I see from Facebook that the literary giant Robert Bly has passed away. This blog post is longer than usual because it consists of an essay from my book, Poetry, Politics and Passion about my relationship with Bly. It’s the best way I can think of to memorialize him.

“You both have the same hairstyle.” This was my daughter Rachel’s comment when I showed her the photograph of Robert Bly and me in the July 2005 issue of the KRCB Radio program guide. True. Parted on the same side and about the same length, my curly blonde hair and his white wavy locks swept out from each of our faces in almost the same “do.” The picture was taken on the deck of Falkirk House in San Rafael where Marin Poetry Center members were hosting a reception before Bly’s reading at Book Passage.

Arrangements had been made with his agent to interview the renowned poet for KRCB’s  literary hour, “Word by Word.” I had been a volunteer at the public radio station almost two years, producing more than 20 shows. I’d conducted phone interviews with such luminaries as Nikki Giovanni, Billy Collins, Kay Ryan, and Robert Hass, as well as several local authors. But this was my first in-person field recording opportunity, and a chance to see someone who was more than a celebrity I had brushed up against. Bly had been a correspondent, a literary friend and an anti-war ally. I was jazzed.

I first encountered him in 1969 when, as one of several prominent poets on a nationwide tour to raise money for Vietnam War resistance, he came to read at the Milwaukee 14 benefit. Bly had recently won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body and donated his prize money to the Peace Movement. When I first heard him read, he was 46 years old. He had been publishing poems in translation in his magazine The Fifties, and then The Sixties, making Americans aware of the likes of Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo and Georg Trakl. From his farmhouse in rural Minnesota, Bly was to go on editing and publishing The Seventies as well as numerous books of his own poems, essays and translations.

In 1975, around the time my growth into feminism led me to Goddess spirituality and study of the divine feminine, Bly founded the Annual Conference on the Great Mother and the New Father. It seemed to me then that Bly was helping the cause of women’s liberation by teaching men how to be authentic. In 1978, he visited Milwaukee again, and, because we had been exchanging letters, the poet invited me to play my doumbek (belly dance drum) with the gang of musicians who accompanied his reading at Century Hall. Ten years after I first saw him, he was still wearing the same performance attire: a cream-colored wool serape with a bold, black border design that made him look like a stately, wild-haired Norse God who had landed in Mexico and taken up residence there.  

During the height of Bly’s work in the mytho-poetic men’s movement (his international bestseller Iron John was published in 1990), we lost touch. I admired one of Bly’s other popular books, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart—an anthology of poems edited from his men’s movement work. And yet, I wondered if he had gone over the line into heterosexism. I remember writing to him with excitement that I had fallen in love with a woman, and being offended by his return letter that said my action had put me “on the endless grind of the karmic wheel.” It was an anxious and righteous time of my life, so I may have taken offense where none was meant. But I stopped writing to him, and he stopped writing to me. His growing mainstream accolades put him in a higher category of fame than most poets ever achieve—to the point that even stand-up comedians referenced “Robert Bly and the drum beating men’s gatherings in the woods where everyone shouts ‘ho!’ and hugs each other.”

Still, I treasured our brief common history in working for peace through poetry. When Bly came to Berkeley in 1998 for a screening of the film RUMI: Poet of the Heart, I made sure I was in the audience. Spotting him in an aisle seat before the performance, I knelt beside him to say hello. When I reminded him of our first encounter 30 years before, his face lit in recognition. He surprised me by asking about colleagues from those Milwaukee days by name. “It’s such a delight to see you again,” he said. “I’m glad you’re still writing.” We talked a while longer before he was called to the stage.  Shortly afterward, I sent him a copy of my 1996 poetry chapbook. He wrote back promptly:

I’ve enjoyed Heart of the Peony very much. The poems don’t dance around at the edge of town, they head straight for the center. . .and I loved including a recipe for clam spaghetti in a book of poems! I’m going to use it this week. Love, Robert.

