Both Fires

Moving on...

2012-01-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

Starting today, 1/1/2012, I'll be blogging at the stanza: a little room for poetry & the writing life. I hope to see you there.

Reading and Retrospective

2011-12-31T11:20:00.000-08:00

First, Reading.
Those of you who have been reading here for a while may remember that I always post a list of books read in each year. Although I have lower than usual confidence in my record-keeping for the wild and crazy 2011, here's the list (and please forgive me for not properly formatting titles):

At Home: A Brief History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Adam and Eve a novel by Sena Jeter Naslund
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Blood Almanac poems by Sandy Longhorn
Threshold poems by Jennifer Richter
Rookery poems by Traci Brimhall
The First Four Books poems by Louise Gluck
Gilead a novel by Marilynne Robinson
Housekeeping a novel by Marilynne Robinson
The Forgotten Garden a novel by Kate Morton
Wuthering Heights a novel by Emily Bronte
A Room with a View a novel by E.M. Forster
Pearl of China a novel by Anchee Min
Rebecca a novel by Daphne duMaurier
The House at Riverton a novel by Kate Morton
Sacred Hearts a novel by Sarah Dunant
A Gate at the Stair a novel by Lorrie Moore
Private Life a novel by Jane Smiley
Queen Bee Moms and King Pin Dads by Rosalind Wiseman
Heart's West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier by Chris Enss
The Beekeeper's Apprentice a novel by Laurie King
Today's Special Dish poems by Nina Lindsay
A Reliable Wife a novel by Robert Goolrick
The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine
WAIT poems by Alison Stine
The Everything Tween Book by Linda Sonna
Selected Poems by H.D.
Colosseum poems by Katie Ford
When Will There Be Good News? a novel by Kate Atkinson
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

up next:

No Eden poems by Sally Rosen Kindred, and
Death Comes to Pemberley a novel by P.D. James

And now, Retrospective.
Reader, Both Fires is almost three years old. My how time flies.

In those three years of my life as mother, we've gone from little ones, to big-ish ones; from the bird theater to exclamations of "Epic fail!" and "Whatever." (Oh, how I detest 'whatever.').

In those three years of my life as writer, we've gone from the fledgling poet just trying to connect to the world of poetry a bit, to the still-fledgling poet who is now sending out her work on a regular basis and sometimes even getting acceptances; from the mom who felt guilty taking time off to write, to the writer who knows her children will be better and stronger because she pursues her own creative life without apology.

In those three years of my life as person, we've gone from the teeny tiny woman (who, I'm glad to tell you, doesn't live here anymore) to a gal who, yes, has a chronic illness but who now has the right meds and a clearer diagnosis, and who can see her illness more as a sculpting life force than an invisible box.

I've enjoyed writing here, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading.

Starting tomorrow, I invite you to join me at the stanza, where the story of mother, of writer, of person, poet and pilgrim, will continue. I hope to see you there.

Reader, I wish you peace, joy, and everything wonderful in 2012 and beyond.

Thoughts for the New Year

2011-12-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hello, Reader. What are you doing today?

Here in the Peninsula Town, we are cleaning the good ship Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em. Husband is swabbing the decks. I'm tending to the galley (although, obviously, I've just snuck off to write this post), and the cabin boys and girl have been ordered to tidy their quarters. Aye, aye, sir!

The close intersection of our big cleaning day and the turn of the year reminds me of something Jane Hirshfield spoke of at the reading I attended earlier this fall. She told the audience that each year at New Year's she cleans, or attempts to clean, every surface and object in her house. As she explained it, this is an annual ritual observed by Buddhists. She said that, although she has been doing this for many years, each year she always finds something that she has never cleaned before.

I find this idea fascinating: just to touch each and every surface and object that form the space one calls home... and to find places, spaces, things, that one has never touched... and then, to touch them for the first time.

I imagine that within the context of a healthy dose of Buddhist detachment, this ritual cleaning is very life-giving. However, trust me: here at the good ship Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em, under the overhang of Catholic guilt, we are attempting no such feat.

Still, I have ritual on the mind. Ritual, perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European re(i), "to count, number" via the Latin for rite, "religious observance or ceremony, custom, usage."

The holidays are rife with ritual. Even now the masses are going through the ritual contemplation of New Year's resolutions, no? Well, not me. I'm not much one for resolutions this year -- probably because of the way all my best-laid plans and goals for 2011 were cleansed away by Moving to California. This year, I'm thinking: I might exercise more, or I might not. I might eat more veggies, or I might not. I might put a chapbook together, or I might not (I pause here to offer extra credit for anyone who can tell me where this phrase comes from: "Might go to Yale. Might not.") As for New Year's rituals, we don't have any hard and fast ones around here. Sometimes we cook a nice dinner, then the kids complain about it and hardly eat, then we all go to bed. Sometimes not.

As I look to 2012, I'm thinking only

persist

natural bridge at Santa Cruz

shape and be shaped

pacific beach

stay on your path, the one you were made for

Skyline hike

keep things in perspective

redwoods

And, although I don't have a photo of it, the sign I caught sight of at a coffeeshop I drove by yesterday (and although I just had to get up from my desk, go into my bedroom, and lock the door to get it, and although someone has been hanging on that locked door crying "Mommeeeeee! Mommeeee! Mommeeeee!" for the last 10 minutes),

relax, you have plenty of time

Happy 2012, Reader.

(P.S. etymology info here)

The Times on The Art of Typesetting

2011-12-26T05:14:00.000-08:00

photo from Wikimedia Commons

Bibliophiles and lovers of all things printed: Go read this fascinating story at the New York Times.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T08:22:00.000-08:00

once a Michigander, always a Michigander

Makin' Copies

2011-12-22T13:35:00.000-08:00

the way cut and paste used to be

If you were out for an early morning walk on my street this week, so early that the sun hadn't yet risen, you may have seen a lamp burning in a corner window of my house. I was at my desk in the glow of that lamp, in the sweet, quiet hours of pre-dawn. I was not doing any of the following:

1. ordering gifts
2. preparing holiday cards
3. wrapping presents
4. planning holiday menus
5. stringing popcorn
6. baking cookies
7. etc, etc, etc

What I was doing is this: Going through my file folder labeled 'handouts.' Cutting poems and poet bios out. Arranging them on a piece of paper. Taping them down. Jotting down notes and attributions. Makin' copies (anyone else remember that skit from Saturday Night Live?).

This is a little labor of love I have going on. When I see a poem that I think is (a) wonderful, (b) interesting, (c) particularly well-crafted, (d) about to take off the top of my head, (e) stirring something inside for me that I need to write about, or (f) all of the above, I print it out and drop it in my handouts file. After I have a handful of poems gathered up, I take out the scissors and tape, and start cutting and pasting. Literally. I know there must be an electronic way to do this, but I love the old, analog method -- it makes me feel close to the paper and the poems. After I've cut and pasted all the poems and bios, I make a few copies. Then I send the handout to two of my poetry buddies. The idea is to read these poems, study them, learn from them, and use them as jumping-off points for new, original work.

[A note about copyright: I've done some research and I think I'm in the clear with copyright laws/fair use, since the handouts are intended for educational purposes and provide no economic gain to me.]

I learned the handout concept from my excellent former teacher, Deborah Keenan. Up until now, I've sent out only a few handouts to only a few people. But I would like to offer the handouts to anyone who wants one. Maybe you are a teacher that would like to use them in class. Maybe you're always looking for new (or new-to-you) poets to read and study. Maybe you are just a person who would like to have a few poems sprinkled into your days from time to time, or to learn a little bit of poetry. If you'd like a copy of the handouts, send me a message at mollycspencer (at) gmail (dot) com and I will send one to you each time I make one (which is, so far, about once a quarter). The stamp's on me.

Hooray for spreading the poems, hooray for poetry!

Wordless Wednesday: When the children do the breakfast clean-up, the reason why you can't for the life of you find the Cheerios the next day is that they're in the refrigerator, where you would never dream of looking, and also, where the heck is the box? but it's a small price to pay to teach them how to clean up after themselves, right?

2011-12-21T05:40:00.000-08:00

A Mother's Abecedarian Poem

2011-12-19T22:31:00.000-08:00

By Louis-Gustave-Fortuné Ratisbonne (1827-1900) (Scanned from book A. B. C. Trim, alphabet enchanté) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons*

Fellow po-blogger Drew recently invited her readers to try an ABC poem, also known as an abecedarian poem. An abecedarian poem is a type of acrostic poem structured around the use of successive letters of the alphabet. The most recent ABC poem I've read is "On Earth" by Carolyn Forche from her collection Blue Hour. She takes this form to its limits, often allowing one letter to generate the beginning of lines across multiple pages before going on to the next letter. She seems to use this form as equal parts structure and randomness, to very good effect. In her book, she notes that ABC poem were used in some early spiritual writings. I'm pretty sure a few of the Psalms were written as ABC poems in Hebrew, for example, but I'm too comfy right now to get up and check, and google is not really helping me out with this one. At any rate, I thought it might be fun to try an ABC poem with a motherhood twist, and here's my effort:

A Mother's Abecedarian (Not-Really-a-)Poem

Ask politely Brush your teeth and wash your face Clear your dishes Don't talk with your mouth full Even mothers make mistakes Flush and wash! Go to sleep Have a good day I love you Just a minute Keep your chair legs down on the floor Lower your voice for heaven's sake! Make do with what you have No Open this door right now, young man! Patience, grasshopper Quiet down for heaven's sake! Rack 'em and stack 'em! Stand up straight Tuck in your shirt Umbrellas are not for dueling well dear, Vaccines are a public health issue Wash your hands with soap Xylophones must be played behind closed doors Yes Zip your lip

(that last one is one of my favorites -- just the sound of it and the crispness of 'zip' are extremely satifying)

Clearly, I am not in the Carolyn Forche league, but sometimes it's fun to think about all the things that come out of one's mouth as a mother -- the regulars (if I had a dollar for every time I've said 'flush and wash!' ....), and the things you never could have imagined saying to your child ("well dear, vaccines are a public health issue" -- as if this would convince a 4yo to go peaceful into that good exam room!? Yes, I really said it.). So, thanks to Drew for a bit of fun.

Now, Reader, try one of your own. Because I'm sure you have nothing else to do this week, right? Ah yes, I can see it now, a holiday ABC poem....

*Translation for text on image is roughly: Look! when the mouth opens to say Ah, the mouth makes an 'A.' And small ducklings quacking: Quack! Quack! look like lowercase a's (thank you, Google Translate).

Sabbatical Report: Week Two

2011-12-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader, I am almost through week two of my sabbatical. I continue to congratulate myself for taking it. Slowly, I have chipped away at the theoretical to-do list (I say 'theoretical' because currently the to-do list is housed on a bazillion little post-it notes here and there throughout my house, purse, and devices). Every day I have put up my feet, closed my eyes, and listened to this song:

I highly recommend it as a short but effective meditation for mid-day. Go ahead, close your eyes and take a listen. I'll wait.

So, sabbatical-wise, here's what I've learned:

(1) I put way too much pressure on myself to be writing all the time, when really, I can't write all the time, and shouldn't. When I go back to my desk in January, I hope I can do it with a more helpful mindset -- one of gentle acceptance for the rolls and swells of life, rather than the mad paddling toward shore of writing time.

(2) I'm reminded that, although it's not fashionable to admit this, I really love my role as home-tender. When I was in school, we girls were always told we could do anything, we could have it all (sidebar: I wonder if they are still telling young girls that, or are we in a post-feminist frame of mind now?). But the 'anything' never included domestic pursuits; it was more oriented toward space exploration, political power, and the like. And an important caveat was left off of "You can have it all." They should've followed up with, "But not all at the same time." Sometimes it feels like our society has forgotten the value of a comfy little place called home. Although it can sometimes be tedious and repetitive -- three meals a day EVERY DAY! -- I feel good about creating a peaceful place for my family to be, a little hub in the wide, wide world. I feel so lucky to be doing what I'm doing. I don't want to be an astronaut, or run for president.

But I do want to be a poet, and I look forward to returning to my desk with renewed energy in January. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to close my eyes and listen to the Miserere. Then I'm going to get dinner ready with my kids.

Wordless Wednesday: In Which a Lot Can Happen in a Year

2011-12-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

then

now

Sunday Words: A belated birthday homage to Rilke

2011-12-11T04:59:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was the birthday of Rainer Maria Rilke, who is one of my all-time favorite poets (although, I confess, he had to grow on me at first). And here is one of my all-time favorite poems by Rilke, perfect for a Sunday, or for any day, if you ask me:

1

I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

-- from Das Stundenbuch

Clearing the Codes

2011-12-10T16:43:00.000-08:00

finally legal

Reader, it's a good thing I declared a sabbatical, because I spent every kid-free moment last week trying to get Husband's car to pass the smog test so we could get license plates.

Have you been to a car fix-it shop lately? I confess, I have not. But Husband was in a pinch for time this week, so I said I'd take care of it. I had no idea what I was committing to, but soon found out.

Did you know they can plug a little gadget into your car and read the codes generated by the little gadget to find out what's wrong? So, I took the car and waited while the mechanic plugged it in. He soon began saying things like "We a got a evap system code here could be the gas cap but there's so much rust on this vehicle it might be something more serious I have no idea how those guys in the midwest can do this job - sheesh! the rust! - and then we a got a code for the ABS and this one here's the clutch y'know that sound the car makes? hear that? that's metal on metal know what I mean I mean that's not gonna last much longer not with that sound but I do whatever the bare minimum is to get you past the smog check okay?"

I looked at him about like he would look at me if I had just tried to explain how to write a sestina.

After each round of repairs (yes, there were multiple rounds) I had to take the car out and drive it around for 50 miles to, as the mechanic put it, "clear the codes." Do you know how long it takes to go 50 miles on the Peninsula? A long time. The first morning I only got to mile 35 before I had to go pick up Sister from school. The next time, I got smart and went south instead of north -- covered a bit more ground a bit faster.

As I drove around going nowhere, it dawned on me that it would be really handy to have a little gadget we could plug ourselves into to see where we are malfunctioning. Code 5AM = not enough sleep. Code -P%&! = low on patience. Code SiS = Sinking in stress. Code CHOCDEF = chocolate deficit. Then we could take some time to clear our codes. I like to clear mine by taking walks or sitting in a dark, quiet house before anyone else is awake.

At this point, I'm very glad to be done with the whole business. But it helped me remember how important it is to read our own codes from time to time, and then to do whatever kind of self-care we need to clear the codes. Have you cleared your codes lately?

Takin' This Show on the Road

2011-12-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

at our friendly neighborhood CalTrain station

I'm considering a new tag line for my life: "have poems, will travel" (other contenders: "all times approximate" and "warning: introvert - approach at your own risk." This last one is my favorite for Kinder pick-up time).

Lately, I've been putting some feelers out into the Bay Area poetry scene, hoping to find other poets and make some connections. Because I'm naturally shy, and thanks to the librarian voice in my head that keeps saying, 'but you're not a REAL poet,' I have had to put on my brave heart in order to enter these waters.

But, gladly, my efforts have panned out.

The first connection I made was with Laura E. Davis who blogs at Dear Outer Space. I first crossed paths (virtually speaking) with Laura when I came across Weave Magazine, the literary journal she founded (how cool is that, by the way!? She started her own journal!). I bought an issue or two of Weave, and really liked what I read there. Then, last summer, I was reading through Adanna where one of my poems had landed, and came across another poem I really liked, noted that the author's name sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure why. Enter the rabbit hole of poetry blogs..... a month later, I came across a link to Laura's blog on another poetry blog, and finally put the puzzle together: this was the Laura E. Davis of Weave, and she had just moved to the Bay Area, too! Coincidence? I'd like to think not. Anyway, long story longer, Laura and I exchanged e-mails and decided to work together, exchanging poems and information, etc. Our first meeting was last month; our second will be this Sunday. We meet at The Creamery near the CalTrain station in San Francisco. I'm thrilled to have found a poetry pal, and excited to work with Laura, whose writing is beautiful and exciting, and whose journal you should read.

Another connection came to me through a class I'm taking from Molly Fisk (the class, by the way, is called "Getting Your Work Out" and it has really helped me to commit to a more regular practice of submitting my work to journals). Molly forwarded me an e-mail that had been circulating through poetry circles about a group in Berkeley that was looking for a new member. I decided to send my work to the group to see if I might have a shot at joining them. Last week, they invited me to come to the next meeting to see if we're a good fit (me for them and them for me). Berkeley is a bit of a hike from our little peninsula town, but I'm hoping it will all work out, and if not, at least I've made a tentative connection with a few more Bay Area poets.

And speaking of taking the show on the road, I wanted to let you in on a little secret: For the past few months I've been working on building a new blog -- one that's a bit more dedicated to poetry, out of respect for my kids' growing sense of self and privacy. I'll be making the transition in the next few weeks, and will definitely let you know when my new blog is live. Meanwhile, the Mom Trying to Write still has a few things to say about motherhood, so I'll be blogging here for at least a little while longer. I hope that you'll follow me over to the stanza: a little room for poetry & the writing life when I make the switch. Feel free to take a sneak peek now, if you like (not that there's much to peek at).

And now, I must take another show on the road. There is a "Cultural Heritage Luncheon" for Sister's Kinder class today (gripemumblemumblegripemumblemumble). When I asked her what kind of food she wanted me to bring, I was filled with fear. We are Scottish and Irish. Would I have to learn how to cook haggis or mutton stew? You just have to love a little girl whose answer was, "Hot dogs and beans, Mama! Hot dogs and beans!" That, I can handle. In less than an hour, I'll be pulling the hot dogs and beans down the block in our little red wagon.

Happy trails to you today, Reader.

Wordless Wednesday: In the Foothills

2011-12-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

On Sabbatical

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

sabbatical n. a break or change from a normal routine (as of employment); from the Hebrew shabath "he rested"

A little voice inside, known in these parts as intuition, has been whispering sabbatical to me. My right brain -- librarian that she is -- has scoffed at the voice: "Absolutely not! You must keep writing poems!" My left brain -- creative wild child -- is giving the voice a double thumbs-up and saying "Groovy, man." I'm going with my left brain, and with intuition.

In the Catholic church, and in many other religious traditions, we are amidst a time of joyful waiting called Advent. I love Advent, except for the reality that most years it's more a time of stressful hurrying -- not joyful waiting -- as I attempt to cram a bazillion extra tasks into days and weeks that are already full. As I've learned over and over again in this life, if something isn't working well there's usually something one can do to change it. Enter: the little voice.

