Reflections of a Mississippi Magnolia:
A Life in Poems, by Patricia Neely-Dorsey
Grant House Publishers, (2007)
ISBN: 978-0-9796294-2-6
Softback: $15.00, 89 pages


Poetry is subjective in that it is transpired from the mind of a person whose life experiences, events, feelings about their observations and interactions, location, and period in humankind, causes the words to evolve almost into its own persona. The poetry, in other words, is a reflection of the Poet, as the Poet travels through their life and times to which the words and poetry are significant.
Patricia Neely-Dorsey is definitely a Southern Poet in that she speaks of an identity in her book of poems called Reflections of a Mississippi Magnolia that can be acutely understood best, by a Southerner. Thus, we can say that the identity or persona created in this book of poems is parochial in some sense, yet it is universal in another sense.


When one thinks of a parochial meaning, or person, we might think of such as insular, unsophisticated. The Poet here speaks of Mississippi distinctly, and the people in her particular life, the neighborhood, the conventions, and culture of her surroundings, as in "Making Cracklings":
First you have to kill a hog
Then, carefully take off the skin;
Cut it up in little squares,
And then the fun begins.
Take a big, black, iron pot,
Then, put in some lard'
As you'll see, it's quite simple,
Nothing very hard...


In this way, Neely-Dorsy creates a sense of a limited consciousness; a narrow-minded, child-like perspective, and even as "the child" grows up, there is this child-like sense of observation in that southern mentality. "Little Miss Perfect" exemplifies this observation:
I knew a little girl when I was young,
Who wore two pigtails across her head;
I thought she was the cutest thing,
And this, I often said,
Over the years, I watched her,
She was always quiet, likeable and smart;
To me, she seemed so perfect,
And had life down to an art....


In "Southern Night (Southern Style)" Neely-Dorsy exacts the emotions one would experience while sitting on a porch, staring out into the warm Southern sky:
Moths flicker `round the front porch light
Fireflies are taking flight
The sun has disappeared from sight
And all around the sounds of night.
Everything is warm and still
A sense of calm that one can feel
The moon shines bright over yonder hill
Can all this loveliness be real?


So on the one hand, this parochial sense is implicated by the language, "yonder hill" and from her experience in a Mississippi Southern moment.
On the other hand, however, these emotions can be felt supposing, on the Afghanistan border by some soldier sitting guard, looking out into the blazing heat of night. Neely-Dorsey then, while speaking of her own hometown, and her own particular love of the Southern Mississippi locale, and lifestyle, touches upon those universal sensations that anyone can claim. Further, it can be read to meet so many levels of emotions, and even ages of people, that such a "local" feel can touch someone even on the other side of the world; everyone has after all, their sense of place, their landscape in mind; their quiet inner observer of life, love, joy and sorrow.
Mississippi Magnolia


Home is where the heart is,
That's what they always say;
Well, my heart is Mississippi's,
In the most profoundest way;
It's who I am,
It's what I like,
It's everything to me;
A Mississippi magnolia girl
Is all I'll ever be.


Patricia Neely-Dorsey is a Poet of that fair Southern spirit, but she is also leagues with poets like Robert Frost, or Elizabeth Bishop, who wrote in that seemingly simple read, yet addressed universally and infinitely one's soul. A book of poetry that one can contemplate upon, consider in every aspect of a life in any city, country of world.


Reviewed by Elle Nolan-Ruiz
Founder | Creator,
International Books Cafe

Again....the ACT of Living Your Thoughts...

I watched a film about the life of Stanley Kubrick. I think I am intrigued by this director because it is curious to me how his family being Jewish of culture, did not define their religious beliefs in the same vein. In fact Kubrick, as a child, never observed the typical Jewish rites such as a Bar Mitzvah, which would have signaled a relation to the Jewish faith. Yet, he had a quality very much like those who are fundamentalists in any religion: he was hounded by perfectionism. 


His father being a physician, and their family having had a wealthy economic standing in the Bronx neighborhood, in the 40s, must have had an influence in his character. I thought this to be a truth about him and how his parents raised him. That Stanley Kubrick was not a showy young man, even though he was probably richer than most of his friends, but that he was introverted, played intensely the game of chess with his father, which is a thinking man's game--as they say-- and, he was an acute observer of everything and anything. This piqued my interest as well, since I happened to have the same qualities of perfectionism and observations of others to a fault.


