once read a quote where an eight-year-old described poetry as something “where they don’t use all the page” Over the past couple of days I’ve read quote upon quote, a few poetic philosophies, and an inane pseudo-essay including obviously misunderstood academic terms, explaining what poetry really means.

Nothing I have read is as accurate as the child’s description.

Poetry does, undeniably, require space to breathe on the page. Sometimes, when properly done, only a few words are required to present the poet’s wit, wisdom, or worth. Although it is not simple, poetry is involved and too many people are determined to make it complicated.

Truly, poetry is more than words on a page. The craft, art, and undertaking of poetry goes beyond language, and it does so with more accuracy than any other written form.

If words were simply words; love songs would sound like streetcar alerts, love letters would be as romantic as minutes from a board meeting, and a poem would read like ingredients on a cereal box.

Words, indeed, have a meaning (some words have more than one) but even the description of a word does not define the meaning of a poem. Each word has an essence, and a backbone, with sentiment, soul, emotion, and memory stuffed inside. A poem takes these words and gives them space to resonate.

Poetry can heal or poetry can hurt. We read the words and we respond.

Yet, there are people who look distractingly deeper at poetry and, most times, complicate the process. They study the metrics of the meter, confuse the cadence, look for implied imagery, and search for the metaphor instead of the meaning.

This practice shows little regard for the poet who has already taken sufficient time to work through the mechanics of language and the moral or message, taking into account catastrophe, context, and heartbreak, stanza size and line break, and the politics of the atmosphere.

By the time a poem is presented, the poet has already struggled with the format, whether it is an orderly sonnet or set out in a measured stanza. Even free-form involves an acceptable purpose.

Over and above the poet’s intentions, a poem speaks for itself. It just happens.

Poetry does not take words at face value, yet it does not beg for description, interpretation, or even attention. All it asks for is endeavored understanding.

Your understanding may not, or will not, be the same as the writer, or that of the person sitting beside you on the bus, or another soul halfway around the world.

That’s good. It’s more than good, it is right. Everything else on the planet is so set in its way (even as we evolve or disintegrate), that so much seems too consistent. Except poetry.

Poetry needs to be consistently unpredictable so that we can receive it in the mood or the moment. It should be comforting to know there are words waiting that will accept the way you see them, or feel them, or believe them.

As soon as you have to study a poem it becomes a chore instead of a charm. There is no is no risk/benefit analysis required of poetry, don’t go looking for it.

I read a lot of poetry; far more than I write. Each year I take a volume of a celebrated, “classic” dead poet and, for the entire year, devour the work one poem per day (and some days even more). Last year it was Wordsworth, this year Emily Dickinson.

I’ll absorb, I will react, I will reread and recite, but I dare not call it study. If I call it anything, it is appreciation; and it may not even be that. And my reading is not limited to only those volumes, nor is it limited to treasured bards of years gone by. I’m still cherishing the recent work of a woman who is very much alive, and there is always a book of a recent, or lesser known, poet in my day bag. It might even sound corny, but I breathe poetry. Inhale and exhale. It’s just what I do.

I’d encourage you to do the same. Armed with a poem, you’ll be better equipped to take on the world. By avoiding the news (fake or foolhardy) for 10 minutes a day, or stealing a few moments away from text books, bible study, or gossip pages on your mobile device, you will better understand the human condition.

Try it. A poem a day, every day. There’s even an app for that and it’s free, functional, and quite enjoyable.

Just read it. Leave the analysis to sales reports, tax returns, and political maneuvering, and instead be moved by the writing. Words are important.

Poetry matters; let it speak to you, and for you.

Today is World Poetry Day
Take a poem to lunch.

©2018 j.g. lewis