So I've decided (or intuited) to take a wee sabbatical from drafting poems for the rest of this month. I plan to keep reading and learning from good poetry, submitting at least once a week, and revising the Mail Order Bride series. I'll still be here blogging. But I'm giving myself a break on generating new work.

That breezy, rushing sound you hear is me exhaling. Until I came to the idea of a sabbatical, I didn't realize how much pressure the Librarian puts on the Wild Child to produce!produce!produce! I'm a little nervous that I'll lose my momentum, and the Librarian would like me to believe that if I take a break now I'll never get back into a good drafting groove again. She's a little hyperbolic.

Dear Librarian, I appreciate your role in my life, but I want to make cookies with my children, make my house fair as I am able, trim the hearth, and set the table. I want to take walks in the morning, sit down in the afternoon to put my feet up, and click a few things off my holiday to-do list every day. I want to avoid another Speechless Wednesday.

Let the joyful waiting begin...

Sunday Words: A Holy Yes

2011-12-04T04:57:00.000-08:00

"Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist--the real truth of who we are... "

from Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones

Thankful Thursday: Occupy Edition

2011-12-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

public domain from wikimedia commons

It's Thankful Thursday, and today I am thankful for the Occupiers. I'm so glad people are protesting something in this country. I think it's long overdue. As I am not in a position to Occupy myself, I'm grateful to those who are making their voices heard.

Yes, it's true, peaceful protests disrupt cities and affect small businesses and produce waste and make things rather inconvenient. Yes, it's true that the Occupy movement's goals may not be all that clear. If you ask me, Congress is guilty of the same in both cases.

In fact, I think we should occupy the Capitol and refuse to leave until Congress starts working for the people instead of working for campaign contributions. Until Congress passes campaign finance reform, including legislation to reverse the Citizens United decision (yes, I realize some would interpret this as a corruption of the constitutionally established balance of power; however, I'm with the guy with the sign above). Until every member of Congress has tried to live and support a family on the average wage in this country, which is $41, 673.83.

Just sayin'.

Wordless Wednesday: Corner Office

2011-11-30T04:37:00.000-08:00

Rollin' With It

2011-11-29T14:37:00.000-08:00

One thing that's fun and kind of freeing about moving across the country is that you no longer know what to expect, so you don't necessarily expect anything (well, it's kind of freeing unless the thing you didn't know to expect was a big something-or-another at school that you missed. But I digress.). The last two mornings we've climbed out of bed into a sea of fog, or cloud, or ocean mist, or whatever it is. The whole world was a ghost, and light came late to the morning. When it was time to walk to school, the fog or cloud or ocean mist or whatever it is clung to our fleeces and hair. A brand new weather experience, and we don't know if it's usual for this time of year or not.

Leaves are turning and falling now that it's almost December. The color is striking against the blue-green backdrop of the foothills, which seem softer in the late autumn light -- gentler shadows under a gentler sun. But wait -- is it late autumn? Or, Reader, do you think it's winter here yet? I don't know, but I'm rollin' with it.

Same goes for the writing life lately. Holiday and virus-related schedule interruptions threaten at every turn. I'm rollin' with it. Teeny tiny fever? Tummyache? No problem, I'll write some other day. I'm fitting in a few submissions every week while I kill time waiting for the library to open (sidebar: if I were in charge of the world the library would open at 8 a.m. Vote for me!) -- not as much as I'd like, but some every week is better than none. I've been revising the six Mail Order Bride poems, and this time, rather than just tinkering, I'm doing some re-vision, trying a few different versions of each poem. It'll be fun to see what happens behind door number 1, 2 and 3 inside the room of each poem.

And I've been reading a collection of poems that has me rollin' with it, too: Blue Hour by Carolyn Forche (that e has a little thing-y (technical term) above it but I don't know how to insert it here). I've had to work hard to stay with the book, not because it's not good -- it's full of beautiful and scathing and inventive images; war and peace; death and life; present and past (and maybe even future?); certainty and memory. But the poems have very little narrative and connective tissue holding the images together, so I'm never 100% sure what's going on in the poem or the collection, except to sense that, in this book, the world is both disturbing and beautiful, unknowable and yet deeply known, full of suffering that can blunt or hone us, or both. Seems about right to me. So I've been rollin' with the feeling-ness (technical term) of the poems, resting in the white space, and persisting.

Whatever's coming your way these days, I hope you're rollin' with it, too. Happy winter (maybe).

Sunday Words: Thanks

2011-11-27T04:33:00.000-08:00

"God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,
God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,
I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: 'Thanks, O God.'"

--from Carl Sandburg's poem "Fire Dreams"

Wordless Wednesday: Finally Fall

2011-11-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

A Draft (!) and my mother to thank for it

2011-11-21T12:49:00.000-08:00

I had convinced myself there would be no time for drafting this week. Thanksgiving on Thursday. No school on Wednesday. Appointments on Tuesday. That left today for holiday shopping and, most important, for purchasing pie plates. I am the pie-maker for our California family Thanksgiving. I take this responsibility very seriously. And my pie plates are too shallow and insufficient in number to feed the crowd. So, I thought I'd run up to the College Town to buy pie plates today.

My mom said no.

She said for-heavens-sake-buy-some-foil-pie-pans-at-the-grocery-store-and-go-to-the-library-to-write.

Mom, you rock! I took your good advice!

So I went to the library and got set up to work by my favorite, sunny window. I then promptly fell asleep, deep enough to dream. Then I woke up and got to work.

My process for the last two weeks or so has been to read a couple pages of Carolyn Forche's long poem "On Earth" from her collection Blue Hour. I read, scribble down phrases and words that seem to be important, and make notes about what I think might be going on in the poem (I am never sure as there is very little narrative or connective tissue in this poem). Then I take the words and mix them up with some of my favorite words, and draft lines. Since last week, I have been writing the lines in on my post-it notes for the twenty little poetry projects.

I continued that process today, never expecting to go toward a draft with it, but the Mail Order Bride began speaking. She said, Kind Sir / I am a map / You may unfold me. She said, Make our bed / A prairie a nest / For our bones / Their hushed mingling / Come to me in the hour / Of fading thresholds. Kind of a forward gal, isn't she? I worked slowly, as has been the case for all the MOB drafts, going back and forth from my notebook and the computer, culling lines and images from the post-it notes, sometimes adding, sometimes taking away. I ended up with a draft of 53 (yikes! that's a ton for me) very short lines. The draft ends with a question: Kind Sir how will I know you? Which, in my opinion, summarizes the mystery that is marriage in seven words :).

So, today I learned a few things. One is that we all need people in our lives to support our life's work, to keep us on the road when we tend toward the ditch, to remind us of who we are and what's most important. Another is that you can draft a ton of lines in just a few days if you're willing to stop by your desk between loads of laundry, sinks full of dishes, boo-boos to kiss, and peace treaties to negotiate (or between whatever activities fill your days). And lastly, that a catnap by a sunny window at the library is the very definition of bliss.

Now I will go home and be a happy baker of pies. And a poet, too.

Sunday Words From Uncle Walt

2011-11-20T04:35:00.000-08:00

"Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,
Those who love each other shall become invincible."

--From Walt Whitman's "Over the Carnage Rose a Prophetic Voice," Leaves of Grass

Steady As She Goes

2011-11-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

20 little poetry projects

"Keep the ship heading steadily on the same course regardless of gusts of winds or cross-currents."

Roger that.

It has been one of those months, Reader. I mean, here it is almost Thanksgiving and I feel like I'm still recovering from Halloween. I'm trying to remember the last time the children had a full week of school scheduled. I believe it was a month ago, or perhaps five weeks. It has been two weeks since my last, heavenly morning in the quiet room of the library. There has been fever, rash, sore throat, all the usual suspects. It's never easy when the gusts and cross-currents of family life threaten to push the poetry ship off course. Also, it's not a poetry ship. It's a poetry row boat. Know what I mean?

But, rather than despair or give up (well, okay, I've despaired a little bit), I have kept at my morning practice of reading and writing at least a little bit every day. And I've stumbled on a way to keep drafting even in high seas.

I have this book to thank. On page 119 is an exercise by Jim Simmerman called "Twenty Little Poetry Projects." The exercise involves writing one line for each of 20 brief prompts. Some examples: #1 Begin with a metaphor; #2 say something specific but utterly preposterous; #6 contradict something you've already said; #14 refer to yourself by nickname and in the third-person; #15 write in the future tense so that part of the poem seems like prediction. The exercise is, I believe, meant to be completed in one sitting, but I've decided to split it up. The Mail Order Bride recently announced another title to me: "The Mail Order Bride Answers His Ad." Working under this title, I placed one post-it note per "project" from the exercise in my notebook. I've decided to write one or two lines a day for as long as it takes to fill all the post-it notes with at least two options for lines. Then I'll choose the lines I like best to draft a poem from.

Here are some of the fragments filling the post-its (not in any order):

My hand blooms, astonished.

She is the bell-ringer.

Be given, wick to flame.

I will unbraid my roots from poor, remnant soil.

We'll see where it goes, if anywhere. In the meantime, I am very glad to have a way to keep the rowboat on course while stirring cranberries with one hand, and holding small foreheads to my cheek to check for fever with the other.

I thought this was worth sharing just in case there might be something in your life you could do in twenty little projects, bit by bit, day by day, regardless of headwinds and cross-currents. Steady as she goes.

(Source for definition of the phrase is here).

Wordless Wednesday (kind of): Above the Threshold of My Favorite Room in the Library

2011-11-16T04:04:00.000-08:00

"Out of respect for others, absolutely no talking or audible music is allowed."

The End of an Era

2011-11-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

Well..... okay..... there I go being hyperbolic again. But I just filled up another writing notebook and filling up a writing notebook makes me sentimental and triumphant and hyperbolic.

Dog-eared, beaten up, and fally-aparty

I have kind of a tight relationship with my writing notebooks. They mean a lot to me. We've been through a lot together, my notebooks and me. When I finish one, which usually takes about a year or 18 months, I tend to look back through the earlier pages, and memories pour out. Oh, yes, there's my agonizing spiritual poetry phase. There's my Kay Ryan look-alike phase (think short-ish, vertical poems). Someday I will look back at this one and say, Oh, that's right! I was possessed by the Mail Order Bride back then.

I look back and remember what transpired in my non-writing life through the lens of each notebook. That one clearly pre-babies. Oh, yes, this one during sleep deprivation after child #2. Then this other one, the one that took me four years to fill (third child, what can I say?). Notebook Number 9 above took me from very ugly attempts at poems about illness in South-of-the River, to the Mail Order Bride, and other poems around the issue of what makes a home, here on the peninsula. Who woulda thunk it?

I used to use this notebook by Levenger (side note to fellow notebook snobs in the readership: The notebook snob in me (solemn bow) greets the notebook snob in you). But then they changed the notebook's dimensions so that the pages weren't as wide, which really interrupted the flow of my drafting process. I was surprised at how important the width of a page could be. Alas, I dumped the Notabilia without a backward glance and went to Clairefontaines. My fave color is green, but I can live with black when that's all that's available at my verymostfavorite stationers. To wit:

This poor sucker has no idea what awaits

I begin each new notebook by writing this message on the inside cover: "Please return to Molly @ cel-lph-one#." Every time, I have to resist the urge to write something more desperate like: "I will die if I ever lose this. Please don't go through the rest of your life with blood on your hands. My children will seek to avenge my death. So call me."

And then I scrawl, in large print, a quote from rock-star poet Robert Hass:

"Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day."

Dear Robert Hass, I'm not sure I believe you, but you inspire me anyway.

This new notebook is Notebook Number 10. Today I will paginate it (every other page) and create a table of contents so things don't get lost. Tomorrow morning at five bells I will get up and pour a cup of coffee, then sit down at my desk with the blankest of blank pages. I can't wait.

(P.S. If you have notebook stories, or other stories about the artifacts of creativity -- skeins of yarn, the blank canvas, a lump of clay, your quilting shears, a brand new saucier -- I would love to hear about them in the comments).

Sunday Words: On Commitment and Blessing

2011-11-13T05:45:00.000-08:00

"It's not a matter of what you deserve, and -- more to the point -- certainly not a matter of what you think you deserve. All that matters is what you're committed to,and how you honor that commitment, and -- sometimes -- what you are blessed by."

--M. Allen Cunningham in his article "In the Absence of Yes," Poets&Writers Nov/Dec 2011

Wordless Wednesday: Meet the Latest Addition to My (air quotes) Writing Studio (end air quotes)

2011-11-09T04:58:00.000-08:00

Drafting the Mail Order Bride

2011-11-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

"June Brides" -- 12 mail order brides from England arrive in the US

In this post I wrote about a series of poems that is unfolding for me, centered around the character of the Mail Order Bride. I now have six MOB drafts, each of which came to the page in slightly different ways, but for all of them the title came first. The title, saying its name out loud, in a voice of certainty:

"The Mail Order Bride in Winter"
"The Mail Order Bride Sets Up House, Feels a Tremor"
"The Mail Order Bride Attempts a Letter Home"
"The Mail Order Bride Learns to Tie Knots"
"The Mail Order Bride Empties"

I almost always draft in my notebook, then type up the draft on my computer. For me, there is something in the physical act of writing on a page that feels important. But in the case of the Mail Order Bride poems, only one was drafted in my notebook.

My drafts almost always come in a sudden rush. As it skitters down the page, my hand tries to keep up with my brain, the words pouring forth. But the Mail Order Bride poems have, for the most part, come slowly and carefully onto the screen.

I don't know what this means, probably nothing. But it has been interesting to me, to proceed slowly, to roll words and lines over in my head, then place them on the page/screen. I have had to be patient, to wait for the words, to craft them slowly instead of in a wild rush. The Mail Order Bride appears to be an intentional soul.

On Friday, another title came to me: "The Mail Order Bride Abides." I played around with word banks. I used up four pages in my notebook with false starts. Finally, I grabbed onto one line: "This is the season that taught me foothold." A poem began to attach itself to this line:

This is the season that taught me
foothold, to swing the slender blade

of self into loose soil, to gain fragile purchase,
be sapling, be sail.

It went from there, slow and halting. It was painful -- everything I tried petered out after these opening lines. Line after line in my notebook crossed out with "Ugh!" written in the margin. Eventually I sensed it was important to capitalize on the ideas of foothold and gaining purchase. I did a bit of looking around online for climbing terms, and decided to string them throughout the poem. I fell in love with the word abseil. I left the physical page for the blank screen and tried to be patient as the draft unfolded slowly. Abseil made its way into the final stanza.

I'm not sure what to make of the slow, intentional lines that gather under a particular title. It's a new way of working for me, but since the Mail Order Bride is insistent on being heard, I'm going along with it.

(Photo is public domain from the Library of Congress).

Sunday Words from Jane Hirshfield

2011-11-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.

--from Jane Hirshfield's poem, "The Weighing"
whole poem here

Overdue Gratitude: Domesticity Edition

2011-11-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

Don't know what this is? Consider yourself lucky.

Today is Thankful Thursday, and although gratitude is my constant companion, it has been a while since I've written about it here.

Today there is a weather warning in our area. I mean a "special weather statement." It states:

... A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER IS IN STORE FOR THE DISTRICT...

AFTER SEVERAL WARM AND DRY DAYS THE WEATHER WILL BE CHANGING ACROSS NORTHERN AND CENTRAL CALIFORNIA AS THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF PACIFIC COLD FRONTS MOVES ONSHORE THURSDAY.

Reader, they use the term 'cold' loosely out here, but the wind is gusting, the temps are falling, and the hulking grey cloud bank over the Santa Cruz tells me this ocean means business. So today, I am grateful to have a roof over my head, sturdy walls between me and the wind, and the furnace as a last resort (tempting, but I haven't turned it on yet).

And I am grateful for my mom who, although I didn't realize it at the time, taught me how to run a household, how to cook healthy meals, and that a house isn't made into a home by accident, but by intention. And now, the list of planned meals for the week, the pot of beans soaking for soup, the hum of the dryer, the ability to make dinner, kiss a scraped elbow, and drill someone on their math facts all at the same time -- all such a comfort to me. I confess, I think I learned from the best. Thanks, Mom.

I am grateful for all the tools we have in these modern times that make keeping house so much easier than it once was. Hello, washer and dryer, dishwasher, oven, coffee pot that automatically turns itself on ten minutes before I wake up, you guys are the best! Vacuum, I like you, too, but not as much as I like Broom (I confess, it's true). Also, Lids-off, I was hoping not to meet you until I was much, much older, but thanks for opening the pizza sauce for the kids' lunch today.

I am grateful for learning, albeit the hard way (chronic illness and the standard-lowering but adorable third child) to lower my standards in the housekeeping department. To resort to store-bought pizza sauce once in a while. To step over the piles of laundry between me and my writing desk. To concoct a not-quite-dinner out of almost nothing. To sleep in instead of putting the laundry away......... again.

Also, front porch, you are the best place for en plein air art projects, and Sister and I love you for that.

And, ~~Whole Paycheck~~, I mean Whole Foods, thank you for your two-fer on roasted chickens every week. One for dinner, one for the freezer. I am not afraid to say you roast chickens better than I do.

Did you know that the average food stamps recipient has to feed him/herself and his/her family on about $4.00 per person per day? I am so grateful not to have to worry about how I'm going to feed my kids tonight. I am so grateful that my kids have never gone to bed hungry.

For having learned delayed gratification. For resisting the temptation to play hooky on my household responsibilities today. For knowing, knowing that our weekend would be stressful if I did. For waiting until tomorrow to have a day at my desk (.....oh...... it hurt, Reader, it did).

Yes, for all things domestic: for windows, house keys, rugs, lamps, bookshelves, a warm bed, hot water on demand; for delightfully comfortable beds, flannel sheets; for clean, dry towels; for a kitchen table taking on the patina of hard use; for hungry children who need to eat every time I turn around; for being the CEO of this small enterprise called Family; for all this, I am grateful indeed.

Wordless Wednesday: What I Was Doing Late Last Night, or, May I Recommend Aiming for Summer Babies if At All Possible

2011-11-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Possession

2011-10-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, Reader. Today seems just the right day to tell you that I am possessed. By the Mail Order Bride.

Who is the Mail Order Bride (or the MOB as I like to call her)? She is a young bride come west. She is both brave and frightened, both strong and weak. She is in a new landscape. She writes to her mother back east, or tries to, the letters never come out right. She tends the garden, the fruit trees; does the mending; prepares the roast for dinner. At night, she learns to tie knots. A home begins to build itself around her. Her husband is a builder of ships.

