Susan Rich's Blog, page 48

Both Here and There: Cork, Seattle, and The Butter Museum

The Butter Museum, CorkThe phone just rang and it was my friend the poet Geraldine Mills calling just to say hello. Since we are in the same country at the moment and in the same time zone, it's a great treat. Tomorrow I hope to see friends in Dublin before heading home. If only Seattle wasn't a 12 hour plane ride away.

My friend the Canadian poet Kimberly Fahner has been chronicling our time at Anam Cara with far more detail than I've managed this week. If you are interested in Irish folklore told with humor and intelligence you might want to check out The Republic of Poetry. Kim's second full length collection comes out this year and I for one can't wait!

This is my 4th time in Ireland and that's perhaps more times than I've ever been to any other country. It makes me think that there is a real energy for me here. I feel alive in my own skin and connected to the rain and the preponderance of bookshops and poets, woolen sweaters and frequent cups of tea. And did I mention the best butter in the world? (Well the world as I know it.)

Here's to travel which wakes me up and makes me glad to be alive.

The best writing retreat ever - such fabulous women

This is one happy group of women on our last day at Anam Cara. Not only did we workshop poems but we walked six miles, drank Guinness at the village pub, gave a poetry reading, saw the oldest Ogham stone in Europe, visited the Hag of Beara and laughed like crazy. I've taught in dozens of different workshops but I have never had a group as wonderful as these women who come from different continents, backgrounds, and poetry worlds.
Photo credit: Angie VorhiesExactly one week ago tonight I met these amazing women as the Harrington bus left them off at Anam Cara. They were tired and bedraggled after three hours in a mini van from Cork city. Kim had "monster" her trusty black bag trailing behind her, Pippa seemed ready to get off the bus, and Kathryn looked ready to investigate any open road she could find --- but just as they got out of the van an honest to god rainbow appeared across the road in the direction from which they'd come. It was a good omen. Perhaps it's cliche, but I honestly didn't know that a group could become so close so quickly.

Cemetery at Kilcatherine
Our last day in West Cork the weather finally turned warm and clear. Angie and I were chatting in the village when Sue, Kim, and Pippa came along on their way to Kilcatherine. Sue dropped us off and we walked the 6 miles back to Eyeries. 
A family plot

I don't want to let go of the magic we created this week. 

Anam Cara: Day 4 - What 's Going On Here Anyway

The view outside my window

So what does a six day course in ekphrastic poetry consist of anyway? Well, today was our field trip to Castletownbere to visit two art galleries --- the Sarah Walker Art Gallery and the Mill Cove Gallery. We picked art work that was puzzling --- tried to let the image choose us. It was fun to be with such a willing group --- everyone writing intently on the assignments that I gave. This is a dream group of poets.
Yesterday the focus was on collaboration and we examined different ways poets and prose writers go about their collaboration. Writers Diane Aprile, Anne McDuffie, and Geraldine Mills  were kind enough to fill out a questionnaire I created (desperate that I needed some help leading a session with which I had limited experience) and share the wisdom they'd gleaned from some very different projects. By the end of the session we all had written action plans with some very exciting and realistic projects. 
The only problem is that I seem to be pulling much of the classes together the night before I teach. I came here with a general plan for the week and the first few days well delineated. For the next two days it will be a bit more free style. The important thing is that we've really become a group with a lot of good feeling and a wild amount of laughter.

Anam Cara: Day 3

Pippa Little reads her award winning poem in the Anam Cara conservatory

Anam Cara Day #2

Clouds with character
Kelli Agodon, this one's for you
Light from the first nightThe days have their own rhythm and it seems we've all lived here together forever. The first night as Pippa, Kim, and Kathryn came off of the local bus and crossed the cow path, their monster suitcases trailing behind them, a rainbow appeared in the sky above their heads. That was the first omen that this workshop would work well. And so far it has. We're reading poems to each other, writing poems, and pushing ourselves in new ways. And yes, there is also an enormous amount of laughter. I feel blessed.

Anam Cara Writing Retreat - Day 1

What is it about teaching that makes me so nervous? After all, I've taught fulltime for more than a decade. Perhaps it's that I'm teaching poetry in Ireland --- Ireland --- the land of poets. Perhaps it's because poetry is the mainstay of my life and so I must find a way to be my best self and smarter than I believe myself to be. Perhaps I care very much that my students benefit from their experience.


I feel so lucky to have a group of incredibly interesting and talented women to work with from different countries, continents, and representing varied life experiences. One thing I've learned from teaching here at Anam Cara Artists Retreat and at Poets on the Coast is that place trumps person. Here's what I mean: I will do my best to provide interesting classes but more than half the experience happens due to place: the cows bellowing in the fields, the crocosmia wild along the edge of the road, the ever changing theater of the sky.


Now that I've taught one full day, done my first one-on-one consultation and prepped for tomorrow's three hour class, I can breathe more easily. I'm no longer the lone cow standing on the beach but instead part of a vibrant community of writers. All I need to do is offer some guidance and then get out of the way. I am finally in the moment, comfortable with the routine of sharing poems, reading poems in order to get at craft questions, and writing together. All sorts of other questions come up in conversation and we find ourselves talking about favorite novels or where a poem comes from. Instead of being nervous about whether I'm up to the job, I am wondering which place in Ireland, or Italy, or India I might teach in next.

An Abbey, A Fish, A Poetry Cafe

And this was just the beginning! Each day has contained another piece of magic. And tonight we've arrived at Anam Cara -- the artist retreat where I will be teaching for the next week. Wish me luck!

Abbey ruins at Timoleague
Lunch at Fishy Fish in Kinsdale
Where else but Ireland do poets have their own cafes?

Today's Theme: The Walls of Cork Old and New

Detail of wall, Cork gaol




Now I know where the set designer for King's Speech got his inspiration


Graffiti tag in Shandon neighborhood of Cork


Bottles along a gaol wall, Cork

Cork City - Day Two

At Garnish House breakfast ends with a pancake; just a small indication of a glorious breakfast

Irish Writers and Others in the White Pine Press Sale

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You can support White Pine Press and extend your library of first editions and signed books by taking a look at the White Pine Press sale happening now. For more information check out the details here. Dennis Maloney is selling off his personal collection of rare books to support White Pine Press. Full disclosure: White Pine Press has published my last three books. Super full disclosure: Dennis and his wife run a superb press that I am proud to be part of. Why not take a look at what they have? Check it out.