In 1999, when I asked permission to quote his one-sentence review of my poetry, he replied in the affirmative, and assured me that “the clam spaghetti was great.”

Our correspondence resumed in the form of exchanging publications—I sent him my 2002 spoken word/music CD, Make Love Not War, and he sent me autographed copies of his small hardcover books as they came out. His inscriptions were personal, intimate. He wrote quoting my own words back: “Thanks for your good poems! I like ‘the black cherries…with gratitude to have blood…’” Another inscription encouraged me: “It’s alright if we keep making the same mistakes/ It’s alright if we grow our wings on the way down.”

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On that Sunday in May 2005, Bly exhibited the same warmth he had shown at all our previous meetings. Then 78 years old, he was on tour promoting two books: The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations of Poems from Europe, Asia and the Americas, and a collection of his own: My Sentence Was A Thousand Years of Joy. When he arrived at the Falkirk House reception, he walked straight over to where I was enjoying a glass of wine at a table by myself and sat down. As other guests began to press closer for their turn to chat with the poet, I quickly got down to the business of confirming a time for our radio interview. And, I asked someone to snap a picture of us together.

When the Poetry Center entourage arrived at Book Passage, Bly excused himself to  “take a little nap” in a back office of the bookstore. He asked me to wake him up a half hour before he was scheduled to read. I tried to browse the shelves, but ended up checking and re-checking my mini-disc recorder, my batteries, my list of questions for 30 long minutes before I knocked.

“Yes, OK…” answered a dry, tired voice. I opened the door to find the septuagenarian rousing himself from the carpeted floor. His face was flushed and he seemed weary. He cleared his throat and situated himself in the leather desk chair as I attached the microphone to his shirt. I wondered then about the success of both our conversation and the two-hour reading to follow.

JO: You use a line from Rilke’s poem for the title of your book of selected translations. Do you want to say anything about why?

RB: He’s urging poets to do daring things. (Bly reads)

Just as the winged energy of delight
carried you over many chasms early on,
now raise the daringly imagined arch
holding up the astounding bridges.

Miracle doesn’t lie only in the amazing
living through and defeat of danger;
miracles become miracles in the clear
achievement that is earned.

Here he’s saying as a poet gets older you just can’t bubble forth your happy little tunes, you have to go to two different sides of the river and build a bridge between.  Then he says—you want to write a poem in such a way that at the very last line the reader feels some kind of a miracle.

JO: I’d like you to read your poem “Call and Answer” that has been widely anthologized lately, although it was written in 2002, even before George W. Bush ordered the attack on Iraq in March 2003.

RB: I used the ghazal form, keeping each stanza to roughly 36 syllables…

JO: Why did you choose this Islamic form? Were you trying to bridge the so-called “clash of civilizations”?

RB: In a way. We’re involved in humiliating the Muslims and I’m involved in praising them. . . .

I was very upset by the fact that no one was writing poems against the Iraq war buildup, and I’m still upset. You know in the Vietnam War days they were coming out of our ears. Everyone was writing poems against the war.

JO: Do you think it’s too soon in the war, that’s why there isn’t much writing about it?

RB: In the sixties, the newspapers were not so panty-waisty. People wrote wild things and the papers printed them right away—think about Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers. The capitalists are trying to control everything and keep everything down. When I asked someone yesterday, “Why do you think there isn’t more against Bush?” he said, “I think it’s fear.” We are being coddled by so many happy television programs, we don’t realize that we are living in a desperate situation.

When our conversation concluded, Bly requested time alone to prepare. I left him and donned my headphones to verify the quality of my digital recording. There it was—his Midwest inflection, the sometimes growl-like voicing of his recitations, the reactive sounds he made to my comments and questions. Satisfied with what I heard, I felt my muscles relax. I joined the standing-room-only crowd in the south wing of the bookstore to wait for the poet’s entrance.