She has taken up residence in my brain, or my soul, wherever it is the poems begin. She will not stop telling me her stories. I tell her I'd like to write some other poems. She doesn't care. She demands to be heard.

In the last month she has found her way into five or six drafts. She says, "Husband I must tell you: / I was brimming." She says, "I make it appear, I say drain, sink, counter. / I say window, doorway, gate." She says, "I'm all strum and jangle / as he leaves for the shipyard, relief // and loneliness, both, dueling / down my long bones... ."

She is not done yet.

I feel a bit like I did during my first pregnancy -- as if another being had taken up residence and was calling all the shots, or at least most of them. I am mystified. Of course, I am not so blind as to fail to see the bits and pieces of me and my story in the MOB.

She is teaching me how to tell a story, create a setting, stitch together a character -- all without going to straight narrative. She is making me think about will vs. fate, how well we can ever know another, the ways life surprises and doesn't surprise us, the liturgy of household routines, the taste of new fruit.

All in all, I'm glad to have made her acquaintance.

(And now I must don my witch's hat and walk over to school for the costume parade. I confess, I don't enjoy Halloween, and neither does the Mail Order Bride.)

P.S. 'Possession' is the title of a novel by A.S. Byatt. It's kind of a romance / mystery solved by literary scholars. I liked it.

Sunday Words: Marie Howe and Kay Ryan

2011-10-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Universe, thank you for public radio.

In a little twist on the usual Sunday words, here are links to two interviews: one with Marie Howe, and the other with Kay Ryan.

I almost choked when Terry Gross introduced Marie Howe as a "little-known poet." But I was glad to hear Marie Howe interviewed, and especially liked hearing her talk about the poem she'd been trying to write for twenty years. It gives me hope for a few of my resting poems that I just can't let go of. Here's the interview.

And here is Michael Krasny of KQED interviewing Kay Ryan. I am always encouraged by her later-in-life success, and I like the bit of rebel streak in her (have you ever read her essay, 'I Go to AWP '?). Best quote from the interview (I am paraphrasing): Michael Krasny asks Kay Ryan if she reads much contemporary poetry. She says 'No,' -- pause -- 'Kind of a conversation stopper isn't it?'

(Image is public domain from wikimedia commons).

And the winner is...

2011-10-28T06:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who wrote on the topic of hometowns. I enjoyed reading your responses.

CitricSugar will receive a copy of Nina Lindsay's Today's Special Dish. I wish I knew how to put that nifty little random number generator widget on this post, but I don't and the children will need breakfast soon.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Submismash

2011-10-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

My combo coffee table/workspace and our goofy pumpkin, Lester

To that, I say, "Yes!"

(P.S. non-writers: Submishmash is an online submissions manager that many journals use as a portal for writers submitting work).

By which I mean submitting is always a mish-mash for me.

First it is a mish-mash of voices that say things like:
--You thought this poem was interesting, but it's boring.
--It seemed decent when you were working on it, but it's not.
--This journal will never publish your work.

And so on down the line. I have recently learned a strategy for shushing those voices. Here's what you do:

Step 1 - Acknowledge the kernel of truth in the statement: "It's true, this journal only accepts 2% of submissions."
Step 2 - Tell what is not true in the statement: "You never know when your poem is going to strike someone's fancy, so it's worth a shot."
Step 3 - Say what is also true: "It's also true that they'll never publish my work if I never send it to them."

This nifty process helps a lot (btw, I'm teaching it to my kids as a strategy for managing negative self-talk, too!).

But then there is a mish-mash of poems: which to submit to what journals, trying to match poem to aesthetic, creating little mini-manuscripts of poems that play well together. Can the Mail Order Bride go with Isis? Does the spider belong with the East Foothills?

And then there is a mish-mash of submissions guidelines, which are all slightly different: contact info on the poem, contact info not on the poem, contact info in an e-mail, attachments only, poems in the text of the e-mail only, paper submissions only please no paperclips. I read them all out loud in an effort to make sure I'm not missing anything, but I'm sure I've missed something once in a while. And how about the snarky guidelines like (real examples): "Don't send us your first drafts." "Don't send your work on a used napkin." "You're not Ginsberg." "Five means five. Five is not the new six." I get that editors probably see everything, but my guess is that most writers are submitting their best work in a professional manner, and the snark feels patronizing to me. My approach is not to submit to journals with snarky guidelines (even though I probably can't afford to be that selective).

And then there is the mish-mash of technical glitches. We've all had e-mails that completely disappear into the ether. We've all had the formatting of something go wrong because of tags inserted in an e-mail program. This doesn't bother me in my regular life, but it worries me in my writing life. Just this month I had an e-mail that I sent to an editor of a journal go missing. When I followed up with her, she said she had never received it. Yet there it was in my sent-mail folder. I re-sent. I know this can happen with snail mail, too, but frankly that's no comfort!

And then there is the mish-mash of trying to submit poems in a house where children live. "DON'T STEP ON THAT PILE OF PAPERS!!!!!!!!!!" (Which reminds me, they will be home any minute. Today is the weekly "minimum day" -- a half-day of school every Thursday. I kid you not. My dad asked this morning if mothers ever get minimum days and I cackled just a little too loud and maniacally).

But then there is the moment of calm when the deal is done. The 'send' button has been hit. You've kissed the stamp and put it in the mail box, the kind you can't reach back into to take something out. Your poems are out there on a journey. You hope they do okay, and you go back inside to file, to neaten up the mish-mash until next time.

I confess, I would almost always rather write and create than submit and file. But I know submitting is part of the job. I've been trying to do more and more of it.

And even though it's a mish-mash, there are sometimes the sweet rewards. I'm happy to say I'll have a poem in the next volume of CALYX.

Whatever mish-mash you encounter today, Reader, may it have its own sweet reward.

Wordless Wednesday: Pacific Afternoon

2011-10-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

Hometown: Blank (and P.S. a give-away)

2011-10-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

1st edition cover

"In the loveliest town of all, where the houses were white and high and the elm trees were green and higher than the houses, where the front yards were wide and pleasant and the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky, in this loveliest of all towns, Stuart stopped to get a drink of Sasparilla."

This passage from E.B. White's Stuart Little always takes me back to the town I was born in, the town where I began my growing up, the town that, in some ways, still feels like my hometown. Here, I was known, I was my mom's and dad's daughter, I was the middle sister sandwiched by two boys. With the other kids, we ran around the neighborhood in a pack. We went sledding on Davie's hill and walked our way lost in the woods. It was just like Ames Crossing, the loveliest of all towns in Stuart Little, except that the orchards gave way, westward, to dunes and we drank Faygo Rock'n'Rye or Vernor's instead of Sasparilla.

But then there is the town where we lived amidst field after field after field. Where the noon whistle reminded us of lunch time and the six o'clock whistle told us it was time to go home before our parents got cross. This was the town with the old fashioned wooden water tower that darkened to silhouette against the evening sky going down toward dusk. And this was the town where my BFF and I would sit on the swings at night at the little town beach, drinking diet cherry 7-up and wondering where life would take us. The town that had a town drunk called Sundown, where you could walk across M-66 by waving your hand at the traffic to stop, and it would even though there was no stoplight. This is the town where my BFF's grandpa was the Village President once, and then her dad was, and now her sister is. In this town I graduated from high school and tried to graft myself on to the history of farming families, many of whom are still living and working there today.

And then there was New York City, that amalgam of thousands of small towns held together by the stitching of cross-streets onto Broadway, the Asian grocer where I got my coffee "light," the trembling of the 1/9 below the streets, the barely-there restaurants where you could get black beans and scrambled eggs and pressed Cuban bread for $4, thank God. Because that was all you had till you got your sliver of a paycheck the next week, and you needed a full belly to get through your finals.

Next came the Township, strung between the dark blue bay and the every-color brilliance of the lake. We swam at the drop off, walked to the fruit stand for sweet corn in the afternoons sun-soaked and happy. In the evenings we reached up to touch the stars that looked so close, we saw ourselves in the sparkling wash of the Milky Way, we walked through tunnels of fireflies. Then played euchre late into the night; always sit the way the bathtub runs if you want to win (ancient family secret). This is where we brought our first loves, our first real loves, the people we joined ourselves to in marriage. This is where we brought our babies home to meet their grandparents. This is where we go home to now.

Next there was the biggest small town in the world: Saint Paul. There everyone is Catholic, and everyone grew up there, and we lived in John and Millie's house even though John and Millie had died long ago. This is where my babies were born, where my dearest friendships took root and grew as rich and tall as the trees in the boulevards. This is where I learned to expect flood, to take shelter away from the basement's rattling windows, to huddle together and keep the fire burning strong during winter's long residence.

Now we are here in this little peninsula town. We have put down shallow roots in its here-and-there streets that are a patchwork of House Beautiful and houses slouching down to their dotage. We find our way to the best dry-cleaners, the semi-secret produce market, the library quiet and nourishing as the womb. We sleep with our windows open, hear the song of crickets and the Caltrain going through downtown. We walk through our days hemmed in by mountains: to the east, the blonde foothills curled like so many hips and thighs under the sun; to the west, the blue-dark Santa Cruz with its mantle of cloud bank off the ocean. Here we have landed: taken by surprise, but together. Our life unfolds day by day as if we have always been here. This is where those babies are growing up, at least for now.

Which is my hometown? I've been wondering lately. My field for 'hometown' on Facebook has always been blank. I have never known for sure, and still don't, what makes a town a hometown. If, as Joan Didion says, "a place belongs to those who claim it hardest," then the Township is mine all mine (don't worry, I promise to share!). But still, I hesitate to say it's my hometown -- there are families who have been there generations; it's their hometown. Sometimes I think my hometown is wherever I am right now: so, here on the peninsula; except when I'm visiting Mom and Dad at the lake; and then, near Ely, Minnesota, on vacation -- that week, the northwoods is home.

What's your hometown? How did you decide? Is it the place you were born and grew up? Is it the place you've been longest? Is it the place you raised your children, had the best library, or your favorite orchard of all time?

I would love to know how you, Reader, define hometown for yourself. Or if you're not sure, then something about your hometown or several of your hometowns. Anyone who comments will be put in a drawing for a copy of Today's Special Dish by Nina Lindsay, a hometown poet: born and raised and still working in Oakland; a poet who uses characters and scenes from her hometown to make her art.

Wherever you are today, I hope you feel at home. Happy Friday.

PS. I forgot to say I will draw the winner next Friday 10/28/2011! And also, if you're kinda shy like me and would rather "comment" via e-mail, you'll still go in the drawing.

Wordless Wednesday: Juxtapositions: Airplane, Spider, Bougainvillea

2011-10-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

'One must sustain oneself!'

2011-10-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

Have you read any Winnie-the-Pooh lately? Well, I've been reading it fairly regularly for the last, oh, ten years or so, and let me tell you: there are lots of little gems you might find useful in your everyday life.

One of the best is the line I rely on when I've been caught sneaking a wee morsel of something: "One must sustain oneself!" No one can argue with that.

Another is the word "organdized." In Chapter 3 of the original Pooh stories, a search is organdized and Piglet nearly meets a Heffalump. At our house, "organize" is used for run-of-the-mill organizing jobs: "I'm just organizing the towels." "I need to organize the school paperwork." Those types of things.

We pull out "organdize" for grander projects and loftier intentions, like: "I am going to organdize this tupperware cupboard for once and for all!" and "We need to get organdized for vacation!" The basic connotation of organdize is that you mean it, by god!

Today I organdized my writing files.

not organdized

As you can see here it was long overdue. I might rather have spent the time reading and drafting and revising, but I have learned that one must sustain oneself with a process for keeping track of such things as new drafts, current work, resting poems, poems that are close to done, those out for critique, poems to submit, and, my thinnest but loveliest file of all, placed poems.

It was time well-spent. The best part was at the end when I could survey the fruits of my labor and proclaim to the universe: "I am ORGANDIZED!"

ORGANDIZED!

Try it sometime. I think you'll like it.

Sunday Words for the Occupiers

2011-10-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

A paraphrase of Ghandi:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

The Poetry Hack is in the House: Titles for Writers and Readers

2011-10-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

"Well, gee, Ward, what do you think the title should be?"

Reader, I've had a request. One of my po-friends wants me to blog about titles. What makes a title good, effective. What a title can tell us. How to write awesome titles. I confess, I feel I have no authority to write on this topic. I'm just a poetry hack! I have not read essays on how to choose one's title. I do not have formal poetry training in general or in specifics. I have not published a zillion awesomely-titled poems. And as for 'How?', I fall on my knees before the mystery of How in so many areas of my life, especially poetry.

But what I can write about is what my instincts tell me about titles and a few tricks I've learned for unlocking titles as reader and writer.

If I were to give a very short definition of what a poem's title should be, I would say this: It is a legend to the poem. Not 'legend' as in story handed down by tradition, but 'legend' as in map key. If a poem is a map, the title is the legend of that map.

Direction If we look at a typical map legend, we always see a compass rose or at least an arrow indicating due north. In the same way, the title of a poem should give us a basic orientation from which to begin reading. Example: Recently I wrote a draft under the working title "Home-making, again." Since we moved I've been thinking a lot about how we make our homes in this life, and the mysterious qualities that make a house into a home. One of the first revisions I made to the poem was to change the title to "Home, Making." Why? Because the word home-making brings us directly to June Cleaver, which is not where I wanted my reader to start out with the poem. With the new title, the reader gets the idea that we are going to be considering two ideas: the idea of home, and the idea of making -- a very different starting place from my good buddy June, no offense to her.

Scale If you're anything like me, you have often held your finger up to that little line in the map legend that tells how many miles from the tip of your finger to your first finger joint. Just as a map has its scale, so does a poem. The title can give us a hint about what scale the poet has in mind for her poem. Example: In this post, I excerpted Jane Hirshfield's poem, which in her book, Come, Thief, is titled "For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen." The same poem appears in The Atlantic online under the title "For the Lichens." My sense is this: under the longer, more specific title, we get a message of scale from the poet. She is calling our attention both to the great diversity, and the individuality of each lichen. We are to think of abundance, variation, uniqueness, and the necessity of each. Not a generalized look at things, but a message about every.single.one. To me, the two titles speak to different scales and encourage us to read the poem differently.

Symbols Every map legend tells us how to interpret the symbols that appear on the map: a teepee for campgrounds, different colors and widths of lines to represent county roads vs. interstates vs. seasonal roads (well, if you come from where I come from there are roads that close for the winter), blue for water, green for natural area, and so on. Just so, a title can tell us how to interpret the "symbols" (images) in a poem. Example: in Andrea Cohen's poem Self-portrait with Forgiveness, we know to interpret her symbols through the lens of one person and her relationship with the concept and practice of forgiveness. A fish in the shoe -- slippery, uncomfortable, blazing (orange!), and yet, at the end of the day, comforting.

If I were to tell you about the titles that I always fall for, I would tell you this: I fall for titles that (1) purport to be primers, how-tos, and survival guides (2) have a temporal and/or geographical location (3) are two-words separated by a comma (3) emulate titles of art (e.g., "Self-Portrait with Acorns"). I fall for titles that do something to shake-up the expectations we have around the above categories (such as "Self-Portrait with Forgiveness" above -- a portrait with an abstraction rather than an object).

I've learned a few tricks of the trade through trial and error. An important one is to put any exposition the poem requires into the title. I once wrote a poem that is a reinterpretation of the Hansel and Gretel story. The first draft tried to give readers information about setting and reinterpretation in the first stanza. As I revised, I realized I could do all that in the title if I named the poem "Gretel, Florida 1978." Goodbye to a clumsy, throat-clearing stanza, hello to compression.

As for how to write awesome titles, I truly do not know. I emulate the format of my favorite titles. I work under a title to draft the poem, let the poem rest, then decide what the real title should be. Sometimes I steal a bit of significant text from within the poem. Sometimes I ask my po-friends what they think the title should be. Once or twice I have been known to ask Husband, but really, he's an engineer. Sometimes I wake up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night with the title echoing in my head (this has also happened to me in my Previous Life as an economics major -- the solution to a complex equation swimming up from the subconscious, sleeping mind -- a miracle!). I allow an element of intuition to enter when considering titles -- I may just have a hunch about what the title should be; I trust that intuition even if I can't, at first, articulate the "why" of the title. And then, sometimes I can't think of a good title no matter how hard I try and the poem stays in the resting drawer forever and ever.

If you are a writer or a reader and have good tricks for decoding or creating titles, or title formats you always fall for when you're reading, share them in the comments. And here's a little poem to enjoy in which rock-star poet Billy Collins takes on the subject of titles (thanks to Drew for this link).

