Another Poet in The House

Geri Lipshultz is from New York, another friend of my friend, Diane. Passionate and shy simultaneously, her vulnerability was offered up and her audience of seven listened trustingly. As she warmed to her material and the situation, we also warmed. The childlike element in her earnest delivery opened our hearts to what she had to say.

She was brave in choosing the most difficult, the most complicated story for her first poem. The little book in her hands is a longish prose poem and it is in the first person voice of her Chinese mother-in-law: a woman who she loved and longed to understand, a woman who disliked her, thinking she was never good enough for her son. It was after the woman had died that she was able to piece together some of the history that had so drastically affected her mother-in-law's life, and thence hers as her daughter-in-law. It had to do with Japanese soldiers and their violent use of the women in her family. It had to do with experiences she could not speak of. 

Yet on Thursday night, her voice was heard, somewhat tremulously, but with great love and compassion from a daughter-in law that cared enough to tell her story. 

Geri went on to some lighter poems, and we all relaxed into the pure pleasure of being there in such an atmosphere, feeling the lovely energy, acknowledging the rapport existing among us all. Was my father present? Well... His self-portrait is visible just behind and above Geri's head, his expression seriously attentive, as is the expression of his younger son, my brother, John. See him in the extra which shows the warm response of the small audience.