by Erica Bennett

The best question a director ever asked me was, what animal are you?

I knew my answer before I ever walked on stage; I found my way.

What rhythm drives you? Can you hear it?

Is your music fully formed? Or is it a single drum beat?

I’ve always been drawn to music from my father’s 45s to Karen Carpenter,

From old time rock ‘n roll to Janis Joplin, balladeers to Queen, Linda Ronstadt to Pink.

While I don’t know the language of music, I can articulate how it makes me feel.

When I am sad, it is waves on a moonlit beach. When I am happy, it peals.

I am pealing tonight.

by Erica Bennett

I am Wo sans man

I am the Ater

I read Poe; try

My lips Tick

My bed Rocks

But I split Hairs

I’m writing a short play in verse using an non-rhyming 4/3/5/2 metered structure. Yet, last night, my play had no action; it was more a dialogue which was my original intention.

Most of my stuff has internal action; perhaps better suited for another medium? Anyway, I threw in a dagger and some ill-intent, the proverbial kitchen sink. The play is based upon a myth and I’m not far off the mark. In fact, it was actually a good note and relatively easy for me to address; a little polished steel waving around the Christ child should get the blood boiling this holiday season… That’s the hope, anyway. I want this experiment in language of mine to be born and born again.

My friend asked me who is looking out for my work, so when I die, it won’t end up in a dumpster with the rest of my personal belongings. That’s a good question. Are you archiving your stuff? You should.

by Erica Bennett

It’s Thursday

Already

And I’m late

And it’s October

Already

And it’s New Years

And spring break

And October again

And I am reminded of When Harry Met Sally

“And I’m going to be forty. When? Someday.”

Only I’ve not been forty for forty years

Because I’m eighty

And I’m dead like the rest of ‘em.

But rather than cry

It makes me smile, wonder

Where did the magic come from?

That single second of unreasoning inspiration

Fueled by adrenalin and cigarettes

Maybe sex and coffee, alcohol and emotion

That kept me up all hours of the night

Not wanting it to end

Warding off sleep = death

by Erica Bennett

I’m not sure I ever mentioned but writing these blog posts are torturous for me. Am I being honest… No. I am not trying to suggest I don’t (secretly) enjoy writing them, as well, but my stage fright can grow extreme to the point that I am compelled to expel. Is that true? Well, only when I was an actor… But really, who cares what I have to say? And why should they? I mean to write, sure, every once in a while I may hit upon some bit of truth, but more often I am flailing around, trying to understand, reaching out blindly to a population of readers I may never meet. And does that matter?…

How does one write for an audience? I used to worry about that a lot. How will I make the reader like me and want to do my play?… But with Bloodletting and Poe, I wrote from absolute grief with an eye toward art. Apparently, there was something about me writing that poem because it reached several people who are important to me. In it there was no time to play life’s victim, I just got the illustrative words out there and keep on hitting my larger message.

That is my mantra to myself this eve before the purging of my garage. Through my tears and protestations tomorrow, my lifetime will be sorted and much of it discarded. That I may be able to hang on to some memories by writing about them is my shred of hope for the weekend. Have laptop, will travel. Sigh.

by Erica Bennett

Too sweet. As in vomitus or satisfying? I should ask him which he meant, but I am certain it doesn’t matter. In either intention, he is correct. And I love the challenge that he presents. Was I writing with sincerity, I have to ask myself… Yes.

What about this case?

On the afternoon she died, because I couldn’t find her hearing aid in the shuffle of her unconscious body

Or

On the afternoon she died, because

I couldn’t find her

Hearing aid in the shuffle of her unconscious body

There is a difference; an intentional difference. He wants to respect that difference, because I intended it that way. He taught me that the other night. He is a director.

by Erica Bennett

I’m almost embarrassed enough not to write luscious, because it’s a big, fat, sexy word, but I have taken a vow to write what scares me. So, luscious is how the words of praise I received in rehearsal for Bloodletting and Poe feel coming from its director. It took me threeish years to write a piece that spoke to him. While the child inside jumps for joy, old Erica accepted his words with humility. Even though it felt really good, that I had found a perfect collaborator, at the same time I knew this moment may never happen again. I mean that sincerely. It’s hard to tell. We spoke about having that moment, that moment of perfection. We had both experienced it as actors. But can I, as a writer, recreate that perfect storm of insight, skill, and abject need to communicate? Yes, and I don’t know. And it does not matter. Because experiencing it once is good enough. And ironically, in experiencing it once, I now know how it feels and it feels like I can recreate it. So, I am not afraid. Now off to the next one. Happy Friday!

by Erica Bennett

I cut off my hair to spite him

And grew it out to spite her.