This is the Poetry Hack, signing off. Thanks for joining us today.

~~~
P.S.: Snagged the photo of June Cleaver from modernretrowoman.com

Mid-week Missive Full of Nothing Much

2011-10-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

*photo attribution below

We live near a fire station (amongst other things) and many, many dogs. Right now the sirens are wailing and the neighborhood dogs have begun their empathetic opera of howls. It cracks me up every time it happens. It feels like we're living inside the movie 101 Dalmations when the dogs of the countryside raise their snouts and call to the dogs of London to pass along the location of the puppies.

At any rate, my pups are all at school today. This seems to be the exception rather than the rule. One pup after another has had one virus after another. As there is no back-up for the mother, I have not written as much lately as I might have. But by my count I have seven new drafts since school started, which feels good. Last week was a good week for revision. This week I have grabbed hold of kronos whenever possible, and "played" in my notebook. This has freed me in some way that I can't quite articulate. I have felt freer to write several different drafts of the same poem, rather than feeling attached to a particular, hard won (in terms of time) draft.

I am starting to put some feelers out into the Bay Area literary community. This has taken the form of sending e-mails to people I don't know at all. While I know some people who do this easily, it has required me to screw my courage to the sticking-place. I'm shy. But I've had encouraging responses, and I'm hopeful that they'll lead to some sort of writing community over the long haul.

Many folks have been asking how we're doing in California. I never know quite what to say, but here are some of the responses that go through my head:

1. Same routine, different place. It can be very comforting to have kids because their needs keep you focused and busy. In many way our family life is very similar to what it was in South-of-the-River.
2. What's not to love? -- great weather, no mortgage, and we don't have to mow the lawn.
3. Pass your millage election or levy referendum or whatever the school funding election is called where you live. I have seen the future and it's not fair. Also, while you're at it, fall on your knees and give thanks for the School Bus (no bussing in California!).
4. I miss my friends.
5. I miss my mom and dad (not that they lived in South-of-the-River, but they were able to visit often because the distance was drive-able).
6. I've pulled a few successful u-turns.
7. I don't know.... I feel like we're some of the luckiest people alive no matter where we are: enough to eat, a roof over our heads, access to education and health care.

So, we are doing fine. It's not without its challenges and it's sometimes a bit lonely (probably mostly for me) but we're doing fine. Thanks to all who have wondered and sent good wishes.

And now, I'm off to dash across town to pick up Sister from school, and then dash back across town to get home in time for the boys' dismissal (O, school bus, O yellow magic carpet ride, how I miss you!).

*Photo by Firefighter Dayna Hilton (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Wordless Wednesday: Apples

2011-10-12T05:54:00.000-07:00

Too bad this photo's not scratch-n-sniff

Words for Sunday from Steve Jobs

2011-10-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

-- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford

Used Books, Their Stories

2011-10-08T22:09:00.000-07:00

I confess, I have a complicated approach to book buying. For books by living poets, if they are not Rock Star Poets, I usually buy directly from the press. For Rock Star Poets (I'm talking about the folks who publish with the big publishing houses, in hardcover), I will usually go to my friendly neighborhood independent bookseller. For fiction, I use the library, or occasionally, will buy a paperback from almost anywhere. For other things -- books I want to have around for the kids between the semi-annual birthday and Christmas books, books on writing craft, reference and art books, etc. -- I will often buy used over the internet, looking for a book in decent condition at a decent price.

I did just that last week and ended up with used copies of Talking to the Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People (25 cents from Goodwill of Los Angeles!!!) and poemcrazy: freeing your life with words.

Both books were inscribed. Talking to the Sun bears on its flyleaf an inscription from mother to child in 1986, a very heartfelt inscription. I cringed to think of all the beautiful books I've purchased and inscribed for my children ending up at the Goodwill in L.A. Although, I learned early on from my firstborn to keep it short. As a toddler, he would wave his hands at me when I was talking to him and say, "too many words! too many words!"

Then there is poemcrazy, which has these words on the inside front cover (names omitted):

"Dear X, May our love be like a poem, a novel in three short lines. Full of meaning, passion, and understanding...eternal. Love, Y."

Poor Y! He pours his heart out to his love, and it ends up at the Friends of the Library annual book sale! I'm dying to know if X hesitated before deciding to unload poemcrazy. I mean, there are a lot of good writing exercises in it. I can see crossing out the inscription with a very thick Sharpie, but I don't know... I've kept the coffee bean grinder from my grad school boyfriend all these years and it still works great (thank you, Andrew, wherever you are)!

Anyway, these two books with their inscriptions that have become 'letters to the world' have had me thinking about the lives of books, their stories, the way they pass through lives and circulate in the world, leaving one home and finding another. I feel the same way when I check out a library book -- I wonder where the book was last, what secrets it might know. I realize I'm anthropomorphizing here, but it's part of the fun of used books for me.

Do you have any good used book stories to share? I would love to hear them.

Waiting for Kairos

2011-10-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Clock image is public domain from Wikimedia Commons

I've been thinking about time.

time (n.) the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future, regarded as a whole (definition from OED).

When I looked up time in my Barnhart's, I read "originally, a drum, probably through Medieval greek *timbanon, from Greek tympanon kettledrum." That made perfect sense to me. Time marches on! Then I realized I was reading the etymological roots of 'timbre' not 'time.' The word 'time' is a long lost descendent of the Old English word for 'tide.'

I get that, too, but the drum seems a closer likeness these days.

The ancient Greeks, those philosophical fellows, had two words for time. One was kronos which referred to the kind of time we keep, quantifiable time, the seconds and minutes and hours, the 'indefinite continued progress,' the drumbeat, drumbeat, drumbeat. The other was kairos, which referred to a quality of time during which a particular thing was appointed or "right." So when we say something like, "It's time for a change," we are speaking of kairos. (Gak, now I'm going to have Little River Band going through my head all day. Nothing against the Little River Band, or anything).

At any rate, the reason I've been thinking about time is that my excellent friend, The Poet A.O.D., sent me the most interesting information about writing time and its relationship to productivity. The information comes from a study on academic writers, and found that "writers fare best when they begin before feeling fully ready." It also found that writers who wrote daily were far more productive than those who waited for large chunks of time to write (average of 64 pages/year vs. 17 pages/year). Those who wrote daily and had a buddy to check in with once a week were more productive yet (average of 157 pages/year). Here's a link to more information on this study.

Those writers who waited for big chunks of time to write were writing in kairos time. Waiting for the appointed time. Waiting until the time was right. Those who wrote every day / wrote ever day and checked in with someone were writing in kronos time. They were not waiting for the right time; they just grabbed the seconds, minutes, hours that were floating by and put that kronos to use.

I am guilty! Guilty as charged! for waiting for kairos to write. My preference is to have several lovely, empty hours lying down in front of me, just waiting to be filled with words and poetry. I wait for kairos to write here on this blog, too. I've begun a hundred posts in my head, but I've been waiting for the right time to sit down and write them up. Meanwhile, me no bloggy.

In the spirit of making friends with kronos, I wrote a draft yesterday morning in about two minutes. No reading beforehand, no spinning through wordbanks or random number generation, no set constraints. It's a draft I'll keep and work on. I think it can grow up into a poem. I have no plans to abandon my usual process when I do have kairos time for writing. And the rack 'em and stack 'em approach to setting time aside for writing vs. family responsibilities helps me feel more relaxed about both parts of my life. But I'm also going to try to be freer inside of kronos time, to put the pen to paper each day if only for five minutes, to let whatever flows be something or nothing, to write.right.now a little more often.

And as often happens for me, the things I learn in my writing life bleed over into my everyday mom/wife/person/civilian life. There are many things I put off while waiting around for kairos. As if kairos will get off the 51 bus at 9:37 and announce himself. Meanwhile, his underachiever little brother kronos is right there waiting for me. This reminds me of something my uber-wise mother has said many times: "You have all the time there is."

Dear kronos, too often I've seen you as a nag, a bother, a drumbeat. I shall endeavor to see you more as an ally, a dance, a partner-in-crime. Let's hold hands and get some stuff done! If kairos wants to come along, so be it. But, meanwhile, what are we waiting for?

Wordless Wednesday: First Cloudy Day (Does this mean it's Fall?)

2011-10-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

Sunday Words: Two Autumns

2011-10-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

"I go / you stay / two autumns"

--Basho

Wordless Wednesday: Fault Line

2011-09-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

(Yes, it's That Fault)

Public Service Announcement: The Poet Jane Hirshfield on KQED

2011-09-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

Michael Krasny will interview the poet Jane Hirshfield this morning on KQED, 10 o'clock Pacific time. Click on this link for more information. Click on this link to listen live at 10:00 PDT.

On My Nightstand: the Minimalist Edition

2011-09-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

Reader, there are nightstands and then there are nightstands. There are nightstands that can hold towering stacks of books and temporary pharmacies, and then there is my new nightstand at the Casita, which requires strategic positioning to accommodate any books.

And as I pondered my postage-stamp-sized nightstand last night, I realized it has been forever since I've said what was on it. So today, let me tell you briefly what I've been reading:

In FICTION:

(not pictured) Private Life by Jane Smiley. For those of you who read A Thousand Acres when you were too young and naive to expect its unfolding plot line, and therefore were scarred for life (who, me?), never fear. Private Life is nothing like it. Set primarily in Vallejo, California, during the years after the Civil War through the run-up to World War II, this is a story of a marriage, its exterior vs. its interior, the effects of eccentricity, and how private lives and the public world can shape one another. Exquisite characters. Read it.

(not pictured) The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. This was a birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law, the first in a series of "novel(s) of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes." I always find it interesting to read stories in which well-known literary characters are borrowed from their original author and put into a new set of stories. I liked this one quite a bit -- good plot, interesting characters. You can't go wrong here, especially if you like a good series.

Burning Your Boats: The Complete Short Stories by Angela Carter. I flipped right to the section containing "The Bloody Chamber" and other stories. "The Bloody Chamber" is a well-known feminist reinterpretation of the Bluebeard story (other tales in this volume are reinterpretations of other Old Tales; I am a sucker for such reinterpretations every time). Gothic, spooky, unflinching, and crafted in beautiful prose, these stories will have you thinking about courtship anxieties, forbidden spaces, true love, deceiving appearances, and the like. Perfect if you like to be spooked before sleeping (which I do, because I have a hunch that being spooked before sleeping plants poem-seeds, not to mention wacky dreams).

In NON-FICTION:

(not pictured) Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads: Dealing with Difficult Parents in Your Child's Life by Rosalind Wiseman. Rosalind Wiseman is the author of the well-known book on female peer relations, Queen Bees and Wannabes. This book caught my eye in the children's room at our public library. I'm not sure the subtitle quite does it justice. I rarely read parenting how-to books, but I found this book immensely helpful for two reasons: (1) it verified for me my sense that peer pressure begins earlier now than it once did, and documented the culture of achievement (I would say over-achievement) that seems to have its claws into my generation of parents (some call it "helicopter" parenting), and (2) it suggested real strategies for helping your children and your family opt out of the achievement-at-all-costs mode of being. I'm sure one of the reasons I liked it is that it validated many of my beliefs, e.g., 8 year olds don't need cell phones, sophomores shouldn't be taking five AP classes, and playing traveling soccer by age 5 does not predestine your child for greatness in this life. A real dose of common sense, thank you Ms. Wiseman, you are wise indeed.

In POETRY:

Reader, yesterday I almost expired because...... I had ..... no new poems .... to read. Very jittery, I was. Veeeeerrrrrry jittery. And then, O thank you Beneficent Goddess of Just-in-Time, the letter-carrier delivered issue 10 of Cave Wall and Alison Stine's WAIT.

But first, let me tell you about Nina Lindsay's Today's Special Dish, which I read and studied last week: Grit and beauty in the same poem, nay, in the same line. Finger-lickin' descriptions of food and the ceremonies we build around it. Fresh and luminous angles of light. Stories of the sublime in the day-to-day. Treat yourself, Reader, it's delectable.

As for Cave Wall, last night, as usual, I was not the mom watching flag football from the sidelines cheering every time my child touched the ball. Last night, I was not the mom on the playground refereeing games for the younger siblings of the flag-footballers. As usual, I was the mom sitting off in the distance with her nose in a book (I happen to like this approach -- I get to read, and my children don't have to be under the microscope). And I was rewarded with lines like this:

"... All month the clouds / are long bones descending, or / feathers, sister, falling // into rock where their names / and dates are trapped / like the first birds in ancient silt. ..."

--from Sally Rosen Kindred's "Feathers, Sister, Falling"

Lovely, lovely, and I can't wait to read more of Cave Wall this week. As a bonus, the artwork in this issue is enchanted and enchanting.

Reader, you will have to wait for WAIT by Alison Stine since I haven't cracked it open yet. But let me entice you with some jacket text: "In a small town under a spell, a child bride prays for the sheriff's gun. ... Part fairy tale, and part gothic ballad WAIT spans a single year: the year before a young woman's marriage."

So, there you have my little book report. What have you been reading lately? Let me know in comments if you like.

And now in other news: a few drafts have been stacking up here and there. I'll be revising some today. I am very happy to have some poet-time today.

Stay tuned for:
~ more on Today's Special Dish
~The Poet Expands Her Use of Technology
~Titles, or, What On Earth Is the Name of This Poem? for Readers and Writers, and,
~In Which She Lashes Herself to the Mast and Resists the Siren Song of the PTA

Happy day, Reader!

Sunday Words: from 'Orchard'

2011-09-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

"I saw the first pear
as it fell—
the honey-seeking, golden-banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I,
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:
you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees. "

--from 'Orchard' by H.D.

That is why we know...

2011-09-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

"On earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished. That is why we know that poetry is like bread... ."

--Pablo Neruda

Wordless Wednesday: Three of My Best Friends

2011-09-21T04:54:00.000-07:00

Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em!

2011-09-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

Way long time ago (in my life, this means "before the kids were born"), Husband and I were watching a home decorating show. Don't ask me why. We obviously had time to kill. At any rate, this show was interesting because it was devoted to resolving differences of opinion between spouses/partners on how to decorate their home. This episode featured a couple who couldn't agree on how to configure their guest room. They wanted to have room for their four grandchildren to sleep over; they also wanted to be able to use the room for other purposes (perhaps as a den or office? I can't remember) when it was just the two of them.

The husband wanted to "rack 'em and stack 'em!" -- in other words, he thought bunk beds were the obvious answer. The wife preferred the day-bed-with-trundle-plus-Murphy-bed approach. The husband must've said "rack 'em and stack 'em!" fifty times in the half-hour segment.

Later in life, when Husband and I had a several things, not the least of which were children, to rack and stack, we took to calling out to each other "rack 'em and stack em!" Yes, we find humor wherever we can.

At any rate, I'm thinking of rechristening our little house the Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em House. Because of the shortage of space here, there are many, many things which are put away on top of other things, which are put away upon other things, which are in turn put away on top... well, you get the idea. If Anyone (I won't name names) decides to, say, rearrange the fragile system of racking and stacking, we end up without a place for certain crucial objects. Such as the coffee mugs. Or the T.P.

I decided last week I need to take a similar, rack 'em and stack 'em approach to my writing life. In other words, I need to find a stack of hours for writing, and a stack of hours for other stuff like being a mom and running a household. If I don't keep the stacks separate, if I don't arrange them just right, then something loses its spot. And, of course, writing is always the thing that gets muscled out of the stacks of time.

So, starting this week, I started racking and stacking. I started three dinners on Sunday, so I wouldn't need to spend as much time in the kitchen during the week. I set aside a stack of mornings as work days. Yes, work days. I have actually spoken these words: "I can't do it on Tuesday because I work that day." I've stacked up my errands and household duties for attention on other days, at other times. This probably seems like no big deal to many of you who have been balancing work and home responsibilities for years, but since I have just recently entered the phase when parenthood doesn't require my constant attention, I am learning it anew.

In keeping with the rack 'em and stack 'em approach to life, today I took a good look at all my recent work, everything in my "Active" file. The poems I feel excited and hopeful about, I left in the "Active" stack; other poems, ones I don't really feel much energy for, I put into the "On Hold" stack; a few poems went in the "Submit" stack; several had the chance to meet the shit-can (sorry, Mom! but sometimes only the right word will do).

I've been walking around my house today proclaiming, "Rack 'em and stack em! Rack 'em and stack 'em." It feels good.

(P.S. For a beautiful reflection on the integration of writing life and family life, read Sage Cohen's post today.)

(P.S. Again: !!!WARNING!!! In case anyone in the readership (all 3 of you) is considering the wisdom of the rack 'em and stack 'em approach to sleeping arrangements, let me say this: DON'T DO IT. In another small house of mine, I was persuaded by Someone (I won't name names) to bring into our home a loft bed, which is the bunk bed's poor country cousin. Said Someone, "Rack 'em and stack 'em!" The loft bed was very annoying but minimally workable until I got sick, after which there was no earthly way for me to change the sheets when Someone was traveling for work. I pause here to remember the spectacle of my friend, the big shot lawyer, changing the loft bed while wearing a three-piece suit. Let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. Keep the beds low to the ground, Reader, low to the ground).

Words for Sunday: Attention Writers and Everyone Else: "We Must Be Willing to Risk"

2011-09-18T07:06:00.000-07:00

"Much as we may wish it otherwise, reality seldom comes to us simple, logical, all of a piece. (A human being) is an animal, we must say if we are honest, but (we are) also more than animal. In honesty we must say that too. If we are determined to speak the plain sense of our experience, we must be willing to risk the charge of speaking what often sounds like nonsense."

--from Frederick Buechner's spiritual writings, collected in Listening to Your Life, compiled and edited by George Connor

(NB: parentheses mine to make the quote gender inclusive; forgive me, I couldn't not)

Come, Thief

2011-09-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to Kepler's to hear the poet Jane Hirshfield read from her newest collection, Come, Thief (buy this fantastic book here or ask for it at your friendly neighborhood bookseller).

As any mother knows, if a mother wants to leave the house any time after 4:00 p.m., she practically needs the Jaws of Life to get her out of there. Between homework help and a late start on the spaghetti sauce, and a Husband who left work later than expected, I just about bailed on my little outing. But there was a voice inside of me that was clear and indignant: "What!? Not go!? Forget it. You ARE going, missy, come hell or high water." I wasn't going to argue with that particular voice. She sounded pissed. So, I left the three bears in care of each other for five minutes, and scooted up the peninsula.

(Don't tell Judge Amy on me. They were fine.).

And here I would like to pause to give thanks to the gods of traffic, who allowed me to get well into Palo Alto before hitting a red light: **O, traffic gods, I thank you. I realize I have now had my one lucky day in California traffic and that it will never happen again. Amen.**

