August 16, 2010
6:59 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

When was the last time you asked yourself the Robinson Crusoe Question and made a list of the items you’d most want to have if castaway from civilization?

This question came up for a group of us, after reading “The Portable Phonograph,” a short story about the last survivors of a war that has destroyed virtually all forms of life and human endeavor. In this Walter Van Tilburg Clark classic, the few men who remain meet around a peat fire once a week. The gathering involves a single play of one of a dozen worn records on the phonograph that the character of Dr. Jenkins has carried through the apocalypse. One evening, a stranger — a sick young musician — joins the communion. For this special occasion, Dr. Jenkins announces that he will use one of the three remaining steel needles, rather than a thorn, and selects a Debussy Nocturne. Before this ritual, however, Dr. Jenkins shares a bit of his tale. Like, a “prehistoric priest,” he unwraps a sacred bundle, explaining in a reverential hush that when he understood the end was coming, he knew what he must bring…..

June 17, 2010
3:03 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

I awoke at 4 am on Sunday morning to fly home to California. I had been in Pennsylvania, attending the West Chester Poetry Conference, and was leaving the company of some of the greatest living poets to catch my son’s baseball team play in their league championship. At the airport, I read from a few favorite collections by Wendy Cope and Dana Gioia, and newer works from A.E. Stallings, Rhina Espaillat, and Chelsea Rathburn. As I turned the pages, I began to wonder about the way these poems will affect my son when he starts to read them in earnest. He will have his own joy and sadness, his own memories and dreams to act as counterpoint and compass through these worlds of words. I suppose I am excited for all that life has in store for him, but still I worry. For me to sit in a quiet airport crying seems no great matter — sorrows, whether large or small, can be blessings, as many poems reveal. Yet, every parent wants to protect.

May 19, 2010
3:27 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

I sat in a church pew for the first time in a long while this Saturday evening. I heard angels singing, each to each - and, they sang for me. This is notable.

I used to joke that I was an “Episcopatheist,” largely because it sounded witty, but also because I’ve honestly never felt genuine proximity to a higher presence, neither while reading scripture nor while listening to a sermon. I have tried. Yet to me, the Bible has always been more a work of literature than a sacred text, and the closest thing I’ve ever felt to holy ground is the shifting memory of weather that appears (and disappears) as an ocean wave.

March 30, 2010
5:23 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

Are you a known “noticer?” Do you pick oddities up along the way – broken bits, torn treasures, or rubbed down things? When I collect such castaways from the beaten path, I imagine that they’ve been fate-flung in my direction to form some mysterious match in the bootleg collection of my life’s mixtape.

Like a shell whose intense fragility is only revealed when balanced on a battered branch of driftwood, so much of what one encounters in life only makes fullest sense when a very different piece of the whole falls into place. Does that sound too much like an opener for Days of our Lives? I’m neither a poet nor a prophet, but I do posit that it pays to notice things, and people, and possibilities. Nothing is the only thing to fear. Try this…

December 30, 2009
5:43 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

I don’t go in for New Year’s resolutions, but I do have a tradition of looking back to look forward. I make a little list of what was naughty and nice about the old year, with an eye to better visioning the brightening horizon. Sometimes, my year-end list is full of places, events, decisions, and experiences. 2009 will forever be marked by people — and poetry. In ways actual and metaphorical, poetry punctuates not only how I met certain luminous personages in this passing year, but how I shall endeavor to befriend more in the next.

November 25, 2009
12:01 am

posted by
Tamsin Smith

Enter the season of Thanksgiving. Time to get our gratitude on. My list is long – I’ve been swimming in gravy. It’s not been any one event or experience that makes it so, just a steady succession of little stoke-filled moments that encapsulate a life worth loving. Most of these pleasure pills have been poured into my welcoming palms by people –old friends and new – who, in plain but weighty ways, show me how good and beautiful simple connections can be. I like to be moved, and these folks stir me strong. As you inventory the things to spread out on the table November 26th, register the treats that lay ahead and behind. Nibble hungrily upon the notion of joy, laughter, kindness, patience, love. Feed the beast….

October 31, 2009
10:43 am

posted by
Tamsin Smith

I’ve just returned from the post office. Ostensibly, I was mailing a toner cartridge back to the manufacturer for recycling. However, as I confessed to Dave — the friend I ran into along the way — I was just using the errand as an excuse to wander around a bit. I awoke this morning with an itch to write, but it was more of an all-over tingling sensation, rather a specified spot that wanted scratching. So, I was hoping that a couple loops around the block might help narrow me in on a target.

October 9, 2009
9:42 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

by Bobby Shriver and Tamsin Smith

Don Fisher thought big. And he liked to compete. Whether creating the most recognized casual apparel company in the world at Gap, or actively growing KIPP’s national network of free, open-enrollment college preparatory public schools, Don challenged people to see the power of leveraging single successes into game-changing impact. When Don got behind an idea, he put not just his considerable personal influence and resources behind it; he rolled up his sleeves and worked. He was never afraid to put himself out there for what he believed was right.

September 21, 2009
5:02 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

My pal Henry called the other day: “Hey, this is right up your alley. My friend’s been reading Finnegans Wake aloud since yesterday afternoon at the corner of Grove and Larkin. I was there until 2am. Meet me there for lunch, eh?” First, let me make clear that one needn’t have conquered James Joyce’s seminal stream of consciousness story in order for the remainder of this blog to make sense. This is important to note, as roughly 4 out of 5 English Literature professors admit that “get through” is a more accurate verb than “read’ in describing full-frontal immersion in Joyce’s last bit of masterwork. Second, it might be worth noting that, to MapQuesters, the corner at which this event took place represents the southeast edge of San Francisco’s City Hall plaza; but, to residents of the City by the Bay, it’s a place infamous as the stumbling ground for lot of peeps who are heavily into a different kind of experimental dream state. Third, I got a huge adrenaline rush from this news. Is that normal? Let’s leave that last question for another blog and just get on with this one….

September 2, 2009
9:53 pm

posted by
Tamsin Smith

It’s the time of year I ask myself: “To go, or not to go…” Like Hamlet’s soliloquy, which this paraphrases, the query relates to life itself. Hamlet was questioning whether to live or die; I’m only asking how to do the former most fully. More specifically, I’m wondering if I should make the journey out to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man.