      Bly had roused himself from his brief rest to give me a charming and informative interview  but when he stepped up to the podium in front of 150 listening fans, his energy redoubled. The ageless bard read his own poems and his translations with verve. The highlight of the evening was the moment he read again his “Call and Answer.” When he finished reciting the poem, he pulled his battered suitcase up on stage, unlocked it, and threw out a few items of clothing before uncovering a stack of books.

“I’m giving these away free,” he said, as he took out perhaps fifty copies of The Insanity of Empire: A Book of Poems Against the Iraq War. It was a 2004 imprint of Ally Press in St. Paul. “I don’t want to carry them back to Minnesota, so be sure to take one.” I loved his generosity—giving away books in a bookstore! I took home my copy of the slim volume, as did a lucky third of the listeners.

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Over the years, I’ve been drawn to Robert Bly, as others are drawn, because he is a bright light, as a writer and as a person of conscience. There is much to admire in all the phases he has gone through as a poet who managed to survive outside of academia and benefit from the freedom it provided. He developed a world-wide reputation as a writer/publisher/teacher/translator and has continued to bring the heart and culture of non-western civilizations, as well as the beauty of music, into every reading he does. I am inspired by this. I am nurtured by my personal encounters over time with him, and by those letters on 5 x 8 personalized stationery—return address Minneapolis—signed Love, Robert or Fondly, Robert, in rickety, almost indecipherable, hand.

On May 20, 2011, Bly appeared again in Berkeley at a KPFA Radio/Poetry Flash benefit titled, “Talking into the Ear of a Donkey.” At the age of 85, the poet reads sitting down, yet he maintains his charismatic presence. He chuckles and growls, repeats lines to make sure we understand, surrounds himself with musicians playing tabla and oud whom he directs with his eyes and a wave of his hand.

Bly was not costumed in a wide, red tie under a woven vest of brilliant colors as the event publicity photo showed, but in a casual, gray sport coat over a blue dress shirt with open collar. One of his legs trembled, and he read a poem twice, not immediately for emphasis but because he had forgotten he included it earlier in the program. He seemed to wonder why its funny lines fell flat. I was moved by this one awkward moment in which the famous performance poet seemed like an ordinary white-haired grandfather. Still, the audience remained attentive and delighted. Bly’s hold on the life force, or the life force’s hold on him, is undeniable. He continues to exhibit courage, grace and earthy good humor that belie his years.

“It’s alright if we write the same poem over and over,” he says. It’s OK if  we grow wings even as we are falling.

I can hear and read about issues and events, but the medium that sinks a story into my soul is film. Last evening, I cued up Netflix instead of dinner, having just read, front page B section of my local newspaper, “USA Gymnastics Senate Hearing [elicits] Blistering Testimony:  Women blast FBI over handling of sexual abuse investigation.”

I had seen Athlete A when it first came out in 2020, but wanted to experience it again before I made my recommendation. Upon the second viewing, I was even more riveted, especially because so much has happened in this busy year of outing sexual predators.

Local examples? The long-term abuse at an elite private school brought to light by courageous young women years after they were students, and the sexual assault allegation scandal concerning the ex-mayor of Windsor, CA. National examples? New York governor Andrew Cuomo resigning in disgrace (although not in his own eyes). Or the media blitz (and disgusting criticism) of Olympic superstar Simone Biles who revealed mental health issues that were preventing her from competing in her signature events. At the time, did Biles say her suffering had roots in sexual molestation by Dr. Larry Nasser? I don’t remember, but she said it on September 16 at the Senate hearing.

Cogently, calmly, and extremely powerfully, Athlete A (referring to gymnast Maggie Nichols whose narrative is the spine of the plot) tells the story of how hard-working investigative journalists, discerning law enforcement officials, and determined prosecutors together helped a group of young female gymnasts to fight back and prevail against their abusers.

The film is heartbreaking and raises some questions it doesn’t quite answer—were the girls so young and cowed by the cruel, degrading coaching they received that they were powerless to resist all the abuse, sexual and otherwise? The commodification of our athletes (including those NFL players who are still being penalized for “taking a knee”) continues as an issue to be reckoned with.