This was the first time I'd gone to a reading given by a rock star poet and I wasn't sure what to expect (btw, you know a poet is a rock star if her/his book comes out in hardcover). I was kind of hoping for a mob scene -- you know, hundreds of people lined up on the street to get in. Instead, there were about forty people in a quiet room, every one of them (including me) wearing comfortable shoes. I took comfort in this pairing of poetry and gentle footwear.

One of my favorite moments of the evening was when the poet came in unassumingly from the back of the room and sat down as part of the audience a few minutes before being introduced. After a moment, people noticed her and she said something along the lines of "Oh, people actually know who I am!?" I suppose she may have been in doubt since the placard for the event had her picture above the name Jan Hirshfield. Um, oops.

Anyway, on to the poetry.

Well, what to say? The poems were beautiful and she read them beautifully and with reverence for the process of reading poems out loud to those listening, that sweet poetry transaction, the way poems are meant to be enjoyed. The "thief" in the title is Time itself, and many of the poems are moments of careful witness and attention to all things fleeting -- nature, friends, solitude, empires, species, days and weeks and years, this very life. Her language is simple (but not simplistic) and inviting: you want to walk right in to the room of her poems and make yourself at home, even though you are sometimes startled at what you find there: some new truth or beauty that you should've noticed by now, but never had.

Probably my favorite poem from the reading was "For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen," which I took as a case for making art. She told a great story about how she came to the poem after learning that the lichens, though small, do the essential work of bringing nitrogen to the forest canopy (by the way, she also said that all of her poems are fact-checked so the science is sound). Here are some bits of it:

~

"Marriage of fungi and algae,
chemists of air,
changers of nitrogen-unusable into nitrogen-usable.

Like those nameless ones
who kept painting, shaping, engraving
unseen, unread, unremembered.

.
.
.

Cell by cell, word by word, making a world they could live in."

~

She talked about her interest in what she called malleability -- the idea that objective reality, when brought into a poem, can be "suppled" (her word) and made elastic; that what's real can shift and change in a poem. This really resonated with me, and I think it's probably why I'm so drawn to magical realism in poetry -- to let that shape-shifting reality, that suppling of the rules, take us somewhere we'd never have gone if not for the poem.

I was also interested to hear her "read" her line breaks, which she did, subtly. She later talked about line breaks as a "musical notation" -- echoes of Denise Levertov, who wrote that "the most obvious function of the line break is rhythmic: it can record the slight (but meaningful) hesitations between word and word that are characteristic of the mind's dance between perceptions but which are not noted by grammatical punctuation." Let the people say, Amen! Line breaks feel so important to me, but I've often heard poems read as if the line breaks were not there at all, rather than giving the half comma D-Lev, and Jane Hirshfield, grant to them.

(Okay, okay, all the non-poets in the readership are probably bored now, but I promise you don't have to care about malleability or line breaks to enjoy these poems).

After the reading, she sat to sign books. Here is where I became terribly shy, almost too shy to get in line to have my book signed. What am I, in junior high again? I got in line and mustered the courage to tell her how much this poem has meant to me, and she was kind and genuine and gracious. And it's kind of cool to have a signed copy of the book.

Reader, all in all I'm glad I made the effort to leave the house, leave the children unattended, and get me some live poetry. Wish you could've been there. In your most comfortable shoes.

The Sad State of Public Education: NOT a Rant Against Teachers

2011-09-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had a meeting with the principal of the boys' new school. I had missed new family orientation because Sister goes to a different school, and it was over by the time I returned to our neighborhood after dropping Sis off for her first day of Kindergarten. So, I wanted to ask a few questions about how things work at "Puff" (Sister's nickname for her brothers' school.... don't ask me?). And I wanted to make sure The Bean, who has always worked a bit ahead of grade level, would have access to the kind of programming he needs to stay challenged and engaged.

The good news is that there are lots of ways for that to happen. All the teachers are "GATE certified" (you may know, but I did not, that GATE = Gifted and Talented Education). So, in every classroom, there is lots of differentiation going on to meet all the kids needs. There are also pull-out programs in math and literature for 4th and 5th graders. There is Math Olympiad. There is a school garden. There are many, many after school enrichment activities.

The principal told me that the state of public funding for schools in California, like in every other state, is dire. But that at Puff we are very fortunate (very fortunate -- she really drove this home, as if to make sure I understood how very fortunate we are to have two of our three children at Puff). Because at Puff there is a very active PTA; there is a politically active group of parents who lobbied the city to remove the restrictions on a tax-free development zone in order to provide more revenue for local schools; there is a highly-educated workforce of parents who come in to share their expertise on a variety of subjects; there are some families who donate significant amounts of money to the school. The size of one donation, which I will not specify here, could buy a house in most cities in this country, but in this case pays for the GATE teacher training and programs at Puff. And let me be clear about one more advantage (and these are my words, not hers): Puff is on the right side of the tracks.

Sister's school is on the wrong side of the tracks, literally and figuratively. She is one of the few white students at the school. Many, and perhaps most, families' first language is Spanish. There is a PTA, but it is far less visible than the PTA at Puff. My guess is that, in general, the parents are not as highly educated and not as well-employed as are the Puff parents. My guess is that income levels are lower, and donations to the school are smaller. There are no after school activities that I know of, except for YMCA childcare for those families who need it. Although we have been entirely pleased with the school so far, when we tell people where Sister goes to school, they raise their eyebrows and say "Oh..... that's too bad. Well, hopefully you can get her into Puff next year."

I left the meeting with the principal at Puff feeling truly sad. It was as if a policy issue that I had always found troubling finally showed its full face to me. And the thing is that I'm not sad or worried for Sister. Our family is one of the lucky ones: enough money to pay for our needs and a few wants, too. I am just terribly sad that the quality of educational programming, particularly the access to specialized instruction and enrichment activities, depends upon the income levels of parents for a given school. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon: housing prices are tied to perceived school quality almost everywhere, and some families who can afford to choose out of public schools altogether (although it is also true that many people who chose private school are making an active choice for something -- such as faith affiliation -- and not necessarily a choice against public education). And yet, here we are in our new little town, in a school district with a good reputation, and there are very clear disparities between the programs and resources available at one school versus those available at another.

This, to me, seems unjust. If our public education system is to fulfill its purpose of educating tomorrow's workforce and undergirding our democracy, it ought to be equitable. Programs and resources should be available to all students in a district, or city, or state -- not just those who are very fortunate to attend a particular school where private donations fund so much programming.

I am sad for all the students who, because of the family and circumstances and neighborhood they were born into, won't have access to the same education my kids have access to in the very same school district. Husband and I understand how very fortunate we are, not to have 2 of 3 of our children attend Puff, but to have been born into families that had enough money to house and feed us without too much trouble. We are fortunate to have been born into English-speaking families with white skin in a country that still harbors at least a subconscious, if not overt, racism. We are fortunate to have attended strong public schools. We are fortunate our parents could help us afford college. We know that we did not "make it" on our own, but had every advantage in making what we have made of our lives so far.

I wish that every child in our country could be so very fortunate. And I wish our elected officials would take steps to make every child in our country so very fortunate. Don't you?

Wordless Wednesday, Kind Of, on Thursday: Oscar Wilde on San Francisco

2011-09-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

Gratitude Journal: 'The Isn't-it-nice-to-be-home-again' Edition

2011-09-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

What poet wouldn't feel at home in a city that embeds poetry in its transit stops?

"Late last night so far away... I dreamed myself a dream... "

After what felt like 40 years -- but really was only a few months -- of wandering in the proverbial desert, I'm starting to feel at home again.

I am so grateful for that like-none-other feeling, and for:

~Six hours of quiet in the house today. The Introvert in me got her batteries way charged up.

~My bookshelves, arranged(!).

~The time I spent sorting and organizing notes from old classes and my fabulous former writing groups. It was a sweet walk down memory lane to remember the faces, voices, and stories that surrounded so many of the poems we studied together.

~The 3-inch stack of prompts, jumping-off points, ideas, and other similar poem-seeds that I now have in the second drawer on the left in my writing desk (the Resting Drawer's wise old grandmother...... I'll have to think of a name for it).

~The drafts I had forgotten about, some of which probably have a future.

~The city up the peninsula, San Francisco, and the chance to get to know it like the back of my hand in the coming months and years. The sense of coming home to a city I've only visited once before. Frisco, you were waiting for me the whole time, weren't you? (And yes, I'm a nerd, I just said 'Frisco').

~One word: Kepler's. Okay, more than one word: it's a friendly neighborhood independent bookseller where I would gladly live out the rest of my days (yes, I would miss Husband and the children, but..... the books! the books!). Although it's not in my neighborhood, it's only 20 minutes away and worth the drive. They had me at: "Kepler's presents: Jane Hirshfield, Monday September 12, 7:00 p.m."

~All these things combining to remind me that I'm a poet. Not just a mom. Not just a packer and a mover and an unpacker. Not just a phone caller, school form filler-outer, grocery shopper, bathroom sink wiper-downer. A poet.

Hey, Whoever You Are that's in charge of this crazy life, thanks for the reminder.

(And now for those of you who have James Taylor on the brain):

There should be a word for...

2011-09-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

... the feeling of dread one experiences when one skips a day of doing laundry

... the feeling of surprise when one takes a sip out of a cup expecting one thing, and getting another

... the experience of reading a book one thought one hadn't read and realizing during the final chapter that one has already read the book

... the kind of light that makes one realize one's eyebrows really need tweezing

... the moment of wondering why one went into a particular room

... the moment of remembering why one went into a particular room after one has already left said room

... the feeling of delight at being carded long after one needs to be carded

... the experience of spilling a glass of water off one's nightstand in the middle of the night

... the delightful taste of summer tomatoes

... the peculiar mix of horror and joy when one's nephew repeatedly calls one "Grandma"

... the feeling of envy inspired by another's super-cute shoes

... a child's inborn desire to buy something, *anything*, in every store the child enters

... the feeling of wishing one would never have to see another plate of tacos, spaghetti, pizza, (fill in your own dinner ruts here ________) again

... the act of making tacos, spaghetti, pizza, etc., again the next week

... the act of putting a stamp on upside down

... the inflection? many of the younger generations? seem to put at the end of all their phrases? that make them sound like questions? but they're statements? (no offense to anyone intended?)

... the moment when one realizes the people making statements that sound like questions are now teachers, stock analysts, and labor and delivery nurses

... the fear of aging oneself

... the particular brand of laughter that makes one stomach hurt so badly one wishes one could stop laughing but one can't

... the painful period of waiting for the next season of Downton Abbey

... the particular brand of homesickness one experiences when one knows Everyone Else is at The Lake without her... sigh...

Any others, Reader?

Wordless Wednesday: Where I Want to Get My Drycleaning Done

2011-08-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today's Draft: Trust, Randomness

2011-08-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

What my desk looked like this morning

There are unpacked boxes. There is unfolded laundry. There are barely-made beds. It's someone's 10th birthday. The girl needs an appointment with an allergist. People will want dinner. The State of California will want me to have a driver's license. But this morning I set a timer for two hours and sat down at my desk to write.

I approached this exercise with equal parts joy and fear. Joy to sit down and write after a long dry spell (the last entry in my notebook: April 2). Fear that the well had run dry. And anyone who has read Little House knows you don't want to have to dig a new well.

Gave myself a pep talk: Trust the process, I said. And, Rely on randomness. So I did.

Alas, the Nina Lindsay book is not yet in at my friendly neighborhood independent bookseller, so I pulled some Louise Gluck off the shelf, chose five poems at random to read aloud and to build a word bank from. Word bank in hand, I went to The Working Poet: 75 Writing Exercises and a Poetry Anthology, chose a page at random for a prompt: page 109, The Ekphrastic Poem.

Here is where I cursed under my breath.

Then I got over myself and pulled an art book off the shelf, opened it -- you guessed it -- at random, to page 111: Mountain Slope at Unterach on the Attersea by Gustav Klimt.

Here is where I cursed under my breath again. I mean, couldn't it have been The Kiss? Or at least The Virgin -- that one's on page 110!?

No. Trust the process. Rely on randomness. Okay.

Would you like to take a look at Mountain Slope at Unterach on the Attersea? Here it is, although the linked image shows considerably more blues and yellows than does the reproduction in my art book.

I studied the image and did some freewriting to capture the feelings it evoked for me, the sense I had of different elements of the painting, the look and texture of the brush strokes, etc. As I looked at the print, the trees on the mountainside began to look like a wall of faces to me; I thought I might try to get that into the poem. Then I went back to the wordbank and, at random, chose six words to use in a draft: starve, pay, mountain (coincidence? I think not.), offer, wind, earth.

In case you're wondering, yes, I did curse under my breath for the third time.

Trusting the process, relying on randomness, I went to my notebook. I tried for a poem that would feel dense, with small but bold "brushstrokes" to echo the painting. The resulting draft is "Lesson From Unterach" (not crazy about that title); here's a snippet:

[Insert 8 hour interlude here during which I picked Sister up from school, ran home to meet the boys walking home from their school, fixed a snack, put everyone in the car to go back to Sister's school for a meeting, came back home to oversee homework, directed the process of children finding library books (curse, curse, curse), did a load of wash, started dinner, fed people, bathed two children, read two stories, told the 10 year old to go put his bike away (curse!), kissed said 10 year old goodnight and sent him upstairs..... yes, I'm still the Mom Trying to Write!]

Ahem. Back to my post and the snippet:

"Here, you are starved for horizon,
for sky. All you know is slope:
mute faces crushed together
in green to make mountain."

Well........ it's a start. And it was good to learn again that trusting the process and relying on that-which-one-might-not-have-pursued-on-one's-own, and on randomness, can bring poems up to the surface.

And now, this mom trying to write is going to bed!

Baby Steps

2011-08-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

Not the greatest photo, but a photo.

Reader (are you still out there??), I find the only way I can operate these days is in baby steps.

The desk is unearthed (or is that un-boxed?). Have I sat down to write at it? No.

The wall of boxes that once filled half the living room is gone. Are all the boxes unpacked? No.

I have a small table/cabinet to house the printer and my writing files. Have I put my writing files into their new home? No.

Do I unpack one box a day? No. Maybe more like a half a box a day.

Are the bookshelves all arranged? No. But they're part way arranged.

Do I have a new writing schedule in place? No. But last night I wrote writing day on every Tuesday and every Saturday in my calendar.

Do I have a new poetry collection to study this fall? No. But I ordered it today from my friendly neighborhood independent bookseller. It's Nina Lindsay's Today's Special Dish. Please go read this lovely poem by her right now.

Sometimes I wish I could take some giant steps. Like have all the boxes and the detritus of moving cross-country gone from my sight. Like have all the laundry folded all at the same time for even just five minutes. Like sit down at my desk for three hours to read and write and create something new. But right now, baby steps are working for me so I'm just gonna go with it for a while.

I think there are some poems tip-toeing up behind me... I can't wait to get to know them soon.

I hope you are baby-stepping when you need to, too.

In Which, Armed With Documentation, We Obtain Our Library Cards

2011-08-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

It was a very good day at The Casita (which is how I've begun to refer to our little house).

Today the Mamacita found a copy of the lease. With this lease, a utility bill with the Mamacita's name on it, and the Mamacita's picture ID, the four readers* of the family were able to obtain real, live library cards at our new hometown public library.

Do I hear a "Hallelujah!"?

The days leading up to this event have been sheer agony, particularly for a certain reader of the bunch. This particular reader has read every age-appropriate book in the house at least twice, (and probably some that aren't age appropriate but I don't want to think about that right now). This particular reader was, and I quote, MISERABLE! without any new books to read. The Mamacita tried to buy him off with a book purchased at our friendly neighborhood independent bookstore, but that only lasted one day. Then he was MISERABLE! again (I confess, the complaint of being MISERABLE! without a book is one of the few complaints I can abide, as I'm sometimes guilty of complaining about the same thing).

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. There were pleas and negotiations. There were mumbled concessions: fineI'lljustreadHarryPotterfortheFIFTHtimethengeez.

Reader, what can I tell you? I was trying. But did you ever try to find a copy of a lease in a casita into which you've just moved, where, in fact, many boxes are still unpacked and there are piles of stuff lots of places where stuff doesn't belong? I confess, it was almost as hard as finding Kit Kittredge, American Girl, who was at the bottom of the.very.last of boxes labeled "toys" that I looked in.

And also, since when do hometown public libraries require multiple forms of identification including one home-based utility, not a cell phone bill? Kinda makes you feel paranoid for wanting a library card. But I digress.

I found the lease, girded my loins, and took the kids downtown. The hometown public library is beautiful, full of friendly staff, and houses an impressive collection from what I've seen so far. Which, of course, is the Children's and Middle Readers collection. And, after the last several days, it seems quite fitting that one of the streets bordering the library is Mercy Street. Mercifully, the MISERABLE reader, and the other two readers (one came home with the library's entire Kit Kittredge collection), and the mamacita have spent much of today lost in the pages of a book. Bliss.

And speaking of how important and completely wonderful hometown public libraries are, take a look at this beautiful sketchbook a San Francisco artist made about her hometown public library. I think you'll find that her art and her sentiments are right on.

Which reminds me... there is one hometown public library that I've been missing lately. It involves an island house, a glassed in porch, and a view of the bay. But that's another story for another day...

Now, I'm off to read.

*As the three youngest readers made clear to library staff, Husband is not so much a reader. Don't ask me how I ended up marrying a non-reader. He's wonderful in many ways and we were in love. Still are.

Dispatch from Northern California

2011-08-04T22:37:00.001-07:00

Well, here we are.

After almost two weeks of hotel living and several days of utter unpacking chaos, here we are in our little (and I mean little) rented house in the golden state.

Here I am, sitting in the near-dark with the windows open, listening to the crickets chirp, watching out the window for the moon, knowing not where to begin.

I believe my first txt msg that went from California to South-of-the-River said: "Freakishly large geraniums."

It's true. They're like shrubs.

And I really don't know where to begin -- everything is so new and different, I'm just taking it all in. What I can tell you is this:

~Yes, it's true what they say about the weather. It really is lovely. In the midwest, we'd call it "good sleeping weather" -- you know, warm days then cool nights perfect for sleeping with the windows open. In a stunning departure from expected midwestern behavior, I have stopped checking the weather forecast every morning. Every day is the same: overcast morning, clouds giving way to bright sun and blue sky by 10 a.m., temps 70-75, steady light breezes, nights cool enough for fleeces, no rain. The midwesterner in me keeps looking over her shoulder, like it really can't last.

