Susan Rich's Blog, page 63

Letters to Young Writers - Loving Rilke and Beyond to Kunitz

Rilke relaxing between letters
Richard Hugo House, Seattle's Writers Center has just initiated a new blog series, Letters to Young Writers, inviting authors to provide the advice they wish they had received. Seattle poet Elizabeth Austen kicks off the series with this superb piece. Why is it that we so often need to be reminded that we don't need to be perfect? Read the whole post right here.Dear Writer,Years ago I heard Stanley Kunitz say, "The first job of the poet is to become the person who could write the poems." For a long time I thought this meant I had to become a better person than I am. I thought I had to become virtuous and perfect, so that the Muse would give me wise and beautiful poems.But what I know now is that all (all!) I needed to do is to become myself, not someone else's idea of me.Visual artists David Bayles and Ted Orland, in their indispensable book   Art and Fear : Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, write that "…becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive."Or, as W.S. Merwin put it, "No one can teach you to listen for what only you can hear."I've never written a poem out of perfection. Poems come from the awareness of insufficiency, of confusion. Poems come out of wanting to see more clearly than I can right now. My flaws are openings, points of connection with the suffering and vulnerability of others.To continue reading...

October is a Literary Month: Poetry and Prose in Seattle and Across the Bridge

Doing public readings is both invigorating and terrifying. It is a chance to be part of the literary community and to feel firsthand that words matter. Here are some events that I am reading at or attending over the next two weeks. If you are in driving distance of Seattle, why not come out?

Tonight, @ 7 pm Christine Deaval at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford, reads from Woodnote.

This year Northwest Bookfest returns to the Puget Sound area. 2 pm, Sunday, Oct. 2nd "Northwest Women's Voices" with Kelli Russell Agodon, Elizabeth Austen, Jeanine Gailey and Susan Rich.

7 pm, Tuesday, October 4th Best Women's Travel Writing at Wide World of Books and Travel with editor Lavinia Spalding, and contributors Jocelyn Edelstein, Sarah Bathum and Susan Rich.

5 pm, Wednesday, October 12th January O'Neil at Elliott Bay Book Company. I'll be on hand, too.

Hope to see you here or there.

In Our Name: Troy Davis (October 9, 1968 – September 21, 2011)

Troy Davis is dead. For some absurd reason I expected this not to happen. Seven out of nine eye witnesses have taken back their testimony. Citizens around the world  spoke out to protest this miscarriage of justice. Peaceful protesters held signs up in city squares yesterday across the globe.
It is not my habit to post my poems. And yet, here is a poem I wrote over a decade ago that unfortunately is just as relevant today. 
We are all Troy Davis


In Our Name
Inside this room we don't come to: the sizzle and spit as of fat in a pan, a sweet-heavy smell of flesh in flames, and two exhaust fans turning
toward a man whose hair on his left leg and head have been shaved, a diaper pinned in the waist of his jeans.
No prayers, no words, will he slipin his hands; only the fingers can legally burn into blue smithereens.
Here is the soft mauve cloth he'll wearwhich will hide the human face when the veins push out of his molting skin
like glass ridges on a jar or vase.Let this chair mark the spot where his heart shudders, then pops
in accordance with Florida law.Here, stand in this room with no view of the sea, meet the warden
the Imam, the Rabbi, the Priest.See the doctor who shines a light in the eye of a man when he's three minutes dead.
Here in a room, with a switch on a wall,is one citizen paid always in cash --- assuring usthe nightmares he has may never be publicly shared.

From The Cartographer's Tongue, White Pine Press, 2000


Finally, this is not an isolated case. This week's Letter of Note provides information on death row prisoners that have been exonerated by DNA testing. "I love life too much" is worth reading, too.

From Iceland to Washington - Poetry and Travel Adventures

Coming to your ipad, kindle, or nook very soonI'm really happy to announce the first ever eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry - Fire on Her Tongue, edited by Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding Convey. This is an anthology of over seventy contemporary women poets including Madeline DeFrees, Eloise Klein Healey, Jane Hirshfield, Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Peggy Shumaker. There is a healthy focus on West Coast poets -- a focus I hope 2SylviasPress will continue, if only to even out this country's poetic geography. Word around the net is that Fire on Her Tongue will be released very, very soon ...stay tuned!


And in other net news...
Tracy and Zavion at the Alki Beach CafeWhen I began this blog almost two years ago, I wanted to focus on stories of travel (as well as poetry and the creative life) but living in one place...well, my travel stories have been a bit sporadic. I tried to provide a sense of Ireland this summer as I traveled from Anam Cara to Galway and I will be doing a reading soon at Wide World of Books and Travel for my piece, "Blue Gates" from the Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 -- but there's so much more in the travel world...Wonderlust: Adventures with Tracy and Zavion is a brand new blog - started just this week that focuses on the adventures of Tracy Brigham and her son, Zavion. The dynamic duo begins their tour in Iceland before heading for Scandinavia and eventually making their way to Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and points beyond. Tracy is a dear friend and Zavion might just be the most photogenic (and photographed) four and a half year old on the planet. Tracy adopted Zavion  four years ago in Ethiopia and if all goes well, she and Zavion will return their this winter to pick up his new brother or sister....here again is Tracy and Z's link.

Doing the Washington Book Award Finalist Dance with Kelli, Oliver, and...

Kelli and I are doing the book award finalist danceToday the Washington State Book Awards are announced and Kelli Russell Agodon and I are two of the four finalists for the prize in poetry. Somehow we've stayed quiet about it since we found out the news while at Poets on the Coast. Friday night in the middle of organizing gift baskets and collating folders, I'll admit it, I  checked my email. Right there in the Emily Dickinson room, where Kelli's manuscript, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, first came together, we found out the good news. And there we were, crazy busy helping other women poets believe in themselves and dive more deeply into their own creative work. Somehow finding out about our own success in that moment seemed right.

My book, The Alchemist's Kitchen has now been out in the world for 16 months, it's no longer the new kid on the block. And this prize marks the last prize that I believe it was considered for. A finalist for two prizes -- this one and the Foreword Prize -- is nothing to sneeze at, but I will confess I wanted it to have a sticker. Maybe there is a finalist sticker for the Washington State Book Award? Maybe I should make one? Do prizes matter? Only if they come with stickers or trophies...

Congratulations to fellow nominees Oliver de la Paz for Requiem for the Orchard and Don Mee Choi for her book, The Morning News Is Exciting.

Huge congratulations to the Washington State Book Award winner, Francis McCue for her book, The Bled, by Factory Hollow Press.

What I Learned at Poets on the Coast 2011, The Sylvia Beach Hotel

Sunday night! Clockwise: Angie, Linda, Tara, Risa, Kelly, Kelli, and me
I 1. I learned that voicing "What if ..." is a very powerful tool. Just over 9 months ago, Kelli Russell Agodon and I wondered what would happen if we invited women poets to join us by the ocean for a weekend. Did the world need another kind of writing retreat? We believed the answer was yes. It seems we were not alone in this belief.

2. I learned that providing a space for other women to create, learn, and share their own writing path makes me very happy. I was looking forward to supporