The assignment was to write a sound poem or poem inspired by sound – to hyperfixate on our sonic experience, using the sounds as inspiration, abandoning conventional logic for the no-sense-required realm of poetry. In class, we listened to Allen Ginsberg recite “Hum Bom!” and read Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” I played part of Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder documentary and we compared 1976 vs. 2026 and the semiquincentennial. I had informally challenged myself to do all of the semester’s assignments with my poetry students. I finished a few of those pieces but many were left incomplete, requiring more time and effort than I was able to give while teaching too many classes at once.
A year later … the song of the Carolina Wren has returned with spring and the sounds and struggle that inspired this poem a year ago are ready to play again.
It’s not easy
It’s not easy
Let me down now, I want to hold you every day
I will never, never let you go —Ofege
Reality’s absurdity has shaken us.
So much selfish cruelty
trumpeted by the powers that be —
legislators forsaking we for me.
We are emotionally regulating,
we rock back and forth,
in these soothing affirmations,
Aaah
aah
aaah
aah
trying not to freak out about the coup.
It’s the end of democracy as we knew it.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
For one week, my car whined as long as the door was ajar.
like a hospital drone not a heartbeat —
Wait! I’m not dead yet.
But this whineeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Just turned on one day (18 months since I bought the car) —
this disincentive to driving with the doors open.
Who does that?
Is such nerve-splitting friction necessary;
whose idea to annoy careless drivers into compliance?
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
An ex-plea-tive that hurries you on:
No dynamics to break the pain.
I’m fighting the desire to make all of this a metaphor …
Because then the alert was gone, just as mysteriously.
Showed mercy, we want to say,
as if machine malfunction could mean anything
or arise from some intention.
It just happened —
things break.
Sometimes they repair
without intervention.
Is it a miracle?
Of all the things people believe in,
might as well be magic.
In Spanish, the word victim is feminine.
I’m here to tell you:
the Matriarchy is not weak.
Mama knows the bully will run away crying
when the underdog stops being scared,
doesn’t back down,
and is hoisted up by all the good people
who want kindness to win.
Mama’s seen this one before —
When survivors speak up,
evil is vanquished.
Let’s be more Matriotic, America!
We are strong because we love everyone!
Even you.
The delicate
deprived
unsteady
traumatized
weary
faint
meek
and hurt
are the beauty of our humanity.
We have survived so many beatings.
250 years later,
we’ve poked so many holes in The Patriarchy,
they can’t dim the rainbow
it glows so bright from sea to sea.
Coming out of depression is hearing the Carolina Wren
Weneedyou weneedyou weneedyou
And knowing that meaning is yours to manufacture,
no matter what they take,
so why not exalt some make-believe purpose?
Weneedyou weneedyou weneedyou
Weed and everything you need
has been provided by the Earth.
Aaah
aah
aaah
aah
Blessed be Allen Ginsburg in peace.
— ag, March 2025 – April 2026.
I wrote this poem in May 2016 in exchange for a print of Bruce Bicknell’s painting of the “Bridge of Sighs” in downtown Scranton that connects the Fire Department headquarters with the Municipal Building. Bruce and I often talked about the classic movies we were watching on TCM including the 1979 film A Little Romance (1979) — I found the legend about kissing under the Venetian Bridge of Sighs at sunset wildly romantic. At that time, I was still very much in love with J after despite numerous heartaches and the cyclical disappointment of complicated circumstances. My rational mind encouraged me to move on but my heart held fast. Ten years ago, this piece read a little desperate — a stubborn refusal to accept the apparent reality. Today, less than 24 hours before J and I are to be married, the poem takes a different tone. They say you can’t change another person and I haven’t tried, but that doesn’t mean a person will not find the courage to change themselves. Our story is not over; we continue to grow, but for now, it appears the wait was worth it. —ag
Bridge of Sighs*
The inhale came before I knew to pay
attention while my thoughts hypnotically
traced the curve of his muscle
— this is my rhythm now.
Whirling in the early-morning fog,
his skin swelling against my gratitude
until bliss dissipates in pragmatic glare.
Now aware,
I am here under the bridge,
still waiting.
I have been waiting there this whole time,
patiently or not,
watching shadows slip from West to East,
gradually into withdrawal.
I cannot leave,
but they taught me to let go.