~Yes, it's true what they say about the produce. Also very lovely. Delicious, fresh, and cheap. Still not quite reaching the perfection of the Michigan sweet cherry, and yet the avocados nearly make up for it. I have already found my favorite produce market and it has become my second home. When I first entered, I had to pause for a moment of awestruck silence to say to my fellow shoppers: The produce snob in me (insert solemn bow here) greets the produce snob in you.

~California driving requires lots of u-turns. I have not, uh, mastered the u-turn. It's not pretty. Instead of embarrassing myself, I've figured out how to go about a half-mile out of my way on any given errand to avoid having to attempt a u-turn.

~California requires lots of documentation. So far, my dossier is not complete enough to get a library card, or to sign the kids up for little league. Note to self: must get one utility in my name.

~We have people here! We have relished spending time with my brother and his family, my uncle and his family, and an old college friend of mine and her family. It makes a huge difference to have these ready-made circles of love and laughter as we settle into our new home.

~The kids are happy. Our street is quiet and they are forever on their bikes. There's a lovely playground right around the corner. See above re: weather. They are brown as berries, and every night they come in with absolutely filthy feet. Every mother knows that absolutely filthy feet are an indication that all is well in the world.

~My desk is here somewhere. I know it's true because I saw it come in. Husband promises it's in the corner by the window with a view of the lovely fuchsia-flowering tree whose name I don't know. My own view of the alleged desk is obstructed by boxes that, alas, are too heavy for me to move. But never fear, my bookshelves are confirmed to be present and are slowly filling with all my best, dust-jacketed compadres.

~Speaking of compadres, I'm missing mine. Leaving my circle of friends in South-of-the-River was, of course, gut-wrenching. It involved lots of tears and hugs and the shocked silence of at least one casual observer as one dear friend and I wept into each others bosoms outside my house. Which isn't my house anymore. Leaving the house wasn't easy, either. I feel strangely untethered, a bit suspended between the ending of one chapter of life and the beginning of another. Dear compadres, nota bene: "I miss you" doesn't begin to say it.

Thank you to everyone who has sent, or even thought, good wishes and words of support. It makes all the difference to know that the people we love are wishing us well. And thank you, as always, for reading even as I haven't been writing much. I hope to be back here more regularly very soon.

The Storm Before the Calm

2011-07-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

I've been up since four with a thunderstorm, the moving to-do list running through my head, thoughts of leave-takings that once were theoretical becoming actual, wondering what it will be like to live in the absence of thunderstorms.

The movers come on Monday. No, I am not ready.

This week, a friend sent me a poem by William Stafford called "The Way It Is." Here's a bit of it:

There is a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.

The poem ends in the imperative:

You don't ever let go of the thread.

Well, I'm wondering: Can I have two threads? Mine have always been just what this blog is about: family (which, for me, also includes dear friends) and writing. As one life begins to fall away and another begins to unfold, I'm just going to hang on to my threads and believe that all will be well.

I'll be back here when we resurface on the edge of the continent. Until then...

Recalculating!

2011-07-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever used a GPS?

I never had until we went to California in May (yes, this post is way overdue) to "look around" as we said then. If you haven't used one, I am here to tell you that they have let the Voicemail Lady -- you know the one who says, "(insert name here) is not available. To leave a call back number, press 5. If you'd like to leave a message press one, or simply wait for the tone." etc. -- out of the phone, and they've put her into your car.

With a GPS you punch in your destination, and the Voicemail Lady will tell you how to get there: "in point two miles veer left on Oregon Expressway. Veer left on Oregon Expressway."

If you miss Oregon Expressway, the Voicemail Lady goes eerily silent, then comes back with a hearty "Recalculating!"

And yes, she will dutifully dictate an alternate route to your destination.

Well, Recalculating! is my new motto. After the trip to California we are recalculating all kinds of things like:
~home ownership: where 1200 square foot houses go for $1million, we may be lifelong renters
~deliberation time: in a place where rentals are advertised and filled, sometimes in the same day, we have had to let go of our tendency to deliberate over such decisions. We rented a house sight unseen, on the recommendation of my wonderful sister-in-law.
~Stuff: while we have less Stuff than many modern American families, we will have to have even less as we move in to a rental house smaller than any of our houses have been.
~that new car Husband needs? to replace the 15 year old one held together buy duct tape? the one with no air and no heat and no god-knows-what-else? We'll just wait 'til it falls apart on the 101 someday. Then, maybe a new car, or maybe we become a one-car family.

I'm Recalculating! wardrobes. Chilly mornings, chilly nights, warm days. Linen doesn't seem to be necessary; it doesn't get that hot. Lightweight fleeces? yes. Wool sweaters -- lightweight cashmere only, methinks. Socks often but not always. Winter gear only if going to the mountains or to Grandma and Grandpa's. But hats? mittens? Probably sometimes? Just not sure what we're all going to need. Except for skinny jeans. Skinny jeans everywhere out there. I have acquired some skinny jeans, and even though I'm of the generation who thinks the words "skinny" and "jeans" do not belong in the same phrase, let alone the same sentence, I have to say - Recalculating! - they look awesome and I love them.

I am also Recalculating! some of my own ways of being, or at least realizing that they may need to be recalculated. Seeing the Bay Area up close made me realize that we are moving into a very different culture than the one we're familiar with in the staid, steady, uber-reasonable Midwest. I'm not sure I can pinpoint how it's different yet, but I had a distinct we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore feeling out there. We are told of pressure-cooker high schools (which we'll try to avoid), people paying cash for houses, and celebrity sightings (tech world celebrities, that is, like Hello! That's Mark Zuckerberg in line at the deli!). We are also told of 320 days of sun, outdoor living spaces, parks on every corner, wonderful restaurants, and citywide WiFi. One thing I can say is that, as overwhelmed and bewildered as I was out there, I saw a remarkable number of people who look just so damn happy! I think that can only mean good things.

My landscape-o-meter is Recalculating! as well. Just as I was barely getting to know the landscape in and around South of the River (and yes, definitely still mourning the loss of my landscape of origin -- my beautiful Michigan), I'll be headed to a very different place of soaring hills, microclimates, houses built practically on top of each other, towns that blend into other towns, a bay that looks hard-working but down on it's luck, bridges that defy understanding, and just over the hills, that awesome (in the true sense of the word) Pacific ocean, its enormity, its rolling thunder even on calm days, the greyish sand it carries to shore, that far horizon, next stop Japan. Oh, and, um, earthquakes. As a person who is and has been formed by landscape, and as a writer whose poems are full of landscape references, I know I am beginning again, starting from zero, to learn my new terrain.

My poet's heart is aching. Calculating the loss of my po-friends in South-of-the-River is impossible. I blubbered like a baby when I told my writing group what lies ahead. I will miss regular coffee&poems with the Poet A.O.D. I will have to learn the pathways of the literary scene out there, seek out like-minded poets. I wonder how to do it. Believe me, I have considered putting ads up on telephone poles: "LOST POET. SHORT, GLASSES, PURCHASED BLONDE HIGHLIGHTS, OFTEN DISTRACTED. WILL RESPOND TO RECITED POEMS BY ANNE SEXTON, LOUISE GLUCK, NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, DENISE LEVERTOV, AND RILKE. NEEDS GOOD HOME. CALL *Recalculating! What's my phone number??*

I am Recalculating! what can count as a writing life. I am committing small acts of literature like: going to writing group even when I feel I should be getting ready to move; reading and responding to the work of po-friends; reading small poems, or a poem at a time, but not a whole collection; jotting down ideas, but not writing poems. Just for now.

And now the Recalculating! has turned into a counting-down of days. The movers will be here two weeks from tomorrow. This is going to happen. Soon. The thing I have been avoiding is looking Loss straight in the eye. I am moving away from a network of friends -- po-friends and civilian friends -- that is amazing beyond belief. These are not people I kind of know and like. These are people I love deeply and dearly. It will be like surgery to leave them. That loss, I cannot begin to calculate now. That loss will hit me -- when?-- sometime after the fact.

By the time it does, I hope I am also adding up all the good things about life in Silicon Valley: all the nice people I've met, the literary world connections I've made, the hours of sunshine, the smiles of my nephews and cousins seen not via webcam but face to face, the bushels of fresh fruits and veggies from the year-round farmers market (What!? Did you say year-round? RECALCULATING!)

And by then, I hope I'll know my phone number.

Words for Sunday: Excerpt from "Gift" by Rabindranath Tagore

2011-06-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

"... Truest treasure is fleeting;
It sparkles for a moment, then goes.
It does not tell its name; its tune
Stops us in our tracks, its dance disappears
At the toss of an anklet.
I know no way to it --
No hand, nor word can reach it.
Friend, whatever you take of it,
On your own,
Without asking, without knowing, let that
Be yours. ..."

the poet's signature (from Wikipedia)

More about this poet here.

Translated from the Bengali by William Radice

Micro-post: Untangle

2011-06-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

I took the kids fishing today. For them, par for the course for summer vacation. For me, a minor miracle.

Much time was spent watching lines become tangled (tangle: v. 1 to twist together into a confused mass). Even more time was spent untangling (untangle: v. 1 to free from tangles. 2 to free from complications or confusion).

Guess who did the untangling?

Yes, and I learned something.
Or re-learned something.
Or re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re(you get the picture)-learned something.

When I tried to make an intellectual pursuit of untangling the fishing lines -- a mental map, a pre-planned strategy for solving the puzzle dammit! -- it never worked.

But when I stopped thinking so hard and gave over to intuition (intuition n. the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning), when I let the tangles and my hands do a slow, unthinking dance, the lines practically untangled themselves.

Note to self.

not squeamish

he'll do it his way

born serious

And P.S., Happy Bloomsday

Nine O'Clock Missive, Sunday Night

2011-06-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Reader,

This is just to say: I am still here.

I am reading your blogs, you who have blogs, but saying little.

I am jotting short phrases in my notebook, like: "furta sacra -- the theft of sacred things"

I am reading the smallest of poems: haiku by Basho, Buson and Issa.

I am pondering permanence and transience.

I am paddling a canoe full of kids across a wide river. We are wearing life preservers and mostly smiling.

The fire is banked. The embers promise to glow and burn again when they meet with the breath of time and space.

Thanks for reading and for waiting. In peace,

Molly

Silence, Silence, Silence, Then a Draft

2011-05-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

We have discussed stresspiles on this blog before. Stresspiles, from the Gerry (this is like 'from the Latin', but different) meaning too much stress all at the same time. The stresspiles are piling up around here, as one would expect them to in times of oh, say, a cross-country move. I tend to go quiet during times of stress. This became clear to me one day last year when I decided to go back to my old journals and read what I had written during the darkest days of my chronic illness.

In the span of a year, I, a prolific journaler, had written exactly five words: "My health has been iffy."

Of course, "iffy" didn't begin to describe it. And while it's true that at the time I could barely hold a pen, pressed between my thumb and the first (lowest) knuckle of my index finger, I had to wonder about someone who calls herself a writer not writing during such a transformational time.

Well, I'm at it again, dear Reader. Not writing. During a transformational time. I am also not reading; not reading poetry, that is. Because, I want to say to Poetry, you require all of me. And you can't have all of me right now.

But last week there was an emergency with one of the kids. It was scary and awful, and it required an ER visit, but everyone's fine and healthy now. Once everyone was fine and healthy, I went to my notebook as if pulled by gravity. Something needed saying. I had an image in my head, a memory of watching Husband hold our first born Bean in one hand just hours after his birth. Have you ever seen a man do that with a newborn babe? A big man, with a big hand, big enough to hold a tiny baby right there?

I remembered what I felt in that moment, lying in a hospital bed, watching my husband hold our newborn son in one hand. I remember how raw and vulnerable I felt then, having brought this little life into the big, wide world. I remember thinking, Well, this is it, then. I will never feel this raw and vulnerable again. All you mothers out there, and you wise non-mothers too, feel free to laugh with me now. How sweet, my naivete! But how could I have known that as parents we get to feel more raw and more vulnerable with each passing year as we encounter all the ways we cannot protect our children from bad things: mean people, rotten luck, pure accidents, natural disasters, grief, illness, failure, fear, death.

When I was a teenager, I wrote so many poems (very bad poems) that came straight out of difficult experiences. In those years, poetry was a way to sort through things. And this new draft, this first act of literature I've committed in at least a month, was just the same. A way to sort through watching my child suffer, be in danger, and come through.

I hope it's better than the poems I wrote when I was fourteen and Jeff Brown moved to Greenville and started dating Jody Hankis and forgot all about me. I look back now and see the poems were bad and Jeff Brown wasn't even cute. Maybe someday I will look back on this draft and say, Meh. But I have to be glad for a poem of pure impulse, a poem for coping, a good old fashioned just-get-it-out-on-paper poem.

I'll take that now, amidst the stresspiles. A little healing draft. Just the thing.

Here's a little taste...

"You think

you are as raw as you will ever be

and empty as a house blown

apart by storm. Dear girl,

I won't tell you now of the deal

you've just made"

...and here's to hoping the stresspiles are all over at my house right now and they're leaving you, dear Reader, alone.

Gratitude Journal: Perspective & Pussy Willows

2011-05-05T19:08:00.002-07:00

This week I remind myself that I have some of the best problems in the world: a husband who got a promotion, a house to sell.

I am not wondering how to pay for food or medicine.
I am not living out of my minivan.
My husband is away from home on business, not to fight a war.
My house is a mess while we get it ready to sell, not because it has been obliterated by a tornado.
My children are healthy (mostly) and happy (mostly).

And I have pussy willows on my dresser.

And I am reading Rebecca.

Close your eyes now and say it with me: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

Tell me, Reader, who can read those words and not be happy to be alive?

Confession Saturday: Cross-Country Move Edition

2011-04-30T16:45:00.001-07:00

I confess, I'm drinkin' out of a fire hose.

This is what my big brother used to say to me every time I asked him how he was during his grad school years. Me: How are you? Him: I'm drinkin' out of a fire hose. I thought I was drinkin' out of a fire hose during grad school, too -- two jobs and full-time school. I confess, I had no idea.

I confess, I have committed ZERO acts of literature in the last two weeks. Unless you count getting lost late at night in Wuthering Heights and The Deep End of the Ocean. Perhaps it's a little strange that my old reliable escape-into novels are, well, utterly heartbreaking. But it works for me.

Even though I truly believe everything with the move will work out fine, and that we will find happiness and abundant life in California, my body doesn't believe it. I confess, I haven't eaten or slept very well since the news came down from on high. I confess, Advil PM is my new best friend. Ensure Plus is my old arch nemesis, but I've resigned myself to it for now.

As usual, all my favorite people in the world are rushing to my side to help. Those near are stripping some very-80s wallpaper, replacing cupboard pulls, and hanging pictures. Those far are sending their good thoughts and words of support. My parents have come from far to near to do all sorts of helpful things. I confess, I have the best friends and relations.

I confess, I'm getting pretty good at getting houses ready to sell. Lots of practice recently. I confess, I'm afraid to jinx anything, but let me just say I could live without this little song and dance for a good long time after this go-round.

I confess, I miss poetry right now. I know it will be waiting for me when I can get back to my desk. Which has been moved downstairs at the stager's directions. Sigh.

I confess, when people ask me how I'm doing, all I can think of is the bookmark my BFF gave me a million years ago. It says:

Oh, I'm fine.
Just fine.
Perfectly fine.

Really.
I'm fine.

Fine.

(Really, I am!)

I confess, I've missed my bloggy-life during all the hubbub. I'll be around as often as I can until the fire hose turns off.

In Which Led Zeppelin Plays on Loop in My Head

2011-04-18T11:58:00.002-07:00

In the soundtrack of my life, Led Zeppelin looms large. They were hugely popular when I was a child, and their music filtered down into my world via babysitters and uncles and Tommy Stevens down the street. I left them behind for a while in the late 80s; Depeche Mode, New Order, big hair, and tuck-n-roll jeans seemed so ultra-cool then. On behalf of all the 80s kids, I would like to say: we see now that we were wrong about that.

The best music sticks, and in college and grad school I made my way back to the oldies but goodies, including Led Zeppelin. When I hear certain of their songs, I am transported to a country road heading north in Michigan with my brothers, on the way to the Lake. Or to a tiny, dark, and steaming hot apartment in New York City, where I lived with my dear friend, A., during graduate school.

Fast forward to now. I have this song playing in my head nonstop, and here's why:

Last week, we learned that he who is known as Husband is being transferred to the Silicon Valley office of his company. It came as a complete surprise to me, although now that I look back I see that it shouldn't have: the company's headquarters are there, and Husband is a go-getter.

My brain is still catching up with this development, and I suddenly have a very long list of things to do. I am comforted and excited by the fact that I have a brother and sister-in-law, and a nephew and a nephew-to-be, an uncle and aunt and two cousins just my kids' ages, and a dear friend, A., (the same A. I mentioned above) who all live in the Bay Area. We will have People there, thank goodness!

And we will NOT have winter. Dear winter, hasta luego. Don't miss me too much because I won't miss you.

On the other hand, I am sad to think of leaving my friends here, nervous about finding a school for the kids and a house and community for all of us, and overwhelmed by my long to-do list. I trust that all will be well, but there are a million question marks between here and there. My goal is to go one day at a time, one thing at a time. Wish me luck.

Friendly Reminder from the Head of Mars

2011-04-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

forgive the blur -- photo taken on my phone

Reader, I have been Away.

The last time I was Away was in 2008 for an overnight at the World Famous Medical Clinic. I'm not counting it.

The time before that was the summer of 2006. I was Away one night.

The time before that was the spring of 2004. I was Away one night.

In case you haven't noticed, yes, I am keeping track. By my count (including this most recent trip) I have been Away 5 days and 4 nights since I became a mother in 2001.

Obviously, I don't get Away enough. I know this, and yet, getting Away is always harder than it sounds, isn't it?

But I did get Away this last weekend for a long weekend in Chicago with my mom. Way long time ago, I worked a corporate job based in Chicago. Going past my old office was one of those "worlds collide" moments. My life is so completely different now than it was when I was running through airports in a suit and high heels, catching a plane to Chicago, DC, or Atlanta for a meeting. Me-Now looked at that office building and wondered if Me-Then really could've been me? Me-Now asked Me-Then about running through the airport in the high heels: How did you do that?

But I digress. My point here is that it was so refreshing to get away, to be amidst a throng of people on a city street, to breathe in the Lake Michigan air, to be jolted by unfamiliar and once-familiar sights.

My favorite jolt came from the head of Mars. We spent some time at the Chicago Art Institute, gem of the Midwest, and of all the beautiful, intricate, artful objects there, the head of Mars was the one that spoke loudest to me. And here's what the head of Mars said: "Look, I had my day and you have yours. I might last longer than you, but at least you have a nose. This world, this life, are too incredible to fathom. Here I am looking at you across the centuries and the seas. Please forgive the expression, ma'am, but make hay while the sun shines."

I was glad for the friendly reminder.

Sunday Words: From Miss Emily D.

2011-04-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

Who has not found the Heaven--below--
Will fail of it above-- ...

Wordless Wednesday: In Which I Don't Complain About the Weather

2011-04-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

A Poetry Civilian

2011-04-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

April is Poetry Month. It is all-poetry-all-the-time. It is giveaways and book swaps and a poem a day. It is poetry bootcamp, sir yes sir!

For the last two years of Poetry Month, I have bolted awake at "Reveille," and made my bed tight enough to bounce a quarter on. I have laced up my boots for morning drills. I have scrubbed the floor of a blank page with a toothbrush, sir yes sir!