What is a chameleon

To do when there is no

Environment from which

To transform?

When even with the dawn there is

Shadow

And the edge of the cliff

Tempting yawns.

From Girlishness

I heard slam poet and activist Andrea Gibson state she was challenged to write only what most scared her. She said, as a consequence, she wrote nothing for six months. But the stuff I’ve seen her deliver, videotaped and uploaded onto Youtube, is so personally challenging, I have to wonder, are her parents still alive? I mean no disrespect. I heard her perform a poem filled with such pain, yet, acknowledge her youthful silence was for the love and sake of her family. When does the unsilence begin? Is it with the death of the family? Or is unsilence, a possible rebirth of the family?

by Erica Bennett

Light became my friend in

1994

At 4:31 AM, Pacific Standard Time,

When Reseda

Boulevard and Strathern Street

Rocked and roiled for an interminably

Long nearly

20 seconds.

My favorite Northridge story came

From a friend

Driving home that early morning.

He turned off his vehicle when

The Earthquake struck,

And said, out loud, “Wow,

Engine’s gonna blow.”

I laughed; after.

But in the darkness, then, in the

Early morning, in the pitch

Black before dawn,

After the Noise of a million

Breaking pieces of glass

And falling brick,

I couldn’t escape

My own home.

And so starts, BLOODLETTING AND POE, a slam poem I’ve written that expresses my grief over the loss of a recently deceased long-term… friend; for lack of a more descriptive word. I have heard, “write what you know.” In this, my experiment with form, I wrote what I was experiencing. I’ve always thought I immersed myself in my work, but this was the first time I actually “knew”, in the moment, what I was writing… I won’t, can’t, go back.

Back in the day when I was limber and shoulder pads were in, I used to cool down from ballet class to Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. I am listening to it now and I finally hear music and it feels good… There, I’ve said it. Tonight, I feel good. And even as a twinge of anguish for the loss of my friend sweeps down my spine, I am drawn back into the music and with it toward new feelings of hope and anticipation for the future.

I kicked off the evening with Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game after an amazing drive to Walnut with a friend to shop for rugs, of all things. But it was fun. Then, sitting, drinking juice and eating a bowl of soup, watching him play with my dogs, talking, enjoying the weather, the sunset, I used the word “faith” in the context that I believe things are going to be okay.

I thought faith is a simple enough word, but then I use words liberally, like I’m icing a big, sloppy cake. Am I able to reconsider the words I use, know why I am using them, apply a logical thought process and be able to defend them? He wants to understand Me… No different than a reader of one of my plays.

Finish the thought, Bennett. It’s a good note.

I had a dusk-to-dawn porch light installed because she is not here to light the candle in the window. I had a motion detector light installed under the garage eave because it gets dark at night. I am surrounded by light. I am also immersing myself in noise to staunch the quiet. I would say (write) music, rather than noise, but I don’t hear it yet. I hear dry, but connected, tones that do not move me. Music used to move me… lying on the living room floor with my eyes closed, Really listening to “Hotel California”… Playing the grooves out of “Rumours”… Rerunning my “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” 8-track tape.

I wrote a play with music in January. I’ve titled it “Bender”. I wrote original lyrics and convinced playwright Karen Fix Curry to write the (lovely) music. The play started as an experiment in dialect. I determined to write three connected one-acts but they blossomed into a full-length instead. It’s about three women who discover their individual, unique voices once they finally accept each other’s friendship and themselves for who they are. It was selected by OCPA Studios for a reading on April 27, 2013 at Stage Door Repertory Theatre in Anaheim. But she won’t be there to experience it. So I’ll dedicate it and the day to her. And the next day I’ll rest, meditate and pray for the strength to get out of bed.