The release of my longing rattles windows.
I heave desire into concrete cracks where
weeds strain to find nourishment in the
alkaline fertilization sprayed by city dogs,
the drunk and the destitute.
The body sighs 15 times an hour
— every five minutes or so
but it’s easy to lose track on dreary days when the urge to move
from the place we have been
to any place else
is so strong
I’d rather walk in the rain,
letting drops smear mascara
in a camouflage collage of tears I can’t erase —
a contaminating glitter stuck to everything.
The pedometer says we’ve traveled miles,
yet here we are,
returned to where it began.
I only walked around the block in fear I might
miss something.
But he did not come while I was gone
in that lull when my faith had faltered,
embarrassed by the so Godot of this routine.
No notifications.
No missed calls.
No oaths or promises to justify my conviction.
Yet, I still trust that if it is meant to be
nothing will stand in the way,
not even my inability to stand still.
Given enough time they will all line up
— the kiss, sunset and tolling church bells
(if not a gondola)
or we will make our own mythology.
And it doesn’t matter
how long the wait has been,
when the destination is eternal love and bliss,
no endurance is too much.
Why would God have guided me
to this Electric City,
its glow dim after decades of struggle,
If I was not meant to wait for him;
to wait for love?
—”Bridge of Sighs” by Alicia Lynn Grega starts on page 71 of her book Dystalgia.
*(Humorously, the “sigh” of Bridge of Sighs refers to the moment prisoners crossing the river to their windowless? (underground?) cells on the other side paused to take what might be their last year view of the outside world and the beauty of Venice.
No one wants to admit to bombing the girls’ school in Iran
but we’ve seen their graves gaping at us
on the doomscrolls
orderly rectangles dug in rows
waiting to swallow the bodies of
165 school girls and staff
most between ages 7 and 12.
Ohh uoh,
Schoolgirls of Minab,
you shouldn’t have to pay for this
There are no words.
No protest poem can avenge you;
your souls are not replaceable.
Weren’t you meant to do great things?
O uo uuh anh …
Words don’t work anymore.
They’ve been twisted and hollowed-out
captured and released from meaning.
It’s all just sounds now.
uuh ohh uuuu …
What am I supposed to do?
I can’t write a war poem.
It’s hard to do anything I’m supposed to.
When I close my eyes I still see the graves
hovering like sunspots through the blue light.
-ag, 3/6/26
I’m still a little stunned in the wake of our trip with Scranton Fringe to Ballina, Ireland. Although I’m not blessed with Irish ancestors myself, most of the Irish-American in Scranton can trace their roots back to County Mayo in the country’s rural Northwest. In many of these traditional villages, they are bring back use of the traditional Irish Gaelic. We were fortunate to have sightseeing time built into the trip and spent several photogenic hours in Westport and at Downhead Patrick in Ballycastle, the Ballinglen Museum of Art, Ceide Fields neolithic archeological site, and on along the coast to Belmullet. My first time leaving the U.S. after so many years of hardwork, struggle and sacrifice as a single mother, it was personally a soul expanding experience. We saw six rainbows! I always thought the rainbow was a mythological character in old folk tales but in October, the weather changes back and forth from sun to showers so quickly, real rainbow sightings are almost a daily occurrence! Who knew? There are quite a few images and videos from our trip on my social media accounts.
Working at the Ballina Arts Centre and meeting the lovely audiences who came to support our shows was the professional highlight. It’s going to take some time to process the last 10 days. In the meantime, I had to share this lovely bonus prize that came to our attention as our plane landed at JFK yesterday and we turned off Airplane Mode.
They got Maureen and I reversed in the cutline here. I am on the left between the Ballina Mayor and Ireland’s Minister of Culture and Maureen is on the right-hand side, but neither of us could care less about that. The people who know us know who we are and those who met us will remember it was Maureen on the stage and me behind the scenes. It was definitely a career highlight that makes me newly grateful that I didn’t give up my passion for the arts while anchored by the practical choices I’ve had to make to survive.
Thank you, Ireland, for your tremendous hospitality! I hope to see you again before too long.
It’s not unusual for Norman Fischer to offer a literary aside mid-dharma talk.
