“Yeah, think I’ll do it-
hang out that sign
gone fishing.
I’ll just sit by the river
filled to the brim
with peace and jumping fish
and write you long
loving letters sent airmail
via heron.
The only fishing I want to do
will be with my heart and eyes.
I want to go West to the mountains
lie on my back at the foot of El Capitan.
When I am drenched with its beauty
I’ll roll over on to my belly
and try to capture it with words
just for you.”
(‘On Paper’ a poem from “A Pound Of Dirt” by Scarlet Colsen c2017)
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I had created a small veggie and flower garden by clearing an area out back where a Volvo (God’s car) rested and rusted by the overgrown weeds and prickly vines. It was the 4th of July, though I had been boycotting this holiday for quite some time. Being the daughter of a ‘drafted dove’ and now disabled Vietnam veteran (who keeps getting denied any help from our government) kinda’ puts out the spark of the ole’ bottle rocket. My father sent my Ma, his true love, endless poetry from the jungle. I guess I just couldn’t bring myself to celebrate our “freedom” any longer with mere hotdogs and fireworks (that only seem to startle and disturb the brave anyway). Gathering up sweet wild raspberries that were bright red like firecrackers kept me busy in the garden to bring an offering to my neighbor’s house at the end of the road.
Frank and Scarlet had invited me over for some coffee and conversation that Summer’s afternoon. I packed up some homemade banana bread in a brown paper bag and a Ball jar filled to the brim of wild raspberries to make fresh jam. My finger tips were stained blood red as I strummed my guitar on Independence Day while starring at the muddy Walkill slowly flow by past the waving trees. I went down to the river and prayed by the Mother Mary statue as I did each morn as my magical, white cat always followed close behind me.
As I peacefully walked down to the end of the road, I was welcomed by ornate sculptures and wild flowers I’d never met before. It were as if I was entering a weathered paperback book through the woods as Jack, a now crooked headed cat awaited my arrival. He was once good friends with the crooked headed cat, Tucker I had lived with the first time I had resided in a cottage on this same dirt road alongside the river. Jack would pry his way through the screened porch door and wait for Tucker to go out each day. They were best buds. Jack’s head wasn’t crooked back then though Tucker always looked like he was contemplating something, intrigued by even the simplest of things. Now Jack had that same endearing look. I was now living with my familiar, Polly (AKA Pollucks an all white cat whom believed she was a lion) in yet another tiny cabin about 5 or so years later. Jack came barging through the squeaky screen door one morning with the same intriguing look Tucker once had. I think he had a crush on Polly (I knew I had to write about this some day). Some things you just can’t make up.
Old books, plants and sculptures roamed about Frank & Scarlet’s eclectic home by the Walkill river as the smoke rings danced with the sunbeams that July afternoon. These two love birds were a well-known, local power couple whom were also true transplants, artists and garden enthusiasts. They could even finish each other’s sentences (as Frank would often build Scarlet’s sculpture designs that were out and about the ‘avant-gardens). To take a poetic garden tour with Scarlet as she greeted each plant like an old friend through the labrinth of fruit trees, dancin’ hummingbirds, vibrant flowers, artful-veggies, sacred butterflies, seasoned-farm tools and life-sized sculptures simply weeds the ‘mind fields, organically.
To sip coffee with such free-thinkers and converse all afternoon was inspiring to this writer to say the least. Frank started to tickle the ivories which always reminded me of the sound of home. Scarlet shared potent stories about the 60’s and took me back to a time I had always felt a soul-connection to. I shared how my father wasn’t well and how I could not celebrate Independence Day as the tears rolled into my porcelain cup.
“They should have never been there,” Scarlet said.
I shook my head and simply felt free, again.
‘End of the Road’
(For Frank & Scarlet by Kelly Ann McNally)
I’ve been down this old, bumpy, dirt road before where the river runs North by the Blue Heron who does not seem to notice
Mother Mary a giant stone statue stands before me, independently
She was brought up from Little Italy as I now plant violas at her crackled feet by the Walkill
I live in a cottage alone by the river with a crookard headed cat
When the river swelled, we sat acoustically, thawed out the ice trays so we could make a righteous toast peacefully
Lights out, no electricity
Mother Mary a giant stone statue stands before me, independently
The air smells like gun smoke
as I carefully gathered up the wild raspberries to bring down to the end of the road-
Photo credit: Frank Kosempa http://frankkosempa.weebly.com/
I’ve been quite blessed to be neighbors (twice) with both you and your true love, Frank alongside the mystical Walkill River in New Paltz. To me, I met good neighbors, gardeners, free-thinkers, writers, artists, musicians and dear friends. When you had agreed to share your VOICE in my column I began my research while your first book was coming to fruition and had discovered that you had been in various films, worked professionally as a model for over a decade during which you became the sole Marlboro Woman in a world of Marlboro Men.
