Susan Baugh made a terrific suggestion today. She wrote, "I’m so glad so many are remembering Judi the way she would want to be remembered. It occurred to me that she was the one who always read the collective poem at Skidmore. Do you think it would be appropriate to post an ongoing add–a-line poem in her memory? No one ever signed those as far as I know."
Yes, I do think that's appropriate, Susan, because we associate those annual poems with Judi's amazing ability to craft something extraordinary out of our single lines. How wonderful that she's still guiding us toward that collective poem.
Anyone who wants to add a line, please do so as a Comment to this post. Click "Anonymous" as the post ID, and when you submit, the line will be added. To view the lines, click the link on the left-hand side of the page that reads "Our Add-a-Line Poem for Judi."
Who wants to be first?
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Our Add-a-Line Poem for Judi
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The Maine gray sky framed the view from the porch swing
built years ago by her beloved
Through an infinite window, names
to see the world: blue-tipped
lupines, the Bagaduce River,
casada tacos with green sauce.
Breathless, reckless abandon,
peasant skirt flying in her wake,
riding the Harley to Boston on a whim.
You've been a bright star in
my life
A guiding light for my
thoughts
and my pen.
Selfishly, I'll miss you
At Skidmore
In Maine
At Punderson
In writing
letters
cards
outloud
online. love and peace
60 and a circle completes, you, armed with pen and prompts, corralled stories, corrupted our sense of not enough.
My poem for Judi is appropriately titled: "No Day But Today."
Judi lovingly sculpted life in the passing digits of each day,
day after day after day
And so many were blessed,
life after life after life
That's the way Barbara Garro, Regional Representative of Saratoga Springs, NY, remembers Judi K. Beach, lovingly doing and blessing so many for so many years.
even now
i hear a twinkling bell
swirling 'round a diamond-shiny
spell
-- it's you! Winking!
So clever! ;)
Playful, gentle
ours forever,
giggling
You, bright sun on the breeze
i'll write, and listen -- promise
-- and hear you in my heart, like always
Although I didn't know Judi very well, I could sense her good spirit of creativity, kindness, and friendship. I will miss her occasional email, seeing her at Skidmore, and will miss just knowing she is around. I suppose she IS still around: we can invoke her spirit, and I know that she will respond with her characteristic gentleness and love.
Through the open window of her chest, a comet with a sparkling rainbow tail emerges, speeding towards the heavens, laughter and watersound bubbling in its wake.
Your beaming smile
your satin voice
of the earth
all shades of blue
Barbara Hyde Haber
If the hope and the dreams that you, in your magnificence, have inspired in all of us were music, Judi, then the entire world would dance; in one large circle.
Your light so brilliant
illuminating galaxies
now that you have the answers to every question
you and I have asked
we can feel the beams of your smile
the whisper of your spirit everywhere.
the Sedgwick bandit
She floats in the garden of beautiful souls.
Remembering Judi from Brookdale Community College in New Jersey
Brookdale has made nests for a variety of rare birds. One of these was Judi Miles Beach. Her Job description was Writing Learning Lab Assistant but she was, up one side and down the other, pure teacher. For ten years I was glad to join her Friday morning Writers’ Bloc Round Table participating as one among many equals, a true community. All comers welcome. Bring your own pad and pencil and pull up a chair.
Our regulars were people who had some earlier association with Brookdale, a casual course perhaps, who wanted to keep writing. Among these would be a few currently enrolled students.
Where else, I often wondered, could an eighteen year old male college freshman be privy to the most private musing of women his mother’s age. Or where could a seventeen year old girl read a seventy plus veteran’s reminiscences and imagine what it would have felt like to be his wartime sweetheart.
Judi presided with a purpose: make a list of one syllable abstractions. Then she would have us concretize it: color, size, shape. What does it eat? what does it fear? what does it play with?
Believe me, anyone at the table with a need or will to write, did. I know she coaxed some of my best writing out of me, a portfolio – Writers’ Bloc from Judi’s Friday Mornings.
During those years our output was brought to the public in the once a year Community Writers evenings she produced. No audition or pre-editing. She was sometimes faulted for permissiveness. This was before American Idol. It was reality-reality. She printed programs and so formalized the event that most of the content was pretty good, and all of it was earnest.
I should add that Judi was herself a working poet. She had more creative energy than she could contain so she let it overflow into the Writing Lab.
Judi made me believe that, even though I wasn't a poet, I could write poetry simply by paying attention to the world around me.
I will miss her.
A majestic dollop of whipped cream cloud hovering over Maine, watching, protecting, laughing and loving.
The ocean of deep blue sky
with wispy cirrus mist
is her inscription
on the heavens
Though I never met her
may she be at peace
that we here on earth
have not yet obtained
Thank you Judi
I wanted to say how Judi made an impact on me in that she was such a creative person, and brought it out in all that she did and all of whom she had known. She gave beauty to all the right places, and she will be surely missed. I am grateful for all that she has given and I wish for her to have all that beauty given back to her.
In Memoriam,
Joy Willow Weissman
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