Calaya J.
Williams - Featured Poet 7
"I think all our poems, songs and
stories are young plants whose hope for growth lies in shared
soils, however we share." - Calaya J. Williams
Calaya brings a lot of her life and
background to her poetry and it is told in her own voice which
has the unique ring of authenticity. Her work is intriguing,
challenging and evocative. In many of her pieces there is a
feeling of inclusivity into which the reader is drawn and made to
see the world in a new way. - Jim
Bennett
Calaya J.
Williams - Featured Poet 7
Tell us something about
yourself.
A few years ago I took advantage of an
opportunity to explore writing as a career and have been seeking
a degree in technical and creative writing at the University of
Alaska, Fairbanks. I'm also a visual artist so I'm excited about
future opportunities to learn new technologies and explore
multi-mediums.
Although I generally abhor labels, because
both details reflect in my current work, I'll tell you that I'm
56 years old and one of seventeen million Americans who chose the
multiracial/multicultural category on the 2000 census.
(Cherokee/African American/English).
How/when did you start writing?
Was there anything that particularly influenced you?
I started writing when I was ten. Life
circumstances seemed aimed to stop me from expressing myself,
even in writing. By ten I'd decided that human 'truths' were
concepts that evolved primarily from language. So, if I read and
wrote enough, I'd learn these truths; I felt desperate to 'know.'
The first book I read was a Bible. My first shared writing was an
interpretation of Revelations, a school assignment. That resulted
in severe parental punishment but in the writing process, I'd
discovered a method to relieve internal pressures, so I decided
to keep my scribbling secret. The internal pressures I expressed
were those of surviving a 'childhood' of no real personal
choices. I was afraid I was stupid or crazy for a long time after
age three, after a very sick man almost killed me. I felt tossed,
against my will, into an unsolvable mystery. I felt alone,
separated, and even from myself. In the meantime, everywhere
around me folk spoke of 'truths' and most of their truths left me
feeling more alienated.
The first person who encouraged me to write
was a high school teacher. She also accused me of stealing the
first short story I wrote (from a library book). I burned that
story and nothing sparked me to write again until the rock 'n
roll music of the sixties. The first writer who rekindled my urge
to write was Ram Dass/Richard Alpert, Ph.D. speaking in a '60's,
freshman psychology class. I read his book, Be Here Now, (1971)
which was the beginning of an conscious awareness of being within
a larger 'reality processing.' What the heck has that got to do
with writing poetry? Well, feeling grounded as a human
translating my reality-- in part of a larger reality processing
gives me confidence to set down words, validates my perceptions,
essentially feels like the 'personal truth' I'd sought... and
*writing guided me into that awareness.
Do you have any strong
influences on your writing now?
I'm very drawn to writers whose works seem,
to me, to reflect their reality processing. Although they might
disagree with me about this, my examples include Rainer Marie
Rilke, Joy Harjo, Simon J. Ortiz, Mary TallMountain, Sherman
Alexie and Gabriel Horn (White Deer of Autumn). My two most worn
books are Harper's Anthology of 20th Century Native American
Poetry and R.M.Rilke's The Book of Images.
How do you write? Do you have
any particular method for writing-time of day?
I've a habit of daily writing, first thing
in the morning, for a few hours. If I feel inspired I
draft/journal with pen and paper. Otherwise, I open the
bones' file in my computer, sift through ideas/notes,
choose something and start. What works best for me is drafting
free-writes, leaving them sit and revising later. I have found
what I consider a poem draft in perhaps a dozen words culled from
thousands. When I want to write but the first word won't come, I
go for a walk and do Natalie Goldberg's (from Wild Mind) 'Oral
Timed Writings' exercise. In other words, I walk alone and talk
to myself, use my mouth, articulate.
Why do you write poetry?
It's a habit I want to nurture. When I was
a child terrified to express myself, I wrote poems to develop a
private language. I crafted toward obscurity. When I discovered
that individuals have distinct, unique voices that may be
expressed in clear, tangible words, I fell in love with that
goal/process. Writing obscure poems helped me protect myself
until I was safe to hear my voice and practice using it.
Is there anything else you
would like to add?
