LA JOLLA, California — Lorraine Fisher, Jan Gist, and Joel Guadarrama will be the three local writers featured at the second evening of the current series of Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices. The free program will take place in the Astor Judaica Library, Lawrence Family JCC at 7 p.m., Tuesday, January 21.
The first of the series, last December 17, featured poets Lucy Lehman, Adam Greenfield and Anna Abraham Gasaway. Their poetry was spellbinding. Below are samples of their talent.
Lorraine Fischer, one of the two women scheduled for the January 21 program, is a native of Austin, Texas. She earned her undergraduate and Master’s Degree from the University of Texas, majoring in Public Affairs. Her publishing credits include a parenting book, What Haven’t They Told Me? Practical Tips for Surviving and Thriving During Baby’s First Year. Currently, she serves as Assistant Director of Development at the Lawrence Family JCC.
Jan Gist, voice, speech and dialect coach for The Old Globe Theater since 2002 and professor in their Globe/USD Shiley Graduate Theatre Program, is an original member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA) and has frequently presented at its conferences. She has also given workshops at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama and at the International Voice Teachers Exchange at the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia. Her articles have been published in numerous VASTA journals and she has written chapters for several books including, “Yiddish,” in Jerry Blunt’s More Stage Dialects.
Joel Guadarrama was born in Mexico and although “many storms have shaken my boat,” made his way to the United States. He is a proud Sephardic Jew who attends an Orthodox synagogue, studies modern Hebrew, does landscape work and writes poetry. His poetry will be in Spanish, preceded by English translations.
The format of the evening will include a half hour of open mic following the hour of featured poets. The program will conclude with light refreshments. Because of tightened security, it is requested that you
RSVP via this website or call Melanie Rubin, 858-362-1141.
Mother
By Lucy Lehman
When she died
Her skin was velvety as moss,
pale as alabaster,
and hairless.
No newborn
could have appeared
so pristine.
As a waterfall
purifies the rocks
it scours with its spray,
her ninety years erased all memory,
and like an infant
she knew nothing.
She left this world
as she entered:
helpless and needy.
From infancy to ninety
became a circle
meeting its origins.
I sang her lullabies
and read her poems
to coax back memories
which had evaporated
with the lightness of gasses
rising heavenward.
I became mother to my mother.
I bathed her flesh
which smelled milky sweet
as my own infants’ had
when I nestled them
to my breast.
But she left as I had left her,
when my own children
clamored for me.
She died
even as I clamored for her.
*
The Dreamers
By Anna Abraham Gasaway
“What happens to a dream deferred?” Langston Hughes
We came drooling, cooing
tied on our mother’s backs,
presented in rebozos
of teal, red and magenta.
We came
because paid coyotes
spirited us to
the other side.
We came fleeing
an abuser’s pistol
cocked
at our mother’s pregnant womb,
one born in Guadalajara,
the other in San Diego.
Our parents came to work
in the garment district
while we played with scraps,
hidden from bosses
with a deft covering
of silk.
Our mamas took care
of other people’s children
so that we would be fed
We came thirsty
trudging
across the desert
in tunnels
in vans and trucks
And now, America,
fear stalks us every day.
Now, America
you shun us
and the whole world
looks away.
*
In My Back Pocket All This Time
By Adam Greenfield
I find my reflection
in a window pane,
in a mirror
as if I’ve never done this before,
teaching a used dog new tricks,
and I want to spite my nose
to cut my face off
starting with your eyes
you gave me,
then your nose
grown from trait,
and finish with the lips
surrounded by fear
and a five o’clock shadow.
I want to tell you
I love you, Dad,
but you made it difficult
from the way your fists spoke,
the way your mind cursed us,
and the way your eyes detested us,
as if being born at all
was a burden to you,
though now I see you
in my reflection
and you have become
a burden born unto me.
I fear me in you
and you in me,
for I have come to realize
while many men are their father’s son
rarely do sons
deserve the right to be a father
and I fear since I am my father’s son
I have to be the one
to break it to you,
to break the mold
because your other son
has broken free and run
and left me to toe the family line.
I wish I could be him
but I can’t,
he has strength and ignorance
and intelligence and blinders,
all the things that precede success,
yet I have a curse
a twist of genetic fate
that rots the family tree
and turns strong branches
into leafless twigs,
I acquired it without choice.
I find myself in contempt of court
and confine myself to
family tree house arrest
while I exorcise this feeling
this notion in motion
like I can never escape you,
never rid my own fists
of this hate and fear
I have of you
while your voice is the devil
on my right shoulder
and your foot
is firmly planted on my left
or at least what’s left of me.
I may be my father’s son
but I refuse to be
this son’s father,
for you were no example to set
on my dinner table,
and now I am older
leading my own life
doing my own dirty laundry
and the struggle to be
just who I should not be
will be easier if you know
that I know
that you had your chance.
I wonder if on your death bed
who, if anyone besides me,
will be around it
and if your see-through
religious shield
will be able to hold you in as high regards
as you hold everyone
but yourself
or so it would seem
in your extreme actions
a twisted satisfaction
that you take no responsibility for.
I wish you well
on your journey
on the back of hypocrisy
and lies and pain and deceit,
I kept the receipt
in my back pocket
where it has always been
all these years
after you tried to pay
under your terms of endearment,
akin to entrapment,
and the slip of carbon paper
in my back pocket
holds your imprint too near to my own
so if you don’t mind,
I’d like to trade mine in
for a sportier role model.
*
Puna Press, 2015. Reprinted here with permission by Puna Press.