You’ve been featured in such books as “Mirror Of Venus” by Wingate Paine text by Federico Fellini & Francois Sagam and countless magazines and ads. Throughout your career(s) you have remained a devoted, radical feminist as well as an active sculptor and artist whose work has been shown in many venues in the Hudson Valley and New York. How did you manage to be a fashion model in 1960’s and 70’s and yet remain a true feminist at heart?
Scarlet Colsen: “It was a very sexist profession. But while I was modeling in Detroit at the J.L. Hudson department store, I was discovered by *Oleg Cassini who later went on to be Jackie Kennedy’s “Secretary of Style” in the White House. Anyway, I had read somewhere that Cassini was in Detroit showing his new line at Sack’s Fifth Avenue (this was in 1958-59). I had a “go-see” at the time and felt like I needed a new dress. So there I am when he comes up to me and starts blabbing away. I told him about my go-see, but how I couldn’t possibly afford one of his dresses. In a beautiful, heavy Italian accent he said, “here, this one will be perfect. I trust you. Go change and wear it and come back and return it.”
And so I did.”
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Cassini
“It was modeling that made me a feminist. It was an incredibly sexist profession, especially when I started in the early 1960s. Some photographers would actually chase you around the studio, trying to corner you and seduce you. You get an idea of that kind of thing going on in the TV series “Madmen”. In modeling, what you have is a whole business based around women as objects whose sole purpose is to sell clothing or makeup or what have you through seduction. So maybe around 1968, I came across some writings by the Redstockings on Consciousness-Raising, and that was it. I joined a group, started reading like crazy, and that was the beginning of that.”
http://www.redstockings.org/index.php/main/consciousness-raising-papers-1968-72
How old were you when you began modeling?
“I was nineteen. I graduated high school at age 17, and was modeling clothes at J.L.Hudson’s in Detroit, when a photographer saw me and said: “You should do photography, not just be on the floor. I would love to take some photos for you,” and he did. He made me a brochure.”
How did you become a Marlboro Woman?
“I had worked before with the great photographer Art Kane (“A Great Day in Harlem”). He liked my work and told me about the job for Philip Morris and I said okay. Simple as that. It was a very exciting thing.”
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Kane
I’m truly enjoying your newly published work, “A Pound Of Dirt” Finishing Line Press c 2017.
“I thank you so much.”
(Is this your first book?)
“This is my first book.”
What inspired you to publish a compilation of your potent poetry?
“There was an ad in Art News in 2016, back when it was a newspaper, calling for 30 poems and I had them. The director of Finishing Line Press contacted me to say that I was picked, so that was quite exciting.”
You were born and raised in Mississippi?
“I was born near Kellis Store, Mississippi, but we moved to Grosse Isle, Michigan when I was five.”
“She has the great good fortune to live on the river in paradise with the love of her life.” (You write in your bio.)
Tell us about this guy Frank Kosempa…
“He’s 63 and I’m going on 78. We met at my sculpting teacher’s house up in Riverdale, the Bronx. I was living in West Orange, New Jersey at the time, but I would go once a week to her stone carving class. She was just a fabulous teacher. She was also the mother of Frank’s girlfriend at the time. Anyway, she liked me so much she would let me stay longer and work on my piece as much as I needed to down in her basement studio. She was a pretty big boozer by then, though, and kept all these cases of gin down there, so one time Frank came down to get her a bottle, and he started asking me about the piece I was doing at the time. That was it. A brief encounter because he moved to Chicago for a year. In the meantime, and when he finally came back, I had broken up with my husband who refused to leave the house in Jersey. So my stone-carving teacher told me: “I have tons of room here. You and your daughter should come live here,” and that’s exactly what we did. She would give concerts in her huge living room every couple of months, and that’s when we met up again. That was back in 1978, and oh boy – we fell in love almost instantly and that obviously caused a lot of trouble. But we’ve been together 38 years now; my 4th husband (giggles), and I still love him madly.”