Yes, please, and thank you for asking. I'm
a happily reclusive person but have a passion to share myself
beyond my habitual family/community, via my writing. I feel that
my works contain bits of me, my essence, or presence. Folk may
consider this an unusual way to make connections with human
relatives. I think all our poems, songs and stories are like
young plants whose hope for growth lies in shared soils, however
we share.
Poems
A story poem that explores various aspects
of my ongoing relationship with a relative, another
'social/cultural misfit;' culled from notes written in an
outhouse during my first years in Alaska.
- Reflections from an Outhouse
-
- Unbinding in an outhouse:
- a butt-comforting touch: talking
- to cousin Laura in an LA prison
- doors propped open
- privy to our fears
- all jammed up
-
- not a metaphor for relief-
- butts exposed, interruptions wiped
- in ungraceful dependence on stored
toilet paper forests
-
- not a metaphor for checking out.
- When she charged into me leaving LA
- she pleaded, "Show me
around." I said,
- "You shouldn't be here, Laura
- LA will eat you alive."
-
- We migrated into a 'recovery center'
- welcomed recycling material till
- they met us in their dreams: their
complaints
- moved us to the street lit, ghetto
porch
- where we dreamed of moving North till
- dawn; till we crawled off to sleep
with pigeons
- in an abandoned, leaky loft.
-
- Afternoon, we dusted off feathers,
coughed,
- spit, called rain, danced 'round
dumpsters
- gathered sacred scraps: broken, brown
bottles
- pissed-on gutter woods, tree seed
pods,
- burlap fragments, clear, shattered
glass.
- Trembling fingers tendered candle wax,
- winged together pieces, not a
metaphor-
- travelling medicine, to guide us home.
-
- Now I'm unbinding in an outhouse:
- a butt-comforting touch: talking
- to cousin Laura in an LA cell
- doors propped open
- privy to our tears.
- Not a metaphor-
- LA is still eating her, alive.
Wallpapers asks questions about various
'glues' in particular 'close' human relationships; you know: the
sticky parts.
- Wallpapers
-
- What hangs, stuck so tight?
- Does it matter if the wait
- gets charged, overbearing?
- Why inlay violent suspense?
-
- Are we hooked on remodelled walls
- mortared in fanciful fortresses
- surrounded with embellished fears
- attached to ceilings of guilt
-
- suspended in swapped piety?
- What happens if it all falls down?
- Who's screaming to get out?
- Whose stacked up high religious
papers?
-
- Whose suspicious shelves plastered
- in articles of enhanced hatreds?
- What report mysteriously misplaced?
- Whose profound misgivings to each
other
-
- yet refuse one loud utter
- when you've really had more than
enough
- of the nasty, unspeakable, noisy
clutter?
- When we redecorate, why with weight?
-
- Why not label a few of our prided
essays-
- arrayed on our towers and tables:
Without
- memory of Original themes, Out of
- Sequence, To Hell with Cycles, Fried
truth
-
- and fuck Consequence?
- Don't humans control the seasons?
- Then why all this dreadful hesitation?
- What's under our wallpapered
elaborations?
-
How, one day, feeling dis-Spirited,
communing with certain other relatives helped me make clearer
connection with my grandchildren.
- How they recall her spirit
-
- She recalls her name while her eyes
scan
- the room listing symbols of longings:
- buffalo drums, feathered owl claws,
- diamond willow talking sticks
- baby raven flights over trails of
tears
-
- masks, dancing wolves, flying whales-
- family portraits.
-
- She recalls her name while she walks
- round a room, watches her self appear
- in thin, arctic air from behind bushes
- where CD flutes and drums set her-
-
- slightly, in a bamboo chair
- by a picture window, watching
- a moose munch autumn compost
- knee deep in winter garden snow.
-
- She recalls this mothers' calf chewed
- painted daisies off her porch mural.
- How, the mother moose recovered
- from the car,
- wrecked-
- wretched, now three-legged.
- How mother moose struggled through
- thick underbrush to guide her child
- to scary dog yard hay
- 'cause neither of them could reach
- neighbourhood compost heaps.
-
- How she recorded that calf eating
paint.
- How self-outrage stopped her
- intent to send the film to a TV
station-
- with a furious plea.
- How another mother moose killed a
tourist.
