Poetry from an American Woman in China

As writers we attempt to use words to capture or evoke feelings. Poets are masters of this skill, distilling complex concepts into a few words. Good poetry is almost like magic, and, in my opinion, is the essence of word-crafting. Few of us wouldn’t benefit from studying it.

Jane Zenger, educator and poet, sends this poem from China, where she traveled from South Carolina to teach English to adolescent and young adults for a year. This poem was written in her first few months in China, and reflects both the cultural divide she experienced, and the hands reaching out to bridge that gap. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Women of Shanxi

I heard the airplanes circling,

seeding the stunted clouds.

Nothing can be left to chance

with a billion people to feed.

By morning it was here but

the snow that fell was not real.

It was manufactured like the news.

The faces, they are real,

the laughter, that is real.

I compare my lifetime

with the lives of the women of Shanxi.

 The three who have taken me on and in;

we are all the same.

Pain, shame, pride, siblings, sacrifice, sudden death，

our mothers and fathers growing feeble and fragile

and with all our capabilities we struggle still

knowing nothing can be done either here or in the hereafter.

Some consolation, the chemical snow

 covers the dark coal dust

and ice cracks rhythmically

 under out feet as we walk arm in arm.

I fell yesterday without them, so clumsy.

But I did not say a word.

They would have checked me head to toe

and carried me for a week to make sure

nothing else happens.

I am rare here but everywhere else

no gem to anyone, unpolished and plain.

I thought that nothing more could happen

but everything is happening.

I am reminded of the time it takes

to learn or unlearn anything.

I must be a lotus that blooms

not an onion that is peeled.

Today my lovely Chinese friend, waved her chopsticks

like she was clearing the air and

out of the blue reminded me of what I do not know.

It is not a good plan that can not be changed。

You can go alone now- to the islands off Sanya.

Thaw in the South China Sea

and when you return,

we will still be here

 to watch your every step.

How could she possibly know?

JFZ 

Escapism: (Arguably) a Critical Skill for Survival

Why do we get hooked on fiction? What in us supports the reading habit and the huge industry that feeds it? Escapism of course.

Escapism has a bad rep. Undeservedly, in my (possibly self-serving) opinion. I think that far from being a sign of mental deterioration, it is a hallmark of adaptation.

Animals, humans included, evolve in response to stress of one kind or another. Not going deep into Darwinism here, but survival of the fittest is the basic rule. Early on, this meant those who had the skills to get food, to run off competitors, to ward off threats and to abundantly procreate won the day. (Sound familiar? The romantic hero/heroine is a prototype for successful biological adaptation.)

These days we have come up with group solutions to most of the stressors: we no longer have to chase down our food, we have laws to define our turf, police to deal with threats to life and limb, and procreation in vast numbers—no longer necessary to the survival of the species—is now frowned upon.

Along the way, we've collected a host of other stressors: various health woes because we don't have to chase down our food, annoying neighbors we can't knock off because of our protective laws. New pressures about car status and fashion faux pas, because catching food and beating off saber-toothed tigers are no longer reasonable selection criteria for mates. Bad news on a global level, far removed from our ability to intervene.

So, how do we survive these new stressors? What mechanism, what strategy is common to those who thrive in this world?

Escapism, of course. The ability to sweep these new and largely psychological threats out of one's mind and replace them with images that are exciting and romantic (I use the term broadly: apocalyptic swashbuckling and hard-edged heroism for men is just as romantic as flowers and hearts for women) is like a reset button for beleaguered souls.

There are other benefits, too. Reading fiction gives the mind permission to roam into unfettered territory, to stretch creative muscles in an institutionalized world. It diminishes the stress of daily problems by implicit comparison to the dire situations faced by our heroes and heroines—if a teen boy can face the greatest evil in the world, can I not face a traffic ticket?

I've never seen a scientific study on this, but I bet dimes to dollars that, all other things being equal, people who read romantic fiction are healthier, happier and better adjusted than those who don't. It is THE adaptive skill of the moment (in moderation, of course—Aristotle was no dummy).

RiverTime Releases Valentines' Day!

Rivers have a certain mystique for me. When I was a child, I would make tiny boats and sail them in the sandy gutters of the streets after a rain. I imagined whole worlds around these opportunistic streams, with the wide stretches between driveways being uninhabited lands interspersed with exotic cities on the riverbank-curbs. I planted forests of twigs, and made miniature dwellings of mud. When all was ready, I'd launch my little boat in front of my house and follow it downstream as it raced through rapids, plunged over waterfalls, got stuck in beaver dams of twigs until it finally escaped into the Magical Underground (otherwise know as the sewer).

When I was older, I turned my fancies to the mysteries of romance. Because I grew up in a very small town and knew every boy and girl there, 'mysterious' was off the table for the locals, so the venue for my romantic yearnings was invariably summer vacation. My family was in the habit of taking vacations to different destinations each summer, and each summer I dreamed of meeting a mysterious boy from a fascinating place who would sweep me off my feet and make me forget my cares. The mere mention of vacation set off wild imaginings in me of adventure and romance. It still does today.

RiverTime is a fusion of these two long-time fascinations. It's the story of a young woman who tries to solve a dilemma in her everyday life by taking a vacation on--you guessed it--a river trip. She not only finds adventure and romance, but doubles her dilemma. To find a way out of her quandary, she has to reinvent herself and look at love in a new way. 

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