I’m not attempting a comprehensive film review here. I’m just urging you to see this Netflix Original documentary and let me know how it affected you. Check out the film’s website, which includes resources, materials for discussion, and also a very revealing timeline.

My thanks to Kristen Throop for referring me to The Army of Survivors, an Instagram group “bringing awareness, accountability and transparency to sexual violence against athletes.” Below are quotes I found there.

Over the past few years, it has become painfully clear how a survivor’s healing is affected by the handling of their abuse, and it disgusts me that we are still fighting for the most basic answers and accountability over six years later.
–Aly Raisman, retired artistic gymnast and Olympic gold medalist

“How much is a little girl worth?”
–Rachael Denhollander, former gymnast, attorney, advocate, and author

The most important thing I’ve learned from the intractable pandemic isolation and the rise of the reality-denying, extremist Trump cult, is how to take care of myself. I learn more every day.

After a week of fitful sleep and much appreciated work-for-money, I woke up this morning after a needed nine hours. My Friday the 13^th had been busy with research and interviews for an article I am writing. I did not miss my 1 p.m. virtual Stretch and Balance/Pilates class. And yet when I tried to take advantage of clear skies and cool weather for a walk after spending hours at the computer, I dragged my steps and couldn’t get beyond 20 minutes.

I called a friend to say I would probably not go out to dance bachata, albeit with masks and required vaccination proof, because I was just too tired. He was empathetic and reminded me that I had three hours to rest, that I already had my ticket, and I could “pop in, even for a little while” if I felt like it. He said that he, too, was discouraged and distressed by how doctors, nurses and election officials were being violently threatened and harassed for just taking care of our health and doing their civic duty, jobs that they had done for decades willingly and sometimes joyfully. But not now.

His kind words were a balm.

Next, I called my 12-year-old grandson on his new cell phone. I said I missed him, and could he please tell me, “I love you, Gramma.” Much to his amusement, he complied with my request. Shortly thereafter his mom called me.

Her advice was akin to the serenity prayer: Don’t worry about the things you can’t change; change the things you can; know the difference; and have a good supper. I had already opened a gluten-free beer (Omission Pale Ale) and was nibbling truffle salami and mozzarella.

After those three phone calls, I noticed it was pre-sunset hour, the time when the most beautiful light bathes my back garden. Glass in hand, I took a stroll. From the ailing baby peach tree to the prolific Asian pear, I observed and complimented my living fruits and vegetables. I gave newly-seeded arugula a gentle shower. I sat, admittedly only a minute or two, but I could feel a slowing down, a letting go.

Next, I switched my kitchen radio dial from evening news to the Giants vs. Colorado Rockies baseball game and there it stayed tuned while I cooked and ate.

With my journal in hand, and baseball game now on TV where I could glance up occasionally from the page to check the score, I wrote down all the Good Things of my day. I made room to note what was still bugging me but found that list had shortened considerably after I relaxed.

Feeling confident that my team had a sizable lead in the late innings, I brushed my teeth, turned down my bed and climbed in. It was barely dark, but I read only a few paragraphs of David Sedaris writing in The New Yorker before I started to doze off.

What I’ve written here is probably no revelation to any working person or parent who is gearing up for the new routine of school after the past 17 months of scary uncertainty. Still, we all must be reminded to love ourselves, and to “put on our own oxygen mask before we assist others in putting on theirs.” Self-care is a necessity.

Since I was a teen, I thought having a summer birthday was the coolest. Looking forward to a midsummer party that included music, dancing and a hint of romance kept me going for the entire month of July. As an adult, the July 29s that marked the decades are the ones I most vividly recall.

At age 40, I was still married, lived in a condo in Rohnert Park, and the party happened poolside. Photo documentation shows I wore black lace, had a hairstyle very short at the neck and curly on top, and served champagne to my crushes of the moment—my Rolfer (hurts so good) and my karate teacher.