- How, now, she cracks open her doors-
- gives calves cabbage.
-
- How, now, she recalls Spirit-
- beats a drum so deep they call her
slow,
- dances an opening dance
- so you can call her mother
- beats a sad beat, hearing sorrow.
-
- How she's sad-glad to bother your
spirit
- to sit with her and cry,
- rattle, say she misses your skin
visions
- say it's good to share water with kin
- ask, How ya been?
-
- How she recalls your smiled, Why, I'm
still walking
- The Red Road with you; how you been?
-
- She was shocked when you first spoke-
- broke out in hot, sweet sweat
- held her breath
- used the sights of napping dogs to
prove
- no spirit-moose loose in the room
- lost track of time in a chaos
- of attempts to reckon how to prove
- she wasn't just a spirit, too.
- How she wondered 'till she heard
- "Oh dear. I see,"
- and felt a husky pups' head on her lap
- and his wag helped her settle down.
-
- How she settled so almighty down
- she pretended not to hear you
- in the moose munching compost
- knee deep in winter garden snow.
-
- Settled in a bamboo chair.
- Recalled how to get
- under the grounds, how: now
- she moves through generations of wait
- recalls ancestors songs
- sit's softly in arctic windows
- phones her grandchildren and Oh!
-
- how they always recall her spirit.
Underneath the surface story is a
self-caricature expressing fears concerning self-expression.
- Afraid To Soar
-
- After her parents taught her
- not to eat live prey
-
- Fay, child of the family falconiforme
- Old World ally of eagle and hawk,
- soared from African nests
- over wildebeest herds,
- keen eyes set to scavenge.
-
- Strong beaked,
- she clawed apart a carcass,
- filled, then sailed
- into the starved mouth of a storm.
- The tunnel swallowed
-
- but threw her up over ground
- held by American vultures.
-
- She dipped,
- swallowed tidbits missed
- by voiceless heads in live-feeding
frenzies,
- then climbed
- in cautious, expanding circles
-
- in-and-out of a particular memory:
- once, she was not afraid to soar.
-
This was originally drafted as a personal
'moving on' ritual - following an intrapersonal shift. I revised
it as a more public song, bent toward honoring place.
- Grandma's Glacial Rhyme
-
- Old washing machine roared-
- mean measured moans,
- overloaded pauses. Grandma
- sought redistribution.
-
- Moved out of doors:
- attended fears of retribution
- sensed a flow containing oceans
- let her cycles spin in winds
-
- followed fire and ice
- watched an African violet bloom
- caught a breeze
- blew by a windsock
-
- flew 'round a lantern, past
- chimes; sank into a melting
- glacial rhyme: an ice-calf
- awash in a volcanic sea.
-
Collision is the first poem I wrote after I
started university, the first poem submitted for publication and
the first poem published [UAF lit mag: IceBox, Fall Issue, '98].
It's tone was initially meant to reflect the culture shock I felt
on campus; it's style to portray rush, it's voice sarcastic rage.
Hopefully, 'rage about what' is obvious enuff? Initial
public response to this poem still encourages me.
- Collision
-
- According to your streams of
unconscious babble
- no one is responsible for this
violent,
- species extincting, population
exploding
- toxic life:
- Shut up!
- The eyes beneath our skins are
opening:
- we are the babies you threw out
- with the bath water
- and
- we are alive
- and our heads rotate
- three hundred sixty degrees:
- here is what we see
- with the eyes beneath our skins:
- what you ran from back there
- you are running into
- here:
- head on.
A two-part poetic answer to my version of
the great 'what's life *really about?' question. Part one speaks
in generalization, says, "Ive a few things to say
before I die." Part two gets as specific as what I currently
swallow and spit.
- Digestion Rooms
-
- [i]
-
- If this were my last hour I'd not
write this note
- as apology for past silence.
- What happens to me in my world happens
fast.
- Some need expansive rooms for
minuscule events.
-
- I've written this note to say I
suspect-
- near this end, this life has been
about digestion
- of events I simply won't swallow.
- I doubt you'd speak with your mouth so
full.
-
- [ii]
-
- Near one end
- I use each moment for digestion; chew
- past participles
- salivate sorrow.
-
- Who knows how much Time I'll need to
swallow?