There’s nothing strange about him citing Milton’s Paradise Lost to the Mountain Rain Sangha on the May 3, 2025, “Dongshan Stories” (regarding several koans of the venerable Zen teacher) episode of the Everyday Zen podcast to which I subscribe.
What’s weird is that I didn’t hear the words I’m about to quote until three months later, right in the middle of a production inspired by the very same text (see “Dream on the Farm: Paradise Lost”, FarmArtsCollective.org). I know, it’s a popular text. Not such a great coincidence? Shhhh … I’m with the theatre people and we like magic. We make magic out of imagination and practiced skill. That’s art.
After bringing up Milton’s gorgeous language in the middle of the dharma talk, Norman says, “Adam and Eve eating the apple was not a mistake. It had to happen.” In order to mate and reproduce and propagate the human race,” he says. He’s been speaking of shame and sexual lust/desire.
He continues,
“Maybe this is what the Zen Masters are trying to tell us: don’t forget that part of us is always still in the garden of our simply being here. Of our simply, innocently being alive- beyond our shame and our worry about good and evil. We are simply here. Always right here. Maybe our practice is learning the way back to the garden, which is paradise, not utopia. Paradise- not a figment of our imaginations, but the real actual world once we can fully appreciate it as it is.”
It’s an astonishing sidebar to the writing in my journal which I don’t have time to share right now. I’m too busy living because the living is the work. The words are a fragmented documentation that may, in the end, exist more to free my memory than to mean anything to anyone else. -ag
Two years after opening a file in FadeIn, I finally finished the first episode of The Ferment. This was a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been letting it sit before making some more edits before sharing the script with my colleagues. I’ve been writing episodes two and three simultaneously, so it won’t take too much longer to finish the next two. I’m giving myself until the end of June.
In the meantime, school has been as much work as I’ve come to expect — teaching seven classes for the fourth semester in a row. I am cutting back in the fall. I’ve made a promise to myself and to my art. Not trying to be a downer, but it was my birthday last week and I’m very aware I might not have as much time left as I’d like … maybe dying early from workaholicism is preventable. Or can at least be slowed down.
Trying to take a little break today (burnout is rumbling on the horizon), I made another image in the poster series for The Ferment that I also started two years ago. I’ve had this idea written on a post-it for close to a year.
So … I’m slow. Why is everybody in such a hurry all the time? It’s not a race.
Here’s what I made today and what I made last week. Images for a bit … and then I’ll get back to the words (as soon as the semester is over, unless I use writing as a procrastination tactic.)
Peace & Blessings – ali
It’s April and that means National Poetry Month! While you wait impatiently for those buds to burst open, refresh your brain with some powerful wordplay recited by some talented high school students!
WVIA’s broadcast of the 2025 Poetry Out Loud regional competition is streaming online. I was happy to volunteer at this event again, this time as the “prompter.” That means my eyes were looking down at the text while the students were reading in case they needed a line. I was happy to be home to catch the event broadcast this year so I could see what I missed!
Congratulations to all the students who participated in their schools and this regional competition. It takes courage to stand up and use your voice with such intention. I’d love to see more NEPA students participate in this program. One of my recent fears with all the federal government cuts is that programs like this will end at the state level. If there are no federal programs, no state champions are traveling to compete at the national level. Not going to go on a political rant here, but we need more investment in programs like this, not less. As a public speaking professor, I assure you more poetry recitation in high school will help students become better communicators.
I’m sharing this screenshot even though I look like an exhausted zombie in my 30 seconds on screen – I’m afraid it’s fairly accurate minus an extra chin (angles are everything!). We recorded this in early December just as the fall semester was coming to a close. I was clearly ready for my long winter’s nap.
-ag
This conversation is a couple of weeks old now and will likely sound irrelevant already. Oh well. For the record, there is value in capturing a moment in time as much as there is in the generic symbolism of the timeless. These TnR program segments give me the chance to talk through whatever challenges are gripping us at that moment in time. I’m glad they exist and hope some listener somewhere exists and agrees.
I devour vast amounts of media daily and have to hold my tongue about a lot of it all day long as I interact with students. Contrary to MAGA propaganda, teachers aren’t forcing their personal beliefs on students. All good educators encourage students to find out for themselves – do the research and then think critically about it. They were raised to take tests and to find the right answer. But the real problem is that there isn’t one right answer. Go.
Gregarious Expressions 