Tell us about your journey from Riverdale to the River (Riverdale, The Bronx to the Walkill River in New Paltz, NY).
“We were weekenders of the Hudson Valley since 1982. Frank’s back went out and we couldn’t make it back to the Bronx one day. We then moved up in ’95 full time.”
“A Pound Of Dirt” is a quote from your Mamaw back in Mississippi whom you have dedicated your first published book to. Tell us about your Mamaw…
“My Mamaw (my grandma) said that all of the time. She had 13 kids. Her mother was full-blood *Choctaw. When I was really little, my mother went to Detroit to look for my father and left my sister and I with her and my Papaw. So I had spent tons of time with her and I loved making mud pies. Now I understand what she meant, saying, “you need to eat a pound of dirt before you die” – having all those kids, growing your own food on a big farm with no running water or electricity. She worked her ass off all of the time. She was an amazing woman that I loved madly.”
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Band_of_Choctaw_Indians
When did you first discover that you were a writer?
“When I was 37, I started college, only took art classes. I made a very large piece called “Coming Out” (meaning my creativity). My friend, Diane Cowles, who was a really interesting abstract poet, suggested that I write a poem and incorporate it as a performance element to the large sculpture. That was how it all started, back in the mid 1970’s. That was my first poem.”
Do you listen to music when you create or write?
“Never. I go outside and I sit at the table under the Dogwood tree with the hummingbird feeder hanging behind me. I just get inspired there. I listen to music at cocktail hour not when I’m doing anything, I just listen.”
What artists and writers inspire you?
“Georgia Okeefe, Frida Kahlo, and Louise Nevelson are my favorite women artists; I also like Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, and Marcel Duchamp. My favorite writers would be Kahlil Gibran (the author of ‘The Prophet’), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, May Sarton, Alice Walker, Rita Mae Brown, Adrienne Rich, and of course, Raymond Carver.”
What are your spirit animals Scarlet?
“The Blue Heron and the elephant. The elephants are incredible mothers, very intelligent creatures.”
If you were a flower what would you be and why?
“An Iris because they’re incredibly beautiful, and you can draw with them.”
Where can we find your book of poetry, “A Pound Of Dirt”?
There’s a link to the publisher’s site on my website, or you can just go directly there:
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/a-pound-of-dirt-by-scarlet-colsen/
When did you start seeing ‘women in the trees’?
“Oh when we both came to our little house here on the river, 10 acres; 5 of them are in the woods. I would go for walks everyday in the woods and just started seeing women’s movement; their arms and their legs. It was so inspiring. I was so excited over it and started to see women in trees everywhere. That’s where it all started.”
“Found And Lost
Her mind is on my mind.
Her reality moving along like a wind-up toy
in need of another good turn-
Has changed its focus,
hopped on a train
a fast train
to an empty time,
a hollow place-
landscape reduced to wind.
Her mind is left behind.
It’s left on the seat,
an old paperback book
she knew so well for so long
that she now picks up and rips out
page after page after page-
and the one before-
just disappears them into dust.” –Scarlet Colsen “A Pound Of Dirt” c 2017
Where can we see some of your art?
“You can see some of it on my website, which is a work in progress of its own…”
http://scarletcolsen.weebly.com/
What is your favorite quote or mantra?
“All is well, all is well, and all matter of things are well...”
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Written by Kelly Ann McNally 7/7/17
Edited by Frank Kosempa
“I cannot look at a tree anymore without seeing women. My Woodswoman sculptures are my Earth poems. They are of the Earth and from the Earth. Then I had a vision. A woman was found in some firewood, and with every walk that I take in the woods I find women waiting in trees.”- Scarlet Colsen
“It was always a special time to catch Kelly McNally performing on stage during her years up here in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Her songs are fantastic, her playing superb, her sensibility wide-reaching and her rapport with the audience is magical. The Woodstock, Kingston, New Paltz music scene as been the poorer without her. We miss her dearly.” – Frank Kosempa & Scarlet Colsen (author of “A Pound Of Dirt”)
VOICES OF THE VALLEY – ((Underground ARTISTS & Beyond))
https://voicesofthevalleyblog.wordpress.com/
*UPDATE: Scarlet Colsen will be reading selected poems from “A Pound Of Dirt” as her art will proudly be on display this September 2nd from 6-9pm at PAKT in the original state capital Kingston, NY.
For more details please visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/453961308324268/?ti=icl
VOICES OF THE VALLEY 
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