 Hi. Today is my birthday and I’m watching a pigeon prance around on the chimney on top of the building next door. The chimney is her stage. It’s a pigeon theater. The chimney is round. It is made of metal. She performs an abstract monologue in purr and coo. She has white tail feathers and sports a gray overcoat also in feather. (Pigeons all wear feather ensembles.) Now she preens. Now she pirouettes with her delicate pinkish, faintly striped feet. She touches the tip of her tail feathers to the stage. Now she arcs around the edges. The back of her head is a feather mullet of purple-tinged iridescence. Beneath her wings-white splotches- a feathery petticoat. Now she gazes into the distance beyond the lake playing the role of an eagle in this play. She jerks her head in staccato because she is also playing the role of a woodpecker in this play. She’s double-cast. But isn’t everything?
Other birthday news: If you’ve known me for awhile you know I’ve had very long or semi- longish hair for a long, long time. In fact, many years ago, I even hung my hair on a clothesline for a performance called “Dewberries and Mulberries. But, really, beginning early this year, I’d been thinking, I’ve had enough of all this hair. And then the other day, I just knew it was time and so I had it cut on Friday and I’m glad about it. It’s possible I’m getting better at letting go. READ MORE ON MY SUBSTACK
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Recommendation: If you ever have a book release party with a reading included, have someone you love read with you-someone like Carolyn Hoerdemann who is remarkable, hilarious, brilliant and many more cream of the crop adjectives beyond remarkable, hilarious, and brilliant. If you were there, thank you! I know the weather was awful, but you braved it, and made it, and we made some great inside weather together. Laughter is a drizzle with no water and most poems have breezy edges, tiny constellations, and worddust which is related to stardust as well as lacy clouds and thermometers. Speaking of R & R- I do hope you get some rest and relaxation. You deserve it. I know you do. You deserve a nest and exhilaration too. You deserve all the rhymes- -healthy breasts and exaltation -no dumb tests and free vacations -fancy vests and peaceful nations There are, of course, other words that begin with the letter R. This R is for Review. If you have received my book (and if you haven’t, don’t worry, you’re not alone, it’s coming) please write a review on Amazon or FLP or both. Here’s how: Finishing Line Press -
My book, Lacquer is a Thrilling Word was released today! To all of you who pre-ordered, thank you again and again. The editor I worked with at Finishing Line Press, says the printer they use is running a bit behind, but everyone (including me) will have copies by the end of the month. And, if you haven’t ordered my book, please do. And please, especially if you already are familiar with my work, please consider writing a review on Amazon, The Finishing Line Press Website, or anywhere at all. And if there are stars to click, please click some. https://www.amazon.com/Lacquer-Thrilling-Word-Barrie- You can also request that your local library or favorite local bookstore purchase the book as well. Speaking of libraries. the other day, I had the thought about how cool it would be if libraries were shaped like books. Well, it turns out there are a few. I think more libraries should be book-shaped. I think some grocery stores should be broccoli shaped too, and flower shops- tulip-shaped and so on. If you know of a bookstore, library, or other venue where I could share my work, please let me know! “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” In middle school- If you love it so much ,why don’t you marry it was the typical response for proclaiming your affection for a thing out loud. It was dangerous to love something, to care, to gush with enthusiasm, to swoon, or feel overcome with awe and appreciation. But hating and proclaiming your hate? Completely legitimate. It was okay to be enthusiastic about what you didn’t like- to make known what you thought sucked. And if you added a word like fuck, no one would dare tell you to marry anything, or murder anything, or do anything at all. If you were brave enough to utter a proclamation like“I fucking hate math” you’d earn the respect of your peers and maybe even get a few laughs. But loving weird things like certain words, the existence, iridescence, and built-in eyes of peacock feathers, characters in books like Pippi Longstocking and Harriet the Spy, textures like the warm, smooth metal slide at the playground making glinting low-hanging tiny stars in collaboration with