-
- I know what happened to me needs a
bath
- more acidic than spit and
- colder than this chilled finale: phew!
-
- I am wide-mouthed-mother, ajar:
- battered flask
- fat jug
- bitter decanter
thirsty canteen
shattered glass
- carved carafe
- empty cruet.
-
Akeewa, my native name, loosely translated,
says "remember: we are all star stuff' Re: Calaya: my birth
mother borrowed a word from Alaskan Native cousins meaning 'sweet
little girl' and altered the spelling and sounds out of
generations of indoctrinated shame of our Cherokee heritage. This
work explores my relationships with my names.
-
- Seed Stars
-
- Some times we sing unfettered as flesh
cello.
- Some times we sound
- like broken notes inhaling audiences
-
- drinking sparks filtered through us
- while Earth gives birth to us:
- speed of Light seed stars sowed,
-
- surfing imigiNation, growing visions
- while our ancestors stand
- DNA ready
-
- breath and blood up, and sounds down
- our spines, steady, soft-scratching
breaths
- across lung drums.
-
- Some times we inhale applause, Ghost
Dancers
- waving
- raving; whatever it takes to spark.
-
A moving-on song, written for Kathleen
O'Hara, a.k.a. "Crazy Grady, The Magic Lady." I trusted
her while I learned to trust myself. We met in 1973 and are still
best friends. Grady died Oct. 2000. [See ya, cousin]
- Like Water
-
- Once I was an iceberg.
- Every time I fell
- I fell from within,
- fell into my own fires.
- I wondered why I didn't vaporize
- when I shed torrents
- formed when I froze
- after I'd dived into primal seas.
-
- Why didn't Mother shake harder
- while I fluctuated,
- wild organic synthesis of origins
- rising and falling
-
- like water.
- I wondered how my first friend
- knew I wouldn't kill her
- the first time she touched me.
-
- I'd been certain that I would.
- I remember standing
- back against a wall
- of a San Jose skid row
-
- nightmare.
- I didn't think I cared
- who was there
- as long as it wasn't me
-
- watching her walk my way,
- her hands! for Christs sake!
- outstretched.
- My hands deep in dark pockets.
-
- I'd been certain no one would
- touch me, here;
- I didn't think I much cared
- for being touched
-
- with my back against a wall
- in a San Jose skid row
- nightmare, rising and falling
- like water,
- like the Pacific I remember
- before I became an iceberg
- before I started falling
- within, and fell in my own fires.
-
- Before I wondered why
- I hadn't vaporized
- when I shed torrents
- formed when I froze
-
- after I'd dived into primal seas.
- Later
- I asked Mother why
- she hadn't shaken harder
- while I fluctuated
-
- wild, organic synthesis of origins
- rising and falling like all water.
-
I think I'm an especially slow
learner when it comes to relationships with human beings. But I
am blessed to have fantastic relationship teachers in loving
friends and heart sisters and brothers. Ruth Lister is a heart
sister; this one's a bit about how she's helping me learn to
listen.
- Learning to Listen
-
- One day I thought, "Maybe I have
- found my voice!"
- I wanted to sing.
-
- But not, "Oh, please
- I can't take this again!"
- or "I'm in Hell
-
- getting ready to see you."
- I sang, "These eggs are
- the devil."
-
- For the first time in years
- I wanted to answer
- the phone.
-
- That day I said, "It *is getting
easier
- to sound it all out.
- I wanted to shout!
-
- But not to any gods "Please,
- help us-
- we're all bleeding."
-
- I leaned into the kitchen counter.
- I listened to my old cat
- purr.
-
- I listened until we purred,
- until my breath caught
- my spine,
-
- until my ears thawed
- piano scales on my skeleton.
- Then I drank a few facts:
-
- You'd called, said, "Come,
- see me,
- I'm startin' to *look like cancer.
-
- Chemo; too
- tired to drive.
- Hair's falling out."
-
- I said, "You bet, cousin.
- Hey! Let's
- shave our heads and paste on
-
- fake tattoos.
- Bet your grandkids
- left a few?"
-
- That was the day after
- the day
- I wanted to sing and shout.
-
- Not the first day I knew
- some Times
- are for listening.
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