ROCKIN' THE POETRY WORLD

You know, I'm not just a climbing novice.

But I've got big news: The Split This Rock Poetry Festival has invited yours truly to present a panel with colleagues. The festival is in Washington, D.C. and it looks like it's going to be a smashing good time. Split This Rock is, at its heart, an anti-war event aimed at reclaiming language and our collective potential. Poets from all over the country come to this festival that is a mixture between an academic conference (with workshops and presenters) and a public protest (such as the march to Lafayette Park across from the White House).

The organization is supported by grants, and this year it will be filming a documentary about the festival itself. For now, you can see videos on YouTube, such as this one:



For the 2010 Split This Rock Festival, I will be presenting with Madeline Wiseman and Aimee Adellard titled, "Fatty Girls, Imaginary Cocks, and Vaginas Built Like Bookstores: A Workshop on Writing the Activist Body." We're thinking the title alone got us into the festival, but we're planning on helping other poets who want to take their interior poetic lives into the public in hopes of affecting social change.



In this sense, I'm taking on work people like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg sponsored during Vietnam, and did in the later years of their careers, long after the Beats were considered history. I've been thinking about this more and more as I consider the curricula goals for my section of the workshop, as well as how this speaking out and up work will fortify me as a writer, poet, and climber.

I've also been thinking about how sacred Lafayette Park is as a site for democratic activity. It is the ground in Washington where activists of all sorts demonstrate, and where, I'm sure, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI gather photographs and documentation of those who show up to exercise their First Amendment rights.

But I've been thinking about Ferlinghetti's book, Poetry As Insurgent Art, and these lines in particular:

"The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it."


"Words can save you where guns can't."


It's not that I've always been a peace activist, or even a poet. It's not that I've always picked up my democratic responsibilities as a citizen of the United States. It's not even that I've always believed in the power and reach of my own words. I've never been to the East Coast. I've never been to Washington. It has always been a mythical place, something I've seen on television and wondered if it existed at all. I'm just a woman learning to live, write, and climb and seeing where that takes her.

The airline ticket alone is going to be around $350. The hotel rates are staggering, even if William Shatner asks on Priceline.com, "Who's ready to take a ride on the deal stallion?" Democracy, it seems, will come at a cost - as it always must, I suppose.

So for the next few months I'm going to enter every poetry contest offering a kitty I can. I'm going to have to step-up my efforts at fundraising, and I'm thinking about a bake sale (however quirky it may seem). This may become an "E.F.R. Goes to Washington" sort of thing, and I'll admit this: I've thought of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington more than once since receiving my invitation to the festival.



I'm pretty sure Jimmy Stewart didn't go there to yell, "Vagina!" at people, but still ...

As a poet, this is a pretty big deal. I'm taking my work far from Nebraska, way out into the public sphere, and doing that work in a very respected poetry festival among celebrated poets. And I'm thinking of women and men who have gone before me, of those people I respect who have taken the risk to say out loud what their soul needed to say. I'm humbled and excited, intimidated and encouraged.

Performance poetry, embodying the activist poet, teaching others to let the words seep into their bones and perform instead of recite a poem ... all of this is spinning in my head as I write today. Or as Peter Gabriel sings: "Ill be a big noise with all the big boys ..." (Seriously, watch this old video ... it so fits my story!)



As exciting as this new challenge is, you have to know that I'm already trying to figure out how to find climbing opportunities in the D.C. metro area. I'm looking at Earth Trek's facility in Rockville, MD (a quick train ride from D.C.), and SportRock in Alexandria, VA. The latter is in the middle of a remodeling project to make it more competitive with Earth Trek's gyms, so I'm thinking I should check both of them out in order to write a fair and balanced review.

I love this justification, of course, because that gives me license to monkey about in the name of P'UP.

I'm thinking too about the ways in which climbing is shaping my approach to writing and public performance of that writing. I don't know if I'll get the chance to climb in D.C. or not, but I do know that when I take the stage or give my workshop, all I've learned through climbing about patience, personal achievement, and moxie will be with me. I'm thinking, too, that I might shoot a documentary myself ... more on that later.

EPIC(UREAN) FAIL

(PHOTO: New computer cam tries to capture my Cheshire Grin. Unfortunately, bad cake had paralyzed my mouth).

I had hoped to post a new recipe for a whole-wheat apple spice cake today.

Unfortunately, my first attempt is now a brick of healthy fodder on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. It looks good, but something went awry in the preparation.

Maybe I’ve created a muffin recipe – a stay-with-you-all-day muffin. Maybe, well, maybe one shouldn’t try to use all whole-wheat flour instead of a flour blend. Whatever the case may be, it’s clear to me now that I’m no “Ace of Cakes.”

All I know is that a cake isn’t supposed to remind you of bran flakes, or roll on your tongue like Ready-Mix in a cement mixer. Cake isn’t supposed to dehydrate your face.

I may have just invented a cure for acne. On my second bite, when my mouth went bong-dry, I felt a pull from deep within my pores. I’ve had a glass of milk and two glasses of water since my first 2 by 2 inch square of apple spice disaster.

Drinking that much liquid after a piece of this epicurean experiment was like pulling the rip-cord on a life raft.

Despite this culinary misdeed, I’ve had an awesome day. I met Ryann and Schnook at the wall this afternoon, and enjoyed a couple of good hours of climbing and belaying. I knew it was time to quit while ascending my last climb of the day, when I forgot I had feet. It was as if I were dragging myself up the wall, sort of like when a dog hustles her hindquarters across shag carpet.

It wasn’t pretty.

