UPON WAKING: New and Selected Poems 1977 -2017

by Kitty Costello

Overview

Selected from 40 years of Kitty Costello's San Francisco writings, these poems traverse mythic, political, and spiritual landscapes, permeated with themes of awakening.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780915117284
Publisher:	Freedom Voices
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Pages:	113
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.28(d)

About the Author

Kitty Costello is descended mostly from potato-famine refugees who fled Ireland in the 1860s. Farmers, teachers, herdsmen, machinists, coal miners--they settled mainly in the Midwest, in Ohio and South Dakota, where her parents were born. Costello was born in Washington, DC. Her earliest years were spent in rural Maryland on the grounds of an institution where her social-worker father took care of people with extreme physical and mental disabilities. She was schooled by the Sisters of Notre Dame at Catholic University's grade school in DC. Then public school rounded out her education, as did the upheavals and uprisings of the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s and '70s. Moving to San Francisco in 1977, she worked for thirty years for the San Francisco Public Library, while also practicing Shaolin kung fu and working as a teacher, an editor, and a social justice organizer. She earned a master's degree in social psychology, specializing in labor and mental health, and in recovery from trauma. She currently has a small psychotherapy practice and leads meditation, writing and tai chi classes. Ongoing participation in local writing communities has been essential to her writer's journey and sparked many of her most cherished lifetime friendships. She is literary trustee for native Alaskan writer Mary TallMountain. She created a library archive for the 70-year-old San Francisco Writers Workshop, and she is writing a history of that group. Working with Freedom Voices, she has helped give voice to marginalized writers and artists, especially in San Francisco's Tenderloin District, for nearly thirty years. Costello lives with her husband and three cats in San Francisco's Mission District. This is her first collection of poetry.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 8

Preface 9

JOURNEY 11

The Other 13

Journey 14

Tetons 15

Hau’ula Haiku 16

Aftershocks 17

Sentience 18

The Work He Must Do 20

Rebirth 21

Reading Cold Mountain 22



INVITATION 23

Invitation 25

Secrets 26

Menarche 27

Offering 28

Anima 29

Archery 30

Cure 31

Your Poem 32

TAPROOT 35

The “M” Word 37

Grandmother Haiku 38

Holy Saturday 40

Easter Mourn 41

the watched god 42

The Second Leaving 43

Our Father 45

PREPARATIONS 47

Overview 49

Vet 50

Nine Haiku For A Locked Temple 51

To Fast Eddie 52

Blindspots 54

Overview 2 55

Thirty-Nine Haiku For Manuel Babbitt 56

Preparations of a Warrior 60

NOCTURNE 61

Haiku 63

Dream of the Hermit Card 64

Dream of the Bear 65

Nocturne 66

Somewhere Beyond the Rain 67

Dream on Easter Morning 68

Old Moon 69

My Old Friend, the Dark 70

Spring Equinox Dream 72z



TRIBUTES 73

Elderwoman 75

For Alya 76

The Writer’s Vigil 77

My Prayer for You 78

Small Poem 80

Chant for Going Home 81

Too Soon, Carlos, Too Soon 82

Grief and Loss 83

PLAY 85

How to Simplify Your Life in Ten Easy Steps 86

Haiku 87

Housecleaning Haiku 88

Out of the Hat 89

Siren Song 90

Picking Procumbens (Blackberries) 92

Haiku 93

Ode to the Pelvis 94

Being a Full-on Genuine All-the-Way Poet Poet 96



UPON WAKING 99

No Self 101

I Mind 102

Impermanence 103

Fierce Grace 104

Meditation Hall Haiku 105

Marana Sati 106

Dedicating the Merit 108

Last Day of Retreat 110

Upon Waking 111

About the Poet 115

Editorial Reviews

"These brilliantly lyrical affirmations in the poetry of Kitty Costello reveal that the soul of the streets of San Francisco is among the freest and most defiant in the world. Her truths overturn the deceit of our times. A triumph for the People." --Jack Hirschman

From the Publisher