I briefly considered re-enlisting this year as March waned toward April. I confess, part of me is attracted by the discipline of boot camp. But as it happens, this year for Poetry Month, I am choosing the civilian life.

This does not mean no poetry, no sir. It means poetry, civilian style. It means sleeping if I need to sleep, trusting that the waking hours will expand into that elusive Time To Write. It means maybe writing a poem a day or maybe not, probably not, doesn't matter. It means reading poems without making a surveillance map of them, without doing surgery on the battlefield. It means reading poems and falling into their music, their magic. It means not thinking, (insert throat-clearing here) "In this poem, the poet relies on facts about the solar system to state a political position. She uses the lyric-I sporadically to create moments of unexpected intimacy for the reader." It means, instead, thinking, (insert sigh here) "Wow, this poem feels like falling into an abyss and something catching you, saving you last minute." It means reading for pure enjoyment, for beauty, for rapture, for joy.

I choose to be a poetry civilian partly because of the way my life is playing out this Wing (Wing is a new season: it means the winter that lasts forever and takes over spring). This Wing in South-of-the-River, someone has been sick in this house every.single.day since January (we are now on day four of everyone being well -- knock on wood). This Wing has seen business trip after business trip after business trip for the one known as Husband. This Wing has found me working through a little flare of my arthritis symptoms. The bottom line, Reader, is that I'm tired. Dear "Reveille," stick that in your bugle and blow it.

But I'm also choosing the civilian life for another, maybe more important, reason. I think it's really important to remember that artists don't create art for us to dissect it, analyze it, criticize it. Artists create art to transport, transform, connect, and inspire us, and to beautify this world. It's easy for me to get my nose too close to the page, one hand ever on my scalpel. For Poetry Month, I'm taking a deep breath and a step back. Gonna put the scalpel down and sink down into a comfy chair. Gonna be transported, transformed, inspired, enraptured. Perhaps you'd like to grab a book of poems and join me.

Happy Poetry Month from me to you.

Wordless Wednesday: Hope

2011-03-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

Today's Draft: I Can See Clearly Now

2011-03-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Reader, it has been a good long stretch since I had any real writing time. By 'real' I mean more than a half-hour or so. This morning, Husband came to me and said, "Maybe we should go to the mall this morning." I just about went back to bed. I hate the mall. But he had a return to make, and we needed to look for Easter clothes for the three bears. So instead of going back to bed, I bargained: Ok, we can go to the mall this morning, but when we get home I want some writing time.

The deal was done.

And so, I made my way to my desk this afternoon. I confess, I held no great hope for drafting today. Lately I've been feeling the weight of the writing life: the uphill battle of it, the constant struggle to find little slices of writing time around the edges of my life as mother, the long haul persistence that good writing requires. I confess, I sometimes think it would be easier to be "just a mom." And yet, I know what happens if I don't write: I start disappearing around the edges. I know I don't really have a choice in the matter. I must write. So I sat down with my bad attitude and read some really good poems in the current issue of Cave Wall, then picked up my pen.

The leader of my writing group often talks about objects and how they can spark poems for us. Just everyday things: a basket, an egg, a button, a key. With those thoughts circling, and a note from a po-friend that she had tried an object poem, I soon found my focus for the day.

First I chose three objects that, for me, feel important and interesting: roof, window, key. Then I made lists of the functions of each object, aiming for 10 functions minimum. It's funny, I started out in the active voice -- "keeps the rain off," "creaks under snow" -- but quickly found that I could be more imaginative and symbolic if I worked in the infinitive: "to be made of layers, to be nailed down, to groan in the wind, to slip between them and the stars." I love little mysterious moments like this, when just changing voice unlocks new doors. Yay, words!

After I made my lists of functions for each object, I chose the object to draft with: window. I then looked back at an old poem I'd written about cranberries and noticed the poem began with how a cranberry forms, then moved the cranberry into the human realm. I decided to do the same with my window draft, so did a little research about how glass and windows are made (fascinating, by the way). That paid off, as I was able to open the poem with: To begin as sand / and salt (BTW, hooray for my primal landscape --the beach-- making it into a window poem!). Throughout the process, I tried to find good verbs and descriptors, ones that might not normally be associated with glass and windows. The poem ends with the window holding the face / of the one who stands / waiting.

The thing about this draft is that it was really fun to write. I came to my desk glum, and ended up remembering why I love writing: the energy and joy of creative play turning into something that didn't exist before. Plus, free materials. Dear Poetry, thank you for the reminder. I can, um, see clearly now.

Wordless Wednesday: First Sign of Spring: Baseball Recovered From Melting Snowbank

2011-03-23T05:38:00.000-07:00

'My Dear, I Must Have Been Dreaming All This'

2011-03-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

In this post, I mentioned I've been working my way through a collection of Grimm's fairy tales. Well, I'm still working my way through, but I'm ~~stuck on~~ obsessed with one in particular right now: The Robber Bridegroom.

Do you know this story? I confess, I don't think I ever read it as a child. It's one of those stories the scholars of fairy tales would group under stories told to help people deal with "courtship anxieties": a young girl visits the home of her betrothed only to discover he's one of a band of murderers. She is hidden behind a barrel by an old woman, apparently in the employ of the band of murderers, who says they'll escape together after the murderers fall asleep. "I've been waiting a long time for this moment," she says. The murderers come home. They have taken a young maiden prisoner. They force her to drink three glasses of wine: one white, one red, one yellow. She dies. They chop her into pieces and sprinkle her with salt (yes, it's the old woman's job to cook her; yes, it's a reasonable courtship anxiety to wonder if you will be devoured by married life). One of the murderers sees a gold ring on one of the dead maiden's fingers and can't get it off, so chops the finger off to get at the ring. It flies across the room and lands in the lap of the girl who's hiding, the one engaged to one of the murderers.

The old woman and the young girl escape after the murderers fall asleep, and the girl does indeed marry the murderous man to whom she was engaged. But at the wedding feast, everyone is asked to tell a story. Guess what story the bride tells? Yes: the story of going to her betrothed's house and all that happened there. As she moves through the plot, she keeps repeating, "My dear, I must have been dreaming all this." I won't tell you how it ends in case you want to scurry off to the library and read it for yourself.

I am fascinated by this story. For one thing, I'm a sucker for repeating lines. But I think what I'm most interested in are all the stories within its bounds that aren't told. Who is this old woman? How did she come to be the cook at the murderer's den? Why did she wait until now, until this young maiden arrived, to try to escape? Who is this bride-to-be? How did she get connected to her betrothed? Why would she allow the wedding to go on after learning what she learned?

Just think of all the stories we know and love, and think of all the stories within those stories that have never been told. I confess, I feel like this is part of my job as a writer: to mine the old stories and tell the ones that are just there waiting, but that haven't been told yet.

In the Jewish tradition there is a set of stories like this called the Midrashim. They are sacred texts. And for good reason: we learn so much about the stories we already know when the untold stories are told.

So, I admit I'm hoping some of the untold stories in The Robber Bridegroom will make their way into a poem or two.

And speaking of fairy tales, I just have to share a link to this beautiful book I saw over the weekend. It's a new illustrated version of Little Red Riding Hood. Hoping it finds its way onto my bookshelf one of these days. All the better to read you with, my dear!

Draft Report: Woven Together (plus a few odds and ends)

2011-03-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

I'm cheating a little bit here because, although I did spend some time writing this morning, I didn't actually come up with a new draft. Lots of free writes, not lots of poems (this phraseology comes from how I used to prefer my toast when I was a kid: "Lotsa butter, not lotsa peanut butter, please!"). But last week I did draft and didn't have the time, or the presence of mind, to write about it here, and I used a method I've had good success with so wanted to share it.

It's called the "Cut-and-Shuffle" and you can find it on page 114 of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell. The rules are that you write out two separate prose pieces of 10 or 12 lines, one depicting a quiet or physically inactive scene and the other depicting a physically active or emotionally charged scene. I don't always follow the rules exactly, but I've had good results with this when I have a couple of unrelated things lodged in my brain that seem to want to be connected.

The two things that were lodged in my brain were thus: I've been in and out of doctors' offices a lot this winter as I've tried to fight off the germ of the week, and at my last visit the doctor, speaking of my chronic illness, said, "Your disease is still ripening." I took him to mean that we may not yet be seeing its full face, its full effect on my body. Not a real happy thought, but the phrase wouldn't leave my mind. That's thing one.

Thing two is a story I came across at a local museum, about the people of a prairie town building a chapel in honor of the Virgin Mary as the terrible locust infestations of the 1870s were in full swing. I am Catholic, so I've seen people's devotion to the Virgin Mary up close all my life. But I was still amazed by this story: people fighting for their lives and livelihoods finding the time, the money, and the energy to build a little church in the hopes it would turn their fortunes.

When one popped into my thoughts, so would the other in turn. I knew my brain wanted to connect the two, but I didn't know why. Enter the Cut-and-Shuffle.

The resulting draft is a poem alternating between what the doctor says, and the patient's thoughts which flash to scenes of the locust plague and the chapel. I did a little bit of research before writing the poem, and pulled anecdotes in: livestock being eaten alive, and a little boy who gathered locusts for 3 cents a bushel. I also borrowed Jennifer Richter's trick (discussed here) of using the second person / "you." And as I often do, I looked at the etymology of important words; this time chapel. It comes from the Latin meaning "a small cape" which gave me this little bit of the poem:

... You sigh / against the hollow cheeks of the farm wives. / Their husbands are building a chapel to the Virgin / Mary, an offering, a small cape of prayer / for their burdened shoulders ...

and also helped me get to the issue of protection in the poem, the way a sick mother feels unable to protect her children. I hope the result is an effective weaving of the two scenes. I'm also excited because, even though I've lived in this prairie state for almost 14 years, this is the first time I've told one of its stories in a poem. So, despite today's dead ends and a few weeks of my regular writing schedule being in a jumble, I'm glad to have this one in my "Active Work" folder.

And as for odds and ends, some of my time this morning was spent updating the status of the few submissions I have out there. One rejection from a newer, smaller journal I'd hoped to have a chance with - bummer. One note from a journal that basically said they hadn't rejected me yet ("your submission has been read once and passed on to the next step in our editorial process"). I thought it was nice of them to bother with an update. And happily, one acceptance from a new journal called Adanna, due out this summer. Hooray for that!

Gratitude Journal, In the Face of Unspeakable Suffering

2011-03-18T11:42:00.001-07:00

It's hard not to puzzle over the problem of suffering as we watch the events in Japan unfolding. It's hard not to wonder why such horrible things have to happen, what good could ever come of it.

About three years into my life of chronic pain, I was in a phase of really wanting an answer to the problem of suffering. I would never compare living with pain to the immense suffering of those in Japan right now -- after all, I always had food, water, medicine, and a roof over my head -- but when you are in pain all the time, you do sometimes begin to wonder what the purpose of it is. You want there to be a purpose.

I did a lot of reading about the problem of suffering (you know, the usuals, Job, Prometheus, the Church Fathers). None of it helped, although I did feel a kinship to Prometheus who never stopped speaking out about the injustice of his punishment. None of the theological arguments worked for me. For example, that suffering entered the world because of the Fall, that it was our share in the mystery of the Cross. I needed an answer that would fit for everyone on Earth, not just people who believed certain things.

Over time, I realized there was no answer to the problem of suffering that would satisfy me on an intellectual level. I came to my own uneasy peace with suffering by letting it teach me. And here's what it taught me (some of which I already knew, but now know in a much deeper way):

1. Be ever grateful -- See all the miracles. Know that they are miracles. Say thank you when you turn the faucet on and water comes out, when you zip up your coat against a cold wind, when your lover walks through the door, when the furnace clicks on, when you can buy groceries and not think twice about it, when the sunset is so beautiful your heart skips a beat.

3. Live with compassion -- Compassion from the Latin for "to suffer together." Understand that others suffer, though you may not see it. Hold the suffering close in mind and heart. When you can, tell someone who's suffering that you are thinking of them, that you care.

2. Understand what's important -- It's far too simplistic to say, "Live every day as if it's your last." We all know the chicken for tomorrow's dinner must be thawed today. But didn't all our worries seem small once we heard the news of Japan (or of Haiti, or Katrina, or the Indian Ocean tsunami, or September 11th)? So, have your small worries; you're only human after all. But don't put them in a 5x7 frame and hang them on your wall. Let them be part of a large landscape. Keep them perspective.

I no longer demand an answer to the problem of suffering. I see that the answer is a way of life, and I do my best to live it. This is my only comfort in the days following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and it's my only comfort when pain is getting the better of me. But it's comfort enough.

Wordless Wednesday: First Open Window of (dare I say it?) Spring

2011-03-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

On My Nightstand

2011-03-15T19:21:00.004-07:00

You mean besides Raising Your Spirited Child?
You mean besides How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk?
You mean besides Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child?

Why yes, in fact, I do have a few other books on my nightstand. I have three books of poetry I've been reading, enjoying, and learning from.

But first, a disclaimer: I started writing this post last week when I was in the middle of a stresspile (this is a technical term I learned from Gerry; from what I can tell, it means too much stress all at the same time). So if this post is jumpy and disjointed, all I can say is I was jumpy and disjointed. Part two of the disclaimer is that I am never sure I am getting a book of poetry "right" -- what I present here are my impressions and interpretations of the book based on careful reading. But as I always tell people who ask me what my poetry background is: I am just a hack trying to learn everything I can. These are great books -- read them yourself to know for sure.

**

The first is Sandy Longhorn's Blood Almanac. Sandy blogs at Myself The Only Kangaroo Among the Beauty, and shares the ups, downs, and in-betweens of the writing life there. In Blood Almanac, she writes beautifully of the prairie landscape she grew up amidst, and the landscape of a soul becoming itself. The landscape of both is by turns beautiful and desolate, as in the poem "Lover Say Prairie" which begins:

"Say prairie and mean an underground sea
watering the roots of tall grasses that sway
like the thin bodies of girls dressed in sackcloth."

then moves on to a "stunning silence" and "the lone woman / in her house made of dirt and sod, the one / window." At the end of the poem, we have no great comfort or happy ending, only a "hazy, indistinct joining" between two bodies living out life on this prairie-sea.

The second section of the book is a series of poems called "Momentary Constellations: 12 Self-Portraits" each titled with the name of a month. I especially love "May," which tells of a child throwing herself into water and being hauled out repeatedly, until at last the child "abandoned / the language of fish for the sound / of things that could be drowned."  For me, this poem (like others in the collection) speaks of the other-ness we sometimes feel even in the midst of family and community, or other familiar surroundings literal or figurative.

There is also plenty of plain-old-beautiful nature poetry in this book, as a poet who knows and loves a landscape lavishes her words and attention on the natural world: "the blue jays feed // in the fence-row under the shelter of neglected / brush, small tufts of porcelain blue revealed, // a frenzy of feather and seed and beak, / of hunger and need and the given feast." (from "The Brightening Hour")

Buy Blood Almanac here, and here's a bonus: if you need a poem to help get you through this long winter here is Sandy's poem "March Afternoon."

**

Next on the pile is Traci Brimhall's Rookery. Reader, this book is part story, part book of spells. You are just as apt to find crickets, and ants, and mice grinding their teeth as you are to find angels and saints making themselves known in daily life. The book is in three sections, each starting with a poem drawn from three definitions for the word rookery. The first section, "Colony of rooks," deals in betrayal and grief. Rife with aubades, the poems of this section entangle humans and animals as if to point out we are not so very much different, as in "Concerning Cuttlefish and Ugolino":

"You knew that an animal, in its wildness,
   would chew through its tendons, snap
its own bones. There are parts of ourselves

we can learn to live without."

The second section goes back to "a breeding place" and contains vivid poems of childhood and memory, where love and desire and danger are often close neighbors. The third is "a crowded tenement house" where the poet works in the space of being in the world -- in the here and now, and in notable events from history such as the Triangle Shirt Factory fire: "Women link hands, say goodbye // in six languages and fill their skirts with eighty feet / of air."

Throughout the book the diction often feels prayer-like and incantatory. Ultimately the poet presents us with a world that is imperfect and sometimes even brutal, but beautiful -- a world we don't want to leave too soon. I think we all know this world, but if you want to see it through a new lens buy Rookery here. And if you want to get the Ugolino reference from the poem quoted above, click here and scroll down to "Ugolino in Dante's Inferno."

**

And last we have Jennifer Richter's Threshold. I am just about stunned into silence on this one because it captures -- beautifully and accurately -- the experience of illness and motherhood and the sad, stark intersection of the two. Because of my own experience of chronic illness, this book often had me crying quiet tears, and closing the cover for a few days at a time until I felt settled enough to read more.

There is the family portrait drawn by the child, in which "you all come close to holding / hands, though the fingers of your family never touch; you're in the middle of all this reaching." (from the title poem, "Threshold").

There is the mother standing behind glass seeing, and being seen, through the lens of illness:

"Sometimes a flash of wings will crash into your glass then slump, shitting
and shivering, staring, standing, now opening its mouth, its throat. The
silence streaming out: a sound its loves aren't meant to hear. They'd hurt.
You won't ever tell. This will happen to you again."

(from "Recovery 2: Turn Away Your Eyes and It'll Fly").

There is the whale-watching trip, mother and son: "You turn, your / son is watching you. Has been watching all along you realize." Then later, as the poem ends:

   "Out there a mother
whale and her son begin their long swim north today. You know it will
be slow, this mother leading her new life. You'll tell him everything. Why
now? your son will ask and you'll say Now the mother's strong enough."

(from "Recovery 6: The Last Word").

I am just wowed by the clarity and restraint this poet has as she approaches a difficult subject. I'm intrigued by her use of the second-person "you" in her illness poems. My sense is that it gives the reader enough distance from the subject character (the "you") of the poem so that it doesn't feel too close or confessional, but also helps us see ourselves in that same "you." A sense of 'this could be you,' so to speak.

There are many other poems, too, not just of illness but of family, neighborhood, students and travel. It is a wonderful book, and you can buy Threshold here and read it for yourself. Many thanks to Drew who introduced me to this poet.

**

In closing, I feel I must say, as I have said many times before on this blog: Yay, poetry!

Waiting to Exhale

2011-03-14T10:36:00.001-07:00

Reader, I took my first deep breath in five days at 10:39 this morning when I got a text from Husband saying he was at the airport waiting for me to pick him up. He had been in India for business and became ill, so spent an extra three days there during which I was never quite sure how well or ill he was. Between this small worry on the homefront and the terrible news from Japan and other quarters of the world, my brain has been complete mush. I've been doing things like forgetting my own phone number and boiling my teakettle dry. And ignoring the po-world and this blog.

I confess, I am not so very impressed with my ability (or lack thereof) to remain calm, centered, and clear-headed in times of worry. But, I've just finished screwing my brain back in its socket. Now give me a couple more days of deep breathing and I think I'll be back to normal.

