July 14, 2005 (Profile of Angela Howe-Decker in the Ashland Daily Tidings, click here for original article)
A poet grows in Ashland
By Cindy Blankenship
For the Tidings
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Dragonfly A dragonfly hovers overhead It’s a gesture of pure intent, The sun gleams his fingertips A small green yard,
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Artist Sketch Name: Angela Howe-Decker Hails From: Northern California, Ashland since 2004 Age: 37 Training: B.A. in Literature, U.C. Santa Cruz; masters in English/creative writing, Notre Dame de Namur University; various poetry workshops and seminars. Claim to Fame: Helped incorporate Saturday Poets into a non-profit that hosts seminars and workshops. Niche: Contemporary free verse poetry. Inspiration: Classic poets like John Donne and Edgar Allen Poe. |
When Angela Howe-Decker wrote “Dragonfly,” she was doing something she never imagined she would. “I figured I wouldn’t have time to write when the baby came, but this was so far from the truth. And I wasn’t going to write mushy mommy poems.”
Mason Decker, now 2 years old, was 6 months old when Howe-Decker wrote “Dragonfly,” which proved to be only the first of many poems she wrote about Mason and will likely write about her now eight-month-old, Leo Decker. This particular “mushy mommy” poem earned her first place in the 2004 Ina Coolbrith Circle poetry contest.
It’s only natural the contemporary free verse poet would write poems about her children, considering almost all of her poetry is draws from her own life.
“It’s easy to draw from personal experience and find that one universal core,” she notes.
While she’s expressing her personal feelings, she says she’s also aware the poem will be shared. “It’s using the right language … making it solid and strong and something that someone can walk away with. I want to capture the feeling I’m feeling, like this a really joyful moment. It’s hard, but it’s fun.”
Howe-Decker’s poetry has been published in The Comstock Review, the Wisconsin Review, the Red Rock Review, Hip Mama Magazine, The Sand Hill Review, and online at SF Station and Convergence, and it will soon appear in the 2005 Tebot Bach anthology of California poets.
She’s also been a featured reader at poetry events such as the MindGrind reading series in Petaluma and the Marin Poetry Center’s Summer Traveling Show. Preparing for a drive to the Bay Area where she’ll be a featured poet at a Saturday Poets event, she says, “I enjoy hearing other people’s poems; I enjoy sharing my poems.”
A founding member of Saturday Poets, Howe-Decker helped incorporate it into a nonprofit and hopes new members will join her and another San Mateo transplant, Susan Aaronsen, in an Ashland chapter.
Saturday Poets is a writing circle focusing on contemporary free verse and promoting poetry in San Mateo, Ashland and elsewhere. The group sponsors monthly readings and is planning a literary magazine.
Before moving to Ashland last October with her husband, a design architect, Angela taught literature at Notre Dame de Namur University and English at the College of San Mateo. The couple moved here to raise their children and work in a quieter, slower-paced environment.
“I love it,” she says with a big smile in her voice. “Everybody here has been so nice. It’s a lovely town.”
When her babies are a bit older, Howe-Decker hopes to teach poetry again. She especially enjoys teaching teens.
“I’m a big fan of everybody writing poetry,” she says. “Once you condense something into that small poetry capsule, you’re going to get the kernel of what you’re talking about, the emotions of what you are celebrating or bemoaning. Try it. You never know what you’re going to discover.”
One of the greatest joys she says she finds in creating a poem is “to preserve one little moment, celebrating that one little piece in time. If there is any recurring theme to my poetry is how special these simple moments in time are.”
October 19, 2004
Finding a pocket of poetry on Peninsula
Elizabeth Jardina, STAFF WRITER
To understand the scope of Amy MacLennan's commitment to poetry, consider her answering machine message.
"Hi. This is Amy. I am either at my kitchen table, getting terribly frustrated writing a poem and smudging ink everywhere, or I'm not home. In the meantime I'll leave you with these lines from Adrienne Rich's poem, 'Midnight Salvage':
'This condition in which you swear I will
submit to whatever poetry is
I accept no limits Horrible patience.'"
Poetry -- which for many people is no more than a requirement in a long-ago English class -- is a tangible force in MacLennan's life, and in the lives of her colleagues in the Saturday Poets.
The writers gather every other weekend to discuss and critique their work. They also sponsor monthly poetry readings and open-mic nights at the coffee shop Il Piccolo in Burlingame. The next one is at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Amy Miller, another Saturday Poet, joined the group about five years ago. Now 42, she started writing poetry as a teen.
A production editor at a book publisher in San Francisco, Miller says she realized about 10 years ago that if she wanted to be a writer, she should take it seriously.
"By that time I was older, and I realized that (writing) was what I wanted to do," she says. "And time was running out and I'd better get started with it."
The monthly poetry series at Il Piccolo was the brainchild of the coffee shop's owner, Dave Armanino, and Saturday Poet Robert Hoppensteadt.
"We noticed there was nothing going on on the mid-Peninsula," Miller says. "There's the city and there's Palo Alto and there's Half Moon Bay, but there was nothing in between."
So far, the nights have been a success, with 30 to 40 people attending -- some to read their poetry, some just to listen.
Wednesday's featured poet is Steve Arnston.
"To say that he reads is not quite doing justice to him," Miller says. "He's somewhere toward the area of slam poetry, but he's not quite a slammer.
His poems tend to be quite long, very convoluted, very complicated. He reads with this speed -- it's an amazing feat of theater, even if he loses you on all the twists and turns."
Miller says the poets were a little surprised at first by the open-mic's popularity, especially because in terms of pop culture, poetry is about as relevant as silent film.
"I feel poetry's making a comeback, but it's a long and slow process," Miller says. "It's kind of like steering a big ship. A lot of times people think that poetry is going to be over their heads or difficult."
To counter those ideas, Miller recommends the poems of Anne Sexton, Donald Justice and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. She also recommends the simply titled "Good Poems" (Penguin Books, $15), collected by "A Prairie Home Companion" voice Garrison Keillor, and Collins' "Poetry 180: Turning Back to Poetry" (Random House, $13.95).
Miller says poetry's power lies in brevity.
"It's like getting an energy bar," she says. "It's compact. You can get a whole short story out of a 20-line poem. All that's left is the nutrients; everything else is stripped out. All the filler is gone in a poem."
Elizabeth Jardina is a Bay Area Living staff writer. E-mail her at ejardina@sanmateocountytimes.com or call (650) 348-4327.
(c) 2004 San Mateo County Times. All rights reserved. Reproduced
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