As he grew older, he loved photography, and pretty much could care less what anyone thought of the matter of his having absolutely no interest in school. In fact, he was on paper a less than average student, although in reality he was a greater than average intellectual child. 


Being a poor student into high school this might not have been too treacherous for the boy, but after high school, and having had no interest in college still, one might begin to worry--especially parents. The young man had only interest in photography and in chess. So what do good parents do? They foster the interest. And they did. After his father invested in photo equipment for a dark room, Stanley went to work introvertedly and as a person who did not seemingly miss too many people in his life, and began to pursue his own love of photography. It wasn't long when he began sending his photos to magazines--famous ones--and it was sooner yet, that they began to pay him for the photos, and he became a regular contributor to such magazines as Life, and newspapers as well. About this time, he was in his early twenties when he began to turn his focus on movies. I followed the series of his years and found that his fame began in his mid twenties. That fact alone is simply something for people to say he was a genius. But in his case, we could say he not only was a genius, but no one could even recognize this for he was so controversial with everything and everyone he work on and with. Later, of course, people in the movie industry would say he was way ahead of his time. But what I wanted to focus on was not so much his career but between the actual blockbuster (or not) movies he created. He was noted for his difficulty in getting along with others, for taking very long in creating the "perfect" scene, and in not finishing until he felt absolutely, perfectly sure it was finished to perfection. He did not keep with deadlines but worked in angst of everyone around him, because he had to do it all, and it had to be done as he saw it had to happen. He was a very hard to handle individual indeed, which means, no one ever did handle him at all.


Sure. He died at the ripe old age of 70'ish, but the last movie was telling of his whole lifetime, when papers were reporting his illness began to get the best of him, as he tried to finish the movie, ignoring those who were pressuring him to get it done "on time," for the budget's sake--or at least it seemed he was ignoring them: more likely he was again in silent angst attempting to be the perfectionist he was while being surrounded by those who cared only about the commercial end of things. If this was the theme of his lifetime, I cannot imagine how easy it might have been, but instead I can easily see how difficult it must have been being Stanley Kubrick.

So I speak of one man, and his character. What drives someone to be such a perfectionist. What makes someone into a machine of perfectionism? What causes someone to retreat from the masses and form an alliance with only one's self, charging into life forward alone, and against the grain. This is my interest: what makes anyone who they are? We could interject and contemplate til Kingdom come, but let's try and find some real form to this theme, in my next blog.

Okay, I promised I'd be back with more on the "general" topic I spoke about the other day, to delve more deeply into the quote: "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me." The premise of my serial of blogs is that: 

thoughts and thereby "words" CAN hurt you. 

Words, which begin in thoughts, have more power in one's life than one realizes.


As a child, and having been raised by a preacher, I got an earful of Bible Scriptures whether I wanted them or not. Being a precocious child I questioned every one of those quotes that I was expected to live by, just in case I wanted to refute them, especially those I thought I should analyze before incorporating them into my playful life. I was probably about the age between 6 and 9 years old. Then we separated from my father, and that was the beginning of a more serious endeavor about my main topic for today.


Anyway, the reason for this introduction goes back to the idea of thoughts and words. How can words, which derive from thoughts, affect our lives?


My father once told me that people should not pine. Why, I wondered? He said that it was bad for the soul. He said that pining was different than repentance, because it did not stop a person from changing their habits about sin. The example was Lot's wife: the woman who turned to salt. I saw this woman changing literally into salt. This was my first experience with metaphoric language.


Pining was an indication that one felt remorse or regret about things that they could not let go of, and it  brought about despair, which was loss of hope. And despair brought dryness to the bones, which meant that people would get sick. And dryness to the bones brought early death. I was intrigued by this imagery. 


You would have to know my father to understand how he taught things to me. Everything he taught was given in entertaining way, such as a song, an act, or just a gentle story on a lesson in life. He was charismatic, entertaining, and a fine humorist, too. If anyone has ever seen the movie "Elmer Gantry" with the great Burt Lancaster as the artful preacher man, this is the kind of person my father was. 