At age 50, I was freshly divorced, my parents had just passed away, and I had published a new book of my poems from which I read at the party. This half-century marker was catered by a local celebrity chef with live music provided by the Dave MacNab trio. My brother and sister-in-law were visiting from Chicago, I think it may have been their only visit to me here in California. A friend had allowed me to use her Sebastopol home (large deck, large living room) for the occasion. I repaid her the next day by dumping charcoal that was not quite doused… and burned up her garden shed before an alert neighbor called the fire department.

At age 55, my at-home party was progressing pleasantly to cake cutting when I spilled boiling water from an unstable coffee filter onto the front of my body, causing a second-degree burn on my belly (scar visible to this day). Photos show me lying on the floor, my midsection covered with ice from the party drink chest. I felt fine but friends insisted I go to the emergency room; all the guests departed, too quickly and most without cake. I sadly and reluctantly (nothing hurt) allowed Peter to drive me to Petaluma Valley Hospital where I got salve, a bandage, and pain killers I never took. Medical personnel complimented us on the quick application of ice.

“Sexy Sixty” birthday was a grand affair, with a top-notch party committee and enough money spent to cover a modest wedding. It was held at a local synagogue that was a dance hall when I first moved to Sonoma County, and we made it a dance hall again, with my Argentine tango friends making a positive contribution.  My birthday performance, documented by then-primitive video, was a tango valse with friend Maurice as my teacher-partner. One of my oldest friends, Ashbolt Stewart visiting from Portland, gathered musicians to play rock and roll. Many of my gifts were entertainments provided by those in attendance, including a lap dance from Catherine Rose which I enjoyed thoroughly.

Five years ago, I celebrated the beginning of my “Spectacular Seventy” decade as a combo of birthday and first-time home ownership. We were blessed with great weather and my daughter helped host so I was able to relax and visit with the dozens of folks who blessed the property by showing up with love. Best present was a salsa lesson from Rafael and Isa, and subsequent bootie shaking on the cement patio dance floor.

And now approaches the “diamond anniversary” of my birth. No trip to Italy as I had envisioned. No party grandly produced. Despite the many good things on which I focus, namely being alive and healthy as many of my generation are not, there is exhaustion. With years of Trump disaster and disgrace turning into Trumpism running rampant through the body politic, and vaccine resistance that threatens to erase all our sacrifice and gains of the past 16 months, I am feeling tense and sleepless. I want to be upbeat, and I’m finding it more difficult than I had anticipated.

For the fourth year in a row, my dear Bethrenae is taking me to the beach for a long walk to inhale ocean air. I am anticipating a feeling of appreciation and solace, hoping for a sense of inner peace. At this moment, it’s the birthday gift I want most.

“Testosterone Posse” is the term I’ve coined for male friends who serve as my support system and do some of those things that a male life partner might have done—or I could do for myself if I didn’t crave some yang to balance my yin.

The Posse was vital during the 15 months of coronavirus shutdown. Now that California is on the verge of fully reopening, it’s the right time to give props to some of these special guys.

First there is Kelly Kline, my hair stylist since the early eighties, and always a friend. (I may have tried another salon once or twice but was never happy with the results.) Kelly has listened like a therapist through my divorce and job losses and gains. In the years he was creating outdoor metal sculpture, I attended his exhibits and display one of his pieces in my front yard. He was also the real estate agent who helped me navigate my first home purchase. A renaissance man!

Kelly and I used to talk a lot about sex in the early years of our cut-and-color sessions, excavating topics like stylists whose expertise is shaving pubic hair. From him I learned the word “merkin” which, according to the Urban Dictionary, was a toupee for the pubic area (from a time when hair loss on the genitals was a side effect from using mercury to treat syphilis). That kind of conversation between us has calmed down as we have aged, and now we mostly converse about politics and the state of the world.

