bio

art by Luis Rubio Vargas

Looking up at my great uncle Francesco's paintings at age two, I thought, "I do that."

Inspired by the lyrics of John Lennon, I wrote my first songs and poems at age nine and first play at ten. At seventeen, I gave birth to my daughter Stephanie. I earned my GED and attended college at UW-Milwaukee. In 1990, while still in college and working part-time at a classical music store, I received a CD by Sequentia of the music of Hildegard von Bingen. Learning of her changed my life.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and psychology in 1993, I founded Seasons & a Muse, Inc., an arts and film collective.

I've since worked as a performance poet, with featured appearances at Lollapalooza, Chicago's Green Mill, The Nuyorican Poets Caf?, international festivals in Austin, Seattle, Bristol, Glasgow, London, Amsterdam, and many more. My first collection of poetry, beautiful terrible & true, is published through Libri Publishers. A self-titled CD is available through INOCULATION/records. My writings appear in The Shepherd Express, Riverwest Review, Poetry Motel, Bluff Magazine, and others.

After several nominations and awards, I've committed myself as a full-time writer, producer and actor of a high-definition short film entitled "Field Day," currently in post-production, and two feature films, "Making Angels" and "Breath of God: The True Story of Hildegard von Bingen," both in consecutive pre-production.

I currently live in Los Angeles with Stephanie and my fianc?, Guy Hoffman, and travel whenever I can.

Yenta Mary

You have no idea.
My Son died and broke my heart
Then He came back three days later
with this crazy story
about rising from the dead.
I get used to His shining face
and He's gone again after
forty days and forty nights
Just like that time
He went to the desert!
He said something about India or something
and the next thing I know
He comes back a man!
I feel like the London stage version
of Le Miserable–if you're gonna go
just go already!
They say the birth was painless,
but I'd like to see you try pushing out the little Savior
in the freezing cold, lying on a bunch of straw
after your husband who almost ran out on you
forgets to bring your suitcase and a lollipop
and then we'll talk about painless!
And when He was in the womb–what a kicker!
Always standing up, then sitting down, then kneeling-
all day long!
I never told Him but when He was ten years old
and went to the temple and His stepfather and I
had to spend the whole afternoon
hunting all over the damn capital for Him,
I was the one who hid His stuffed camel for a week.
Oh did He cry but BOY was I mad!
I was worried sick.
Remember the old days, when things were simpler.
Before you had to capitalize every holy pronoun!
He this and Him that!
I used pray to the boy's Father
and only one Person would show up.
Now when I cry out, "Oh my God!"
I've got three Persons of a Trinity
rushing into My backyard,
and They all want snacks at the same time–
like a Twix bar, you want the chocolate,
you get the caramel and cookie crunch, too! Oiy!
And you thought you had issues with the Catholicism.
When they yanked me up to Heaven
I said, "Son! Be careful, my bursitis!
Watch the left shoulder!
But it's a nice place up here,
A little cloudy at times but
Jesus keeps His room clean
If only He'd have found a nice girl to marry,
not that Mary Magdelene–tramp.
But He's a good boy. And He loves His Mother.

copyright 2004 Jeanne Marie Spicuzza

The Time it Takes

Renowned physicist
and Big Bang theorist
Victor Weisskoff
once said that
in the beginning
there was a moment
one billionth of a second long
followed by
a brief spark,
a bright flash,
and God said,
“Let there be Light.”
He saw no contradiction
between faith and observation,
a human being,
and a snake.
The time it takes to wait
in the pause before
a flash of light
is the time it takes
to think
the minute before a strike.
A thousand years
of day and night
of orgasm,
contraction
and birth,
a cell splits
a breast drips
a cup spilled
and swept
a flat tire
a car backfires
explosion, erosion
of cities and roads
fires and smoke
a child dies
a mother cries
lambs slaughtered
raped daughters
slaying and
praying
one last breath–
piercing death.
The time it takes to anticipate
the pause before a flash of light
is the time it takes to wait
the moment before a strike.
Precious tempos
best spent
contemplating life
and worth
its wait
in peace.
Greater than
any war effort
is a collective human
reflection.
Please!
No more massacres
orchestrated by the elite
in the names of God!
Chile,
Haiti,
East Timor,
Iraq.
All of their people
are screaming as we speak.
U.N. inspectors
from Australia and the U.S.,
two countries that supported
the war found that
the entire region
of the Middle East
spends one billionth
of their dollars in arms per year
than that of the United States,
the country allegedly under threat.
No weapons
of mass destruction
have been manufactured
in Iraq since 1974.
No conspiracy
between Saddam Hussian
and Osama Bin Ladan
has been found.
Close your eyes
and consider this:
the power to
destroy a life
is not nearly as important
as the power to create it.
Now imagine this:
a universe is born
in a flash of light–
the time it takes
a child to die.
Now imagine this:
the child is an Iraqi.
You cradle her in your arms.
Are you proud of your country?
Or do you mourn the loss of a life?
Whether Christian or Muslim,
Palestinian or Persian,
American, Iraqi or Jew,
these are the questions
you must ask yourself
before you support a war
because no matter
who pulls the trigger
the blood is on the hands
of the whole world
and I cry for this
and we cry for this
as souls dreaming
we are human beings.
In the time it takes to create
inside a brilliant flash of light
in the time it takes to kill,
obliterate another life
is all the time
that is required
to consider doing what is right
in the pause before the strike.

copyright 2004 Jeanne Marie Spicuzza

You Are My Art

You are my art.
I fell in love with you
long before you left my body–
but it’s not what you think
I knew of you
before the lady at the free clinic
showed me pictures of foetuses.
I was halfway through my
junior year in high school
and had decided to work hard
but suburban schools
weren’t used to white girls
walking their halls,
sixteen and pregnant.
Out of 700 students, only three
talked to me, while the others
whispered as I went by.
And the teachers–
I guess they missed the lecture
that explained that
pregnancy isn’t infectious
and that by calling on me
when I raised my hand in class
didn’t mean their teenage daughters
were gonna catch it.
I told the vice principle
that I considered dropping out
he said he thought it was a good idea.
The secretary asked me what I was going to do.
I said, "I’m going to get my GED
and a degree in architecture
and fuck you all."
I have found journal entries
from then that say, “The music’s over,
I guess my career in the arts is gone.”
But I fought like hell
and the child I gave birth to
gave me back
everything that is me
with a knowledge
of myself.
And she is my art
and the reason I am standing here,
performing this piece.
I don’t propose to be pro-life or pro-abortion.
I do know that anyone else’s choice for me
would have been wrong.
I make my own choices.
My choices make me who I am.
I say my choices make me who and what I am
and that is everything to anyone
who bears the right to breathe.
And she is my art.
I always thought
that the auburn of her hair
grew like fire in my belly
with all the anger hope will love and fear
and burst the bag of waters-
and she came.
When I have wondered
why I should even be alive
she spelled out
in paper letters
on the dining room table
“Help, I need you.”
My girl
you are the reason for my life
and the doorway to my heart
and long after I am gone
you will be my art.

copyright 2002 Jeanne Marie Spicuzza