I began to imagine people being sad, then their bones turning to dust, and of course a quick and sudden death--somehow--very similar to the woman made of salt.


So when my mother announced that Grandpa had died suddenly and we needed to move to L.A. I began to suspect my grandfather might have been pining for something, and this is why he died suddenly. I watched my relatives intensely. These grown-ups were crying and lamenting over Grandpa's death. This made me very sad because they kept saying he was gone forever. I deduced that this was an example of pining.


The idea of Pining and despairing and dying was melded into my brain after this, and I vowed--in a thought (or maybe imagery at that young age)--that I would study this topic for the rest of my life. There were other things about me I had not yet known. I was exceptionally creative, highly compassionate,  and inherently romantic--and I was good at communicating as well as my father was.


After Grandpa died, and we moved to L.A., I observed the nature and behavior of everyone with whom I came into contact, from relatives to classmates, to teachers, to the post and milk men. I watched for signs of pining, and got pretty good at reading peoples' personalities, watching their behaviors and the things they talked about to me, or each other. 


I theorized that some people were innately romantic about everything they did and saw. Some people were stoic and seemingly uncaring, while others were deeply compassionate, and pined often over everything more than was healthy for them. And then I would secretly seek out information to help me understand them: how were they doing physically--were they well? Were they getting sick? How did they FEEL? I became a child Sherlock Holmes.


For me it was like an investigative puzzle I had to complete. I was curious why I was such a serious little person at 10 years old, writing stories, songs, and poetry, usually sitting by a window crying, or imagining me in a movie, or singing songs, or writing scripts for my friends to act out. 

I lived so much in my mind that most of the time I missed whatever others were saying to me directly, and soon I picked up the nickname "space cadet." Which is to say, I was always thinking about other than where I was, and I was always somewhere else other than with those around me, (except when I was observing them).


As I grew up I was concerned with people having lingered too long in sadness or as my father would say, pining. What on earth could they be longing for, or what had happened to them that made them yearn so? Why couldn't they let things go? I became an expert observer, and discovered a forum where I could read articles about such mental processes. 


At the age of 12, I discovered Psychology Today, and read it religiously. My father drifted in and out of our lives every now and then, and tried to convince my mother to move with him into a safer neighborhood. About the time I was in my teens--14 years old--he found a place east of the city, in the suburbs; not quite East LA, but close to it. My mother finally accepted, and we moved with him, for a time.

All this distraction did not change my life's work on finding out what made people happy, sad, laugh, love, live, or die. I learned a lot from the movies on television, how the characters dealt with death, with love, and with loss of any kind, even simply growing up. I started to wonder about the people who made the movies--were the characters created by the writers/directors acting out what those movie makers were really thinking about? I could not help wondering what went on in their heads that made them do what they did, and cause them to make the next step in their life, or to kill themselves even, like Ernest Hemingway. This became my central life pursuit: to find out how peoples' metaphysical thoughts could actually change them physically, or change the way they defined themselves in their lives--or even change others around them, by their influence. 


I have spoken a little about Stanley Kubrick, the famous director/camera aficionado, and script writer. He came to my attention just before he died because he was directing the movie (and written) with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise "Eyes Wide Shut," which was in his usual dark perspective. I was attempting to begin this whole conversation about thoughts to words, to character, with Kubrick and that his thoughts were his eventual illness and death, as his movies were indicators of his thoughts. I deduced, through reading articles about his professional way of working on his movies, his work helped create a lot of stress in his private life. 
http://abcnews.go.com/Archives/video/march-1999-stanley-kubrick-dies-13075245


I plan to use a lot of peoples' lives as examples of their thoughts in action, including my own, and it would be helpful if I acquired comments and thoughts of readers, for this may well become my PhD work.


Since blogs are only meant to give a short essay on a topic, to the mass readership, I will carry on through a serial of blogs. But consider this succinct idea: when one falls in love, and one longs for that lover in their life, and cannot have that one person....it actually hurts [the person pining] the body's health, and can have an adverse affect on the person. 


Do you agree with me? We experience this in our own lives as well as those most close to us. This is something I would like for us all to think about...