The year I bought my house, Kelly introduced me to Gordon Smith. A jack-of-all-trades, Gordon has been mostly at my beck and call for handyman chores for the past five years. Recently described by my tenant as “a tall white guy with a big belly,” he has a heavy New Jersey accent and greets me with “Hi Beautiful,” and “Honey I’m home” when he comes over to work.

Gordon has completed jobs little and big, from sealing unused cat doors to replacing the sink in my back house and miscellaneous repairs in my rental. He power-washed and stained my front deck and helped remove the wood stove in my living room, which required breaking up the stone slab it rested on, pulling the stovepipe up through the roof and sealing the chimney. This Spring, he installed kitchen fixtures and rebuilt two rotted out garden beds. Most embarrassing, and telling, I suppose, was his stopping by to assist when I telephoned an SOS as I struggled with the seemingly simple task of changing a vacuum cleaner bag! He set me straight with a laugh and then was off.

I suspect Gordon and I might not see eye to eye on some things, but my affection for him, and his for me, make me believe that bipartisanship is possible.

A third indispensable cohort is Geo Howard, a friend since the early 1990s when he was a guitarist/percussionist in my ex-husband’s spoken word band. Geo is a fine songwriter, dedicated musician and works as the operations and IT manager for Santa Rosa’s Community Matters, a safe-schools and anti-bullying advocacy and training nonprofit.

Geo was the first person I allowed to enter my house, albeit masked, in March 2020, to help me update my iMac’s operating system and coach me in the new world of Zoom meetings and other technical necessities—all this has made viable my freelance career as a “well-fed writer.” I so appreciate his unending patience when things take longer than expected, his help in formatting my new laptop, his troubleshooting and problem-solving expertise, his many, many hours spent (I must thank his partner, Margie, for her tolerance of his absence on weekend afternoons) and his calm response to the panicked texts I send when my computer stops working.

Geo has also been a long-time supporter of my poetry-performing career, acting as a sound man at the release party for my book, Poetry, Politics and Passion, and being a non-stop booster when I’ve felt my creativity flagging.
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The Testosterone Posse has expanded and contracted as good, kind men have passed through and enriched my life for short or longer periods of time. My dance instructors (Zach Crawford, Nate Anderson, Rafael Candelas, Jasper Oudemans, Mark Novak and John Ross) are special individuals whose unique talents changed me for the better. Will Wade, who lived in my granny unit for only six weeks and helped me believe I could succeed as a landlord, christened me “Wonder Woman” for my s/heroic efforts to make the yard and garden beautiful.

Now that I’ve written this overdue acknowledgement, it seems the list of eligible gentlemen is endless!

With apologies to my writing teacher and mental health ally Dan Cochnear, as well as the multi-talented “wrecking ball with heart” David Brownstein, following are four Honorable Mentions — unwitting members of Jennie’s Testosterone Posse who supported my well-being during Covid-19.

Johnny Jones, built my new front yard fence and made many a trip to the dump to help me clear out the last of the debris at the back of my property. He also bravely crawled through my attic to complete the stovepipe removal process and plastered the ceiling to conceal its scar. He was there to rescue me when I had a car radiator breakdown in Oliver’s parking lot and teases me with promises to ride in his new boat when there is enough water in our lakes to float it.

Chris Young, of Christopher Young Financial Services, secured the loan for my first home in 2016, helped me re-finance in 2021, and “loves” my 1991 Honda Accord Wagon.

Dr. Les Shipley has kept my eyes healthy, my contact lenses clear, and provided fashion-forward (and necessary) sunglasses for me since 1980.

Dr. James O’Neal, my chiropractor for 23 years with whom I have an easy rapport, never fails to comment on any interesting socks I wear. I have deep appreciation for his healing skills and caring attitude.

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Females are not absent from my support community, but my sisters are not so much “other” as part of my own body and soul. To thank them would be like thanking my breath, my blood, my eyes and ears. A catalogue of women who influenced me, living and the dead, would take many pages.