the sun, or the appealingly giant pom poms kids made out of yarn to put on their roller skates, well that was about as uncool as you could get. Mary Ruefle writes: “O ruthless thistle, match in the dark/ you can talk to anyone about the weather/but only to your closest friends/can you mention the light.” In honor of poetry month, I want to share my enthusiasm for the ode; the poetic form made for the sole purpose of housing enthusiasm. I like to think of the ode as enthusiasm’s apartment. Also, our 16-year old dog Miette died earlier this month, and the day before our five-year anniversary, my partner’s hand was severely burned. Not to mention the war and suffering in the world at the hands of greedy, fascist maniac which, of course, has been a faucet of perpetual astonishment and despair, enough for a million or more laments. So, I figure, maybe I’m not the only one who could use some celebratory odes. Read more on my Substack. March I like how the word March has all the letters of the word charm in it. The word march is okay, but lately it only makes me think of war and other awful, despicable, horrifying things, so I try to think of good slogans for protest march signs instead. It’s amazing how many words rhyme with Trump: sump pump dump lump rump bump I definitely like non-military marching bands with the slides of the trombones traveling forward and back like another kind of marching. Trombones are bones of brass filled with the marrow of sound. And consider a French horn, all tied up in a brass knot like a modern pendant, like something meant to dangle from a chain, like a charm, only gigantic and musical. I was hoping to see a goldfinch because people keep telling me they’re definitely around and goldfinches are beautiful and the word goldfinch sounds so great with charm and March. I haven’t see one yet, but while I was looking, I came upon a Mallard Duck brawl!  Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you’re having a good one, and if you’re not, I hope the remaining days of February are much better.
Every Valentine’s day I remember when my son Ruben was just a little over a month old. We were coming home from a doctor’s appointment and Ruben was fussy in the car so I decided to stop at a cafe. Inside, there was a man there who had a baby too, but his baby was as chubby as could be, could already smile, laugh even, and was shuffle-walk-crawling his way around a little table while holding a pretend phone with one hand and the table’s edge with the other. I told the man he had a cute baby and he told me that it was the baby’s 1st birthday. I marveled at what 11 more months could look like. What’s his name? I asked. “Valentine,” he said. Oh! I said. Then I said: “Happy Birthday and Valentine’s Day, Valentine.” Then the man asked what my baby’s name was and I said, “Ruben.” And then the man said his own name was Ruben. And so, we were two Rubens, two Valentines (one person, one day) and a Barrie. Years ago, I read an article about Jose Sokoloff, who, through ingenuity, creativity, and imagination, was able to convince hundreds of soldiers in the guerilla army in Columbia to lay down their arms and return to their families. In a similar vein, I’ve been trying to think of ways to get ICE to leave Chicago and ultimately, leave ICE and become real people. I haven’t come up with a solid plan yet, but I believe the imagination is really the only nation any of us have any sovereignty over, so it makes sense to use the ample resources there. I wrote a play about this during Trump’s first term for Theater Oobleck called Reality is an activity (from a line by Wallace Stevens) about two women who try to use the stuff of poetry to transform the world. And on that note, because it’s Veterans’ day, I thought I’d share my first three ideas to melt ICE. Please let me know if you have more ideas, because the way I see it, ICE was someone’s idea and those ideas created more ideas and now there is a regime of demented assholes crawling around our neighborhoods with zip-ties, tear gas, and various other weapons they relish and can hardly wait to use or use again. Idea #1: ICE, take a Haik-u Hello & Wishing you as happy a Halloween as you can muster during these profoundly and increasingly nightmarish times.
Still, for your entertainment, I wanted to share this creative essay I wrote a few years ago for Jill Howe’s Story Sessions about being 12. The Heebie Jeebies I’ll tell you a balloon is a beautiful thing. Even the spelling: One “b” and then an “a,” followed by two “l’s and two “o’s so a double consonant and a double vowel and finally an n to seal the deal. I mean, how common is a spelling like that? Not very. And purple balloons? Wow. |