How can an original thought turn into a whole mental conversation with cue words, and create change in the body?

Perhaps we should contemplate this thought with the idea of Kubricks "monolith" in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey" 

...I'll be back... 

Skippin to the Beat of a Thought...

As in life, doctors have discovered that one's heart beats. We all have that problem, right? While I'm being facetious, I am making a loftier point than my satiric beginnings here. I am thinking about our thoughts--and the many, many of them--that come through the head, sometimes without our even being aware that they have gone out just as fast as they have come into the concrete cranium. 


These thoughts are considered benign, as they do not stay long enough, which assumes they are not even important, and therefore, they are not effective in our psyche, health, or well-being...but are they benign? Can they be potentially harmful if habitually dark and brooding? Let's consider this more closely.


Consider a couple of famous people. Consider first someone of the modern world. Consider....Stanley Kubrick. If you read a general bio of Kubrick's movie career, there are telltale signs of his intense thought provoking mind strewn all across his entire career in filmmaking and screenwriting.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick 


Kubrick was an intense person, "bookish" and introverted, to say the least. He was melancholic and inhibited by nature. Luckily his father taught him how to play chess at a very young age, which probably worked well with his intensity, and helped him become even more patient with all his perfectionist propensities, making him one of the most valued, original, and initial special effects film "thinkers" of his time. He seemed to have a propensity also to fearing the "bomb" but then again, most people were afraid of the implications of nuclear power in the 50s. Finally, he seemed not to be affected by other film industry people's ideas. He was dogged in portraying film as he saw it in his own intellect.

One might consider also the suggestion that while one's thoughts are a boon to one's professional pursuits, it can also be a detriment to one's own health, which seems to be the case for Kubrick. His themes were anything from black comedy, to psychological drama, to scathing thriller/horror, to science fiction....he was a master at creating in us mental disturbances. Think of "A Clockwork Orange," "The Shining," and "2001: A Space Odyssey," to name only a few.


Really, one cannot write an entire essay about a subject and win converts to a concept about how thoughts create one's survival or demise. That is left to my book of essays. All I can share here is a thought: "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me..." How about words in our heads, and can hurtful words in our head ultimately hurt us? Stay tuned for tomorrow's blog day....I'll be back on this topic.

The Calm Before the Storm...

There is only so much one can creatively say, paint, sing, perform, or do before one begins to sense one's own redundancy. Yes, this repetition of life within myself, it is painfully so. I feel this sense that things have fallen into a definable, predictable routine and that itself becomes unsettling because it has limitations on the evolution of my mind and can actually make me feel... well, limited. We might call this sense: the calm before the storm.

I have managed to weave myself into a fabric that is not a good fit on me at all. In fact, I have managed to create this uncomfortable lifestyle by choice, in my choosing of a routine way of life--just to be called "stable" and "calm," and to be seen as consistent, and thereby accepted into the context of our social way of life in this country. I do this because without actual words there are habits, formations, activities that speak without words, what society expects of us. Many times it seems as though society expects robotic behavior just to keep the GNP rolling; no mood swings, no down time, no irratic behavior, just ... drive ... .

But in truth, this "calm" exterior is not my nature at all.  I suspect that this nature is not a true rendition of many who play it out each day, routinely, just to perpetuate a facade, and to appear as everyone else. Every society has a social contract and it is made up for reasons of ease or convenience. This way, everyone knows already what to expect of everyone else. But in some cases, that does not really fit many people who try to fit into our larger social culture of robotic calm. So society tries to define these "types" of people. Hence, our newest medical discoveries of bipolar, mood swing, multi-identity behavioral issues in people. 

All this sounds as though I am hinting at some kind of science fiction plot, like the Matrix or something, just to lay down some rhetoric on a blog; just to exercise my communicative acuity in some daily, virtual newscast--an announcer who really has nothing to say, but must "go on with the show." 

No. I am working up to a very specific concept that troubles me for the sake of myself and others like me. The concept of "the Calm before the storm." 