A good fifteen feet after the bouldering line, my feet flailed about like flags flapping in the breeze. I looked down to Ryann, and yelled just one word:

“Dinner!”

We packed up and headed for our bikes. It was a delicious fall evening, crackling with excitement as Husker Nation scurried about campus in preparation for the showdown with Oklahoma. It was dark out, and I realized then that I had forgotten my halogen lamps. Stupid Daylight Savings time.

Riding hard, passing football fans and drunk idiots, I welcomed the chilled November night into my lungs. Two weeks ago I began the “step-down” smoking cessation program my doctor recommended. I can already feel a difference in my body and my mind. Even so, habitual self-destruction is harder to give up than one might think.

Addiction, even to something as pedestrian as nicotine, shapes and distorts who you are. It's difficult to imagine you and your life without it. It's difficult to admit you're entitled to good things, like love, or life. It's even more challenging to face down your inadequacies and self-destructive nature in a public sphere, with your life "Out There" for anyone to see.

P'UP, though, isn't some narcissistic endeavor. It is not so much a projector of my life as it is a microscope. Even the small things, stuff that doesn't seem related to climbing at all, is beneath the scope of the project. So here I am, thinking about all the years I wasted five minutes at a time, smoking to calm the uncertain beast that is, when matching my feet and plotting my approach, humbled and silent.

All my disappointments, the hurt, all those times I didn't get what I needed ... they all get left on the ground, stamped out and discarded, like a cigarette. I love that. So two weeks in to the new cessation program I’m making progress. Nov. 30 is the “no butts, baby, it’s-all-over-but-the-cryin’ deadline.

But it ain’t gonna be a walk in the park, and it definitely won’t be a piece of cake. Thank God.

PROFILE: STEPHANIE LAUDENKLOS

Some say she's awesome, others simply state the obvious: "Steph is a badass." Though both distinctions are accurate, this UNL Climbing Club President is dedicated to her work as a climber and a community representative.

Laudenklos has an infectious enthusiasm for the sport she came to in January of 2008. Her background as a high school pole vaulter and hurdler only helped her to make the best of her climbing passion. She attributes her foray into the sport to "the boy of the time," but it's clear she comes to it on her own terms.

With climbing, for Laudenklos, it was love "on-sight."

Thirteen years of dance, 8 years of gymnastics, and her recent work in yoga have honed her into an aggressive yet graceful climber. Watching her ascents at the wall or on the rock, one comes to understand the true meaning of "grace under pressure." She's intuitive and calculating in her route assessments, yet delightfully sensible and logical in her approach. She never flails, wails, or bails with even a hint of self-incrimination. For Laudenklos, it's the quiet and focused challenge of pursuing her personal best that makes climbing both a challenge and an affirmation of what she values most in life: Her faith, the people climbing has brought to her life, and fun.

One shouldn't, however, confuse this fun, friendly, and God-lovin' graceful rock chick for a softy. Her competitive nature and natural gift in the sport have made her, in less than two years, a formidable foe on the Plains climbing circuits. Laudenklos won two climbing comps her first year in the sport, the UNO Bouldering Intermediate division in 2008, and the Climb Iowa bouldering Advanced division 2008. Just this year she placed 2nd at the UNL Sport Climbing Comp Advanced Division 2009.

The 21 year-old UNL senior has maintained a grueling academic schedule while working at a local veterinary clinic. In October, she submitted her applications to veterinary programs across the country. Her aspiration to become a veterinarian has put her in a very competitive professional school arena this fall. But deep down, this Columbus, Nebraska native wouldn't have it any other way. It's the challenges in life that keep her going.

Despite the pressure of school and working a serious job, Laudenklos has come into her own as a climber. To her, climbing is a mental and spiritual manifestation of deeply held personal beliefs because to climb is to also meditate, to focus, one the best parts of self and God.

Steph Laudenklos at Penitente Canyon, Colorado.
(Photographer: Doug Lintz)

"Just being outdoors in general is an ultimate connection with God and His creation," Laudenklos said, "So climbing gives me that opportunity to get out and worship in that way."

Laudenklos cites the "very liberal and karma-believing" nature of her climbing community as yet another influence in her overall faith. Though the multi-faceted spiritual and religious views of others make what Laudenklos terms, "evangelizing" difficult, the diversity only affirms her belief in both God and her ability to be a good listener to others embarking on spiritual journeys of their own.

"I have been amazed at how many people I have met through climbing that feel comfortable talking to me about their spiritual struggles because they know how strong my faith is," Laudenklos said, "So in a way it's given me yet another way to be close to God through His two greater creations: mankind and nature."

But man and God aren't her only inspirations. Laudenklos, when asked about her climbing heroes, nearly swooned when she mentioned Internationally renowned climber Steph Davis (click: High Infatuation). In Davis, Laudenklos said she sees "a bit of herself" and hopes to someday match Davis' contributions to the sport.

Serious and silly, kind and competitive, Laudenklos seems to be poised to pursue this goal. Though she waits now with a bit of nail-biting for veterinary program admission letters, her uncertainty is assuaged by her steadfast commitment to climbing as "a life-long sport." It's in this commitment that she continues to inspire other women climbers at UNL, including the out-of-shape newbies such as myself.

Laudenklos said she fantasizes about climbing in Spain someday, and hopes to deep-water solo in Mallorca like those featured in the film, Perfecto:



With a smile, Laudenklos thinks of this dream with her signature move: unflinching honesty and sensibility.

"I really want to boulder around in my swimsuit," she said.

Fair enough. No matter where her veterinary studies take her, it seems climbing will continue to be the glue that holds this young, inspiring climber together. Keep an eye out for this rising talent. She's going to be rockin' the climbing world for years to come.