As for now, it's Husband's birthday and I'm off to cook someone's favorite dinner and dessert... . (By the way, he's weak and weary but he's going to be fine).

Wordless Wednesday: In Which More Snow Falls and I Understand Anew Why There Is a Subgenre of Literature Devoted to Prairie Women Losing Their Sanity

2011-03-09T05:41:00.000-08:00

Living With Spirit

2011-03-07T18:23:00.001-08:00

"When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer."

-- Isaac Bashevis Singer

I have a child who some might call stubborn. I call him tenacious. I have a child who some might call loud. I call him zestful. I have a child who some might call unpredictable. I call him intense. I have a child who some might call over-sensitive. I call him tender-hearted. I have a child who some might call demanding. I say he has high standards.

I have a child who some might call difficult. I call him spirited.

At least, I call him all these things on the days when I have the good sense to remind myself that all of the traits I find so challenging in this child will, when properly channeled by an adult brain, make him unstoppable. On the not so good days, when I am exhausted by the effort of raising a child who is more intense, sensitive, persistent, and energetic, I forget to use the optimistic labels and I, too, think he's downright difficult. I've been having some days like this lately.

I am told by people who have devoted their lives to children (pediatricians, temperament researchers, early childhood educators) that about 10% of the population is spirited. Or, as a child development specialist we've worked with said, "90% of us are Fords, 10% of us are Lamborghinis. You got a Lamborghini."

I know many people who say things like, "there is no such thing as an easy child," and, "you reap what you sow," and, "the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree." I'm pretty sure the people who say such things have (or had) Fords, not Lamborghinis. I know there are, in fact, easy children because I have two of them. I know the fact that they are mild-mannered, and generally sweet, courteous, and cooperative is mostly just good luck that Husband and I have capitalized on and cultivated. I hope all the incredibly hard sowing we've done with our spirited child pays off in the long run, but if he turns out to be a jerk I won't take 100% of the credit; I have never worked so hard at anything in my life. I think sometimes the apple actually does fall far from the tree, borne on the winds of temperament, or the downhill slope of of tough luck, the wrong group of friends, addiction, untreated mental illness, or other sad happenings.

I also believe that my spirited child is a gift from the universe. He keeps me humble, for without him, I would think I was a Good Mother. He is also incredibly kind, compassionate, and enthusiastic about life (enthusiasm: from the Greek for "divine inspiration"), independent, creative, and determined. When he is happy, he's Over The Moon. When he's unhappy..... well, that's the hard part.

So, instead of thinking I'm a Good Mother, I am just going along the best that I can, trying to teach my children what they need to know to function as kind, compassionate, and responsible adults who leave the nest one day. And trying to build a long-lasting relationship with them, too, so that they will want to come back to visit the nest from time to time.

In the midst of this effort with my spirited child, which this week feels colossal, I have relied on the compassion of strangers (thank you, older woman at the doctor's office who said, "I had one like him. He just put out his first album. Don't worry, he'll get there."); the support of family and friends (thank you, mom, for taking turns rubbing his back and watching over him while he cried for hours, so that I could have a break); and on the expertise of professionals (thank you Mary Sheedy Kurcinka for researching temperament and writing Raising Your Spirited Child, whose dog-eared and tear-stained pages have given us hope and strategies; thank you, especially for the sentence, "Some children really do require more effort, skill, and patience than others.").

The word spirit is from the Latin, meaning "soul, courage, vigor, breath." This comforts me on the days when living with spirit feels difficult. Soul: essence. Courage: the quality of mind or spirit that allows a person to face danger or difficulty without fear. Vigor: healthy physical or mental energy or power. Breath: respiration, especially as necessary to live.

And I think of Isaac Bashevis Singer -- once a liar, ever after a great story teller -- and I put my faith in the long run.

[Dictionary definitions from dictionary.com; etymology definitions from etymonline.com (too tired to get up off my sorry be-hind to look at my OED!). To learn more about temperament traits and research click here.

Oh, and just realized I should've linked to some info on Isaac Bashevis Singer: here it is.]

Wordless Wednesday: Dance Lessons

2011-03-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

In Which Grumpiness Has Its Rewards

2011-02-28T11:49:00.000-08:00

Warning: mild profanity may ensue.

I don't know many immutable truths about parenthood, but I do know this: If you find yourself wearing the Parent hat in this lifetime, you will at some point experience a weekend with your children that will make you think you must be doing everything wrong. Even as the more reasonable voice of your intellect (I call this my Librarian Voice) says, "Well you know, dear, children will have their bad days and it's not all about what you've done or not done," you will believe in your heart that you have done everything wrong.

That was my weekend.

And between that, and a long winter, and the germ of the week, by yesterday afternoon I was Grumpy.

My natural response to Grumpiness seems to be to clean things out. I'm talking about closets and drawers and boxes and bathrooms. With the Grump-factor on overload, I am happy to tell you that I threw away or set out for recycling the following items, and more:

1. All the clothes I bought lo these many years ago to wear post-baby. I'm talking about Lands End t-shirts and yoga pants. Reader, they are all GONE. Do I hear a woot, woot!?
2. All expired medicines, including a package of Benadryl that had never been opened and expired in the year 2000.
3. All broken barrettes, and all barrettes that included any form of cute animal such as bunny, duckling, teddy bear, butterfly, just because I hate that kind. Sister has not discovered this yet.
4. All hole-y socks and undergarments.
5. All sample packages from DHC, all having to do with anti-wrinkle something or another. Goodbye.
6. Any toothbrush or tube of toothpaste or bar of soap that even hinted of 'nasty.'
7. The last half-package of Pampers pull-ups. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I then moved on to my writing files, and here is where I must express my deep admiration for the verb "to shit-can." Reader, there is throwing something away, and then there is shit-canning something. Do you agree with me that to shit-can something is much more satisfying than to simply throw it away, or in this case, to delete it? Delete does not begin to express it.

I went through my writing files and shit-canned all the poems I hate, all the poems I'm not interested in anymore, and all the poems that are boring, or stunted and destined to go nowhere, or otherwise undesirable. Dear poems, it was fun while it lasted, but now let me introduce to my friend the Shit-Can.

I kept a few oldies for sentiment's sake. I kept a few that might have been better off shit-canned but that I still had hope for. And I kept the best of my more recent work. I still have plenty of poems to wade through, work on, and shit-can eventually if need be.

I feel unburdened, freer, and decidedly less grumpy. And I'm never buying a Lands' End t-shirt again. Amen.

Does Anybody Really Know What Day It Is?

2011-02-25T11:36:00.003-08:00

The poet is *not* at work.

(Don't think about that too hard or you might find yourself feeling extremely philosophical. I'm just sayin'.)

Reader, it has been a jumble this week. Every day has felt like Tuesday (cue Morrissey for all the 80's kids: "Every day is like Sunday...."). You might have noticed I was a little wordy on Wednesday, but it didn't dawn on me until last night when I was lying awake thinking about household tales, revisions, and aubades.

The germ of the week has been cycling through around here. Yesterday afternoon, I finally gave in and took Sister to the doctor after a gentle push from an older, wiser woman in my life (thank you, you know who you are). After having sent Sis to nursery in the morning, I learned that she has a sinus infection. I feel like the Mother-of-the-Year, and I am here to tell you that, yes, it does take a village to raise a child.

Friday has been my drafting day of late, but today once I figured out it was Friday and also discovered we seem to be completely out of food, it quickly became menu-plan and grocery-order day. With Sister at home recuperating, I wouldn't have a long stretch for drafting anyway. I still struggle when the realities of family life run into what I think of as MY TIME, but I am getting better at being flexible and rearranging things so that I can get my writing done another day. Right now, Sunday looks like my best shot.

Also changed are my reading plans. Yesterday morning Traci Brimhall's Rookery arrived in the mail. Because ~~I know I need to sit down with Jennifer Richter's Threshold (mentioned Wednesday) when I have a calm and quiet mind~~ I'm still a little afraid to read Threshold, I went right to Rookery while Sister slept yesterday afternoon. Having read the first section, I can say I'm loving it so far: vivid images, surprising turns, and interesting entanglements of our humanness and creatureliness (is that a word?). Lately, I've taken to doing the first read of a book with pencil in hand to capture my immediate, visceral, and unconsidered responses to a poem. I think this helps me to "learn" a book better.

Lastly, I want to share a few thoughts I've been having about this blog. When I started writing here, my kids were all quite small and they lived their lives freely and unselfconsciously as all young children do. Now they are older and, especially for the Bean and AJ, life has become larger than our little family. They have lives and public personae of their own. They are growing out of the free and unconsidered existence of early childhood, as we all must. As this unfolds, I feel less and less comfortable about sharing what have become their stories on this blog. Even the harmless "cute kid stories," and the funny things they say, take on another light when I think of how they would feel if they knew I had written about it in a public forum.

I think I've mentioned this before, and I don't know exactly what this means for this blog going forward. Maybe for now it just means there will be more Writer Raising Kids than Mom Trying to Write, and more general musings on motherhood than particular anecdotes. I just wanted to let you know things might be shifting a bit, and to thank you for reading thus far.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I've been invited to a tea party in the front room. Happy weekend, everyone!

Unexpected Drafts and Good Mail Days

2011-02-23T13:16:00.003-08:00

My mailbox runneth over

I know this might come as a shocker, but we had another enormous snowstorm this week. I will spare you the photos. I have way too many photos of enormous snowstorms this year.

But on the bright side of the enormous snowstorm was the unexpected writing time it gave me on Monday. Our company had gone, Husband took the children for long overdue hair cuts, and my writing group was cancelled due to the weather (You might ask here whether or not it was prudent for Husband to be taking the children for hair cuts in that weather. It's his department, and that's all I'm sayin'.)

I had a short-ish window of time and two titles that had been circling in my head. One was "Household Tales." It just seems to me I should have a poem called this, both because many of my poems are household tales, and because I think a lot about the stories families tell, and (perhaps more importantly) the stories families don't tell. It's an evocative title for me because it's the latter half of the Grimm's brothers' title: Children's and Household Tales. The second title came from an e-mail I sent a po-friend, subject line: revision and aubade. I dunno, the phrase kept swimming back to me and I liked the idea of writing revision into a poem. So, two titles, a short window, I went for it.

But skipped an all-important step: reading good poetry first. I always read good poetry before I write, but feeling crunched for time, I went straight to writing. Is this the reason the drafts came so hard, or am I just suspicious?

Yes, the drafts came hard. "Household Tales" is a collection of family stories -- some real and some imagined -- and has several stanzas beginning with a variation of "The one where... ." After I drafted the poem and looked at it on paper I knew it had to be a poem in sections, and needs more vivid images and lyric moments, and probably less "the one where." I am already working on chunking it up and re-imagining.

"Revision and Aubade" was fun to write, though not easy. The fun part was the circling back to revise what was said before: "What I meant to say is" and "I've forgotten everything" then "I remember when you..." then, "Or was it me, yes... ." The not-easy part is stringing together the images and connective tissue in a way that the circling back works for a purpose.

And now you know what I've been up nights thinking about this week.

Anyway, both of these drafts feel important to me, but neither flew down the page in a rapturous burst of creativity. If these drafts are to become poems, the I will have to revise my way into them. There was a time in my writing life when I would have hidden from such drafts. They would go to the Resting Drawer for their eternal rest. I am determined not to hide from these two drafts. I am determined to plod through revisions, to make these drafts into poems. Do you hear me Universe!?

And I am determined to always read good poetry before I write. I am determined not to skip this step ever again. Amen.

As for the good mail, waiting for me are three volumes I'm very much looking forward to, mostly. Poets&Writers is a magazine for, um, poets and writers. It comes out every two months, and at the end of each two-month window I find myself wondering what happened to my P&W? Did I let my subscription lapse? Did it come, but I missed it in the jumble that is family life? I do my P&W freak out routine, and then it comes in the next days' mail. (BTW, I also did this with sleep deprivation: held out for many, many, many months, broke down completely one night crying and sobbing on Husband's shoulder about how I couldn't take it anymore, baby -- toddler actually-- started sleeping through the night the very next night.) I love P&W because it makes me feel connected to the writing world, has really good pieces on writing craft and the writing life, and is a source for calls-for-submissions and new books to read. Sometimes when I read it I feel ensconced in a world I belong in; other times I feel like there is this great big writing world out there and I understand about one 1-zillionth of it. Hopefully it's the most important 1-zillionth: put the time in reading, writing and revising.

Next is a book I've seen reviewed on a few po-blogs, The Working Poet: 75 Writing Exercises and a Poetry Anthology edited by Scott Minar. Those of you who have been reading a while know that I've been working my way through Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem by Wendy Bishop. I was ready for a little change, so I tracked down a used copy of this book to try. Wouldn't you know in the introduction Scott Minar writes, "I tell my students not to begin drafting a poem unless they have read some great poetry first." Right on. Also, on page 15: The Nest Poem, an exercise for assembling "a poem of many shorter pieces associated through a larger theme." Just in time, thanks.

And last, a book arrived from points west from a new po-friend, a complete surprise: Jennifer Richter's Threshold. The po-friend wrote that she had been reading it and kept thinking of me. I peeked inside to see why. Motherhood, illness, sweet-and-sharp intermingling of joy and pain. I am both excited and afraid to read it. Excited because the sneak-peek poems were really good, and I think I can learn from this book. Afraid because I sometimes read a poem or a book that makes me think, Well, I'll never top that so I might as well hang it up now. Rilke, for example, has this effect on me. Of course, I know I won't hang it up and can't, so I might as well read and learn, and then go write my poems which nobody has written yet.

On Hiatus

2011-02-18T11:35:00.002-08:00

Reader, everywhere I look schools are closing for the long President's Day weekend. One school (Sister's preschool) even closed when I wasn't looking -- oops! To add to the fun we have house guests this weekend -- people we love very much who have come to us from the Motherland, er, Michigan. Needless to say, I'm away from my desk for a few days (but was able to get a few good revisions done this week). Have a wonderful weekend!

Wordless Wednesday: 40 Degrees

2011-02-16T03:00:00.000-08:00

A Sucker for Love Letters, and My "Who Knew?" Moment

2011-02-15T11:41:00.001-08:00

Reader,

I'm a sucker for any kind of letter, especially the kind that arrive in my very own mailbox. And I'm a sucker for love letters, usually love letters that arrived in other people's mailboxes as Husband is not much one to pick up a pen but often comes home with chocolate and ice cream (a fair swap in my book). Anyway, somewhere in the infinity that is the Internet, I came across this online exhibit at the UK's National Army Museum. It's a collection of letters between soldiers and sweethearts and I got lost in love letters last night reading through the exhibit. It's all there from heartwarming to heartbreaking. Take a look if you're a letter lover, too. (Edited to say: I realized the place I found the link to this exhibit is at the Motherlode blog of the New York Times. I am not going to link to Motherlode because, I confess, I fear Motherlode and want to remain in total obscurity vis-a-vis Motherlode; but if you want to find it just google "motherlode new york times").

And now for the Who Knew Moment. I've lost sleep over this one. I had the most excellent typing teacher in high school, Mrs. J. (she also happened to be the mom of a friend of mine). She put our nose to the grindstone gently but firmly and we learned that keyboard faster than fast. I still use her proofreading trick: read it backwards. I can still hear her voice in my head: "A space AA space..." Well, anyway, of course I learned to put two spaces after a period like we all did. And I have just learned that since the dawning of computers I've been doing it wrong. From what I can tell, it has something to do with the fact that typewriters could allow only for the same amount of whitespace around each letter, but computers, with true type fonts, can allow for different amounts of whitespace around different letters (e.g, capitals). Therefore the double-space after a period is not needed when keyboarding on a computer. (BTW, I'm sure I'm simplifying this and using all the wrong terminology, but you get the idea. Learn more here.).

I'm sure Mrs. J. already knows about this and maybe you do, too, but I did not get the memo on this one! And I have a bazillion poems with a gillion-bazillion ". "s in them. Can you say Find and Replace? Husband assures me he can write a script to find the .double-spaces and change them into .single-spaces in one push of the go button. I think I'm just shocked to know that I, lover of all things written, typed, and keyboarded, had absolutely no idea about this.

Happy letter reading and writing, and remember: one space after the period (unless you're still using your trusty old typewriter).

Love-Words for Valentine's Day

2011-02-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

These words come to us from the 13th century. They are from the sacred writings of Hadewijch of Antwerp.

Love's Maturity

In the beginning Love satisfies us.
When Love first spoke to me of love --
How I laughed at her in return!
But then she made me like the hazel trees,
Which blossom early in the season of darkness,
And bear fruit slowly.

--trans. by Oliver Davies

These, and last week's, words are from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, edited by Jane Hirshfield.

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you.

Today's Draft: Giving In

2011-02-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

I am glad to be back at my desk avec functioning computer and a stretch of kid-free time.

A little background information that influenced today's draft: In this post, I wrote that I've been reading a book of fairy tales. My routine has been to read one each night before sleeping, while telling myself, This story might have a poem-seed in it. Maybe I'm superstitious, but I've found that coaching the brain (or soul?) to be open to something can sometimes prepare fertile ground for writing. Anyway, the bottom line is that I've had witches on the brain.

Today's draft didn't come easy (mostly, I realize now, because I was fighting it every step of the way). I used a prompt that called for free-writing for 5 minutes, then circling every third word or phrase and using the circled words/phrases for the beginnings of a poem. I consciously or unconsciously didn't take in the "every third word or phrase" part of the prompt, and after the free-write, busily set to work choosing words that I liked or seemed fresh or exciting. I also took five words selected at random from a word bank (words pulled from another poet's work, this time Louise Gluck's).

In the free-write, the phrase "chances are" recurred along with the exhortations "remember" and "don't forget," but I didn't want to use these words. I ignored them and tried time after time to draft something, failed, failed better, and failed again. This was going nowhere.

Little voice in my head said: Use the recurring words and phrases.
(Little voice in my head right now saying: Duh!)

Once I gave in to the recurring words and phrases, the draft flowed down the page and I ended up with "Survival Guide for Chance Encounter With a Witch." In the draft there are three characters: the witch, a captive girl reminiscent of Gretel and Rapunzel, and the "you" of the poem who encounters the witch. As the poem braids down the page, it seems that the three characters may in fact be three strands of one character. Another "duh!" moment here -- I drafted this in couplets, but as I write this post it's clear to me I should try tercets.

This is one of those drafts I want to hide from for a while. It's strange and a little scary. It feels like a secret. I'm glad to have good po-pals that I will feel safe sharing it with, while whispering, Promise not to tell anybody?

And now, I still have a full hour before running off to preschool pick-up. I am sorely tempted to dive into drafting again, but am sternly reminding myself that I'm working toward a goal for submissions and I need to turn my attention to that.

And let me give you a little advice from today's draft in case you should encounter a witch:

Remember, she can't see well. Those red,
embered eyes. Hold out a stone

for your heart and she'll pinch to see
if you're discordant enough to eat.