I have always liked that expression because it reminds me of when I was a child. As a little girl I had an acute sense of when something was about to happen. I would wait eagerly as my intuition awaited a ripple in the status quo. Sometimes, nothing happened. Other times, I was right, and thrived on the thrill of my insightful talent. So, in speaking about the aforementioned phenomenon, the expression--the calm before the storm--it fit perfectly. Those who know of changes coming, or at least sense a change coming, will say this:  Oh now, look! This is the calm before a storm.  Is this a true phenomenon?

There is truth to the idea of calm before a storm, found in scientific resources, everywhere:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/calm-before-storm1.htm 

So let me put a spin to this phenomenon. If one thinks about the context of science as a learning experience, one can actually transcend a physical learning explanation and explain the nebulous auspices of the metaphysical. 

If I use the concept of a calm before a storm to describe a person's sense of redundancy as the calm, and a change in that redundancy as the storm, it is much easier to understand the concept. The reason is, we are familiar with how changes in one's life can wreak chaos and instability at a moment's notice: ask anyone who has lost a loved one, or who has gotten new information that either creates great joy, or deep sorrow. Change in one's calm life, is truly a storm of which they find themselves at the center. There is no doubt then, that the physical world is possibly a set-up for the spiritual world; or, if that seems a stretch for some, then we can say from the physical to the emotional persona, or the psyche.

Suffice to say, when we think of a storm, we think of it as something dousing and terrible... when in reality, sometimes, storms can actually be a cleansing and a progressive evolving activity to nature. So it is with humans. When we are faced with the redundancy of our everyday lives, we are acutely aware that something is coming, like a storm or a change in our being. 


In literature, we call this a bildungsroman, or a right of passage, usually founded in youth, from early stages to progressive maturity. But once people mature, we assume there are no more rights of passage to experience. This is not true. Changes or passages happen throughout life. We go through new fire patches every so often in life, and we have to walk over the coals or we cannot get to the other side, which means: we stop growing, we become stunted and we never experience the beauty of emotional, psychological, and spiritual growth.


The only way this can happen is for us to walk fully into that sense of change from out of our calm and learn what it is our spirit is trying to teach us about ourselves. Most of the time, all of us feel a bit frightened over the idea of a storm coming, and we put on defenses, like a coat, or a sweater. But in the case of an emotional storm, we put on defenses like affairs, or arguments and blame on others, or excessive spending or purchases, and sometimes as simply as drinking, eating, or movie-going just a bit excessively. It's all a ruse to keep from passing the calm, and moving into the storm. The beautiful thing about storms is this: There is always a calm in the eye of the storm, and that is true of rights of passage, too. It's called an epiphany--and it's a glorious realization indeed.

Good-bye Golden Girl...R.I.P.

Good bye, Golden Girl…

Feb. 12, 2012  by Elle Nolan

I feel so badly about Whitney Houston’s death. It isn’t because she is better than any other human being that died of drugs or alcohol, or both. It isn’t that the drug and alcohol abuse is more devastating only because of who she was, but that with all her talent, and all her potential she could have allowed to go on, she had to die as a poster child for drugs and alcohol abuse at the end of her life, instead of anything else.

Yet, she has put a celebrity’s face (once again as many have in the past) to the horrendous realization of all those who have died because of drugs and/or alcohol, and any abuse we all may potentially succumb to while on our journey in life.

This is tragic. The travesty does not end there in fact. Now her little girl has to live with this legacy her mother has left her, as well as her dad’s history, but yet again, like so many children who are born into this world only to carry for parents  legacies of failure, sorrow and despair, in spite of success, riches, and fame.

Good-bye Golden Girl, as the song from Stevie Wonder was so fittingly sung…

Angels of Incidentals

Angels of Incidentals in 2012

February 8, 2012 by Elle Nolan 

This year, as with every year, I come to some insights after thinking about the past. I was thinking about some of my more ‘embarrassing’ characteristics, and thought about the universal implications, such as the plight of human beings, and how they struggle throughout life to find a way to make it through without too much mental damage. And then I began to see memorable events in my childhood… about me, my parents, my siblings, and my friends and enemies. I remembered how I had such a difficult time letting things go easily.

The reason some of us have such a difficult time letting things go, and having to backtrack to “fix” things is because some of us are perfectionists. It doesn’t matter if you tell us: “you can’t make everything right,” or “just let it go, it’ll all be okay in the long run,” no. Perfectionists have to do it right every time, and if they have to, they will go over and over again on the same matter until they feel it is as right as they can make it…It’s in our psyche.

Remember those kids with whom you played hopscotch, who got all bent out of shape when they barely touched the line, and INSISTED on doing it all over again. Or those strange behaving kids that made a tiny error in the spelling or punctuation of their work, and had to erase the whole sentence or use a whole new paper–because you could see the erase marks…? Yup! That was me.

It is terribly hard on those people who are perfectionists, believe me. Others see them as dramatic, as overbearing and controlling, or maybe even a bit neurotic (okay, VERY neurotic).

However, they seem to grow up and do such stupendous work, especially meticulous work, that one cannot fathom how such a person can spend the time and effort on such details, or how that person manages to catch all the little things no one else seems to  catch. It isn’t easy,

 believe me…                                       WOODY ALLEN & MICHAEL JACKSON 

On the bright side, many of these people are discoverers of tiny little objects like a virus that creates polio, or psychological people that make theories based upon nuance behaviors in people, or theories about the universe no one ever noticed before. These kinds of people have a tendency to wade through large volumes of information, are capable of tenacious and redundant activities in order   to ‘catch a single difference in

 statistical behaviors.                                                         ALBERT EINSTEIN                                                                    

SIGMUND FREUD & NEWTON

 When I was a child, I observed everything. I watched how my mother walked, my father laughed, and how every person I came in contact with, behaved or spoke. I was very good at “acting” like someone else, from their voice, to their mannerisms.

On the negative: many of these types of persons are very good criminals at forgery, or copy painting of famous works or jewels, or of making fake money or checks; what can we say? They have to pay their time if they do the crime.

DICAPRIO (actor of criminal) & FRANK ABNAGALE (famous forger, criminal, turned informant for the government)

Some of our greatest presidents, generals, clergymen, psychiatrists, doctors– all sorts of people and professionals–have been perfectionists.

         ABRAHAM LINCOLN

They did okay,didn’t they? Maybe their personal lives were a shambles, and many of them were talked negatively about, as having been too dramatic or dictatorial, or just plain weird… . And yes, some may have been hard on others, like Hitler!

However, in many or most cases, they usually brought others to a higher degree of disciplined standard in whatever they did.

Every person has their strengths and their weaknesses. I always felt a little less confident because I knew I had some areas where I simply could NOT be perfect, even in areas I had nothing to do with, for example, my looks or my body shape. So many people truly are perfectionists, but many of them learn to let go, and let things fall where they may.

While being educated, every teacher with whom I was fortunate enough to be a student, told me: “Lydia, you are too hard on yourself.” When it comes to successes as well, my successes to others were never successes to me, but I saw them as having always the probability of being better than they turned out to be, if only I could continue to “perfect” them.

I could tell if someone sung off key and even when someone were lying, by their behavioral movements, or having remembered everything they said about something prior to this time. I am admitting this because I think it’s important enough to bring up, especially to those who may have children growing up, showing signs of perfectionism.

The paradox of such people is that they have very low tolerance for others who do NOT do or say the right things (in the perfectionist’s mind). They seem always to find something wrong with others, or to find some type of improvement method for situations. Yes, they can be critical. But don’t be too hard on your children, parents, those children who have these tendencies.

Maybe you had a “perfectionist” parent. I did. Forgive them. They could not help wanting you to be perfect. They could not help wanting you to HAVE everything perfect. And no matter how many times they fail, they strive for a perfect world. While they probably could not, or cannot now effect such an outcome, they are prone to attempting such a monumental feats forever. Which means they struggle just like everyone else in life, only to a much more complex degree. All I can say is: allow their neurosis, and don’t let it get you down. See them as The Angels of Incidentals, and try to do your best around them. They live shorter lives, and many of them die of illnesses that manifest due to their strenuous efforts. They just want to make sure everybody is in place and life is as it should be, so  let the angels do their neurotic job, and smile, move out of their way, and shove the water over your shoulder as they say.

If you are not one of them, I guarantee you’ll be alright, and maybe even be better than you thought because of them. There is a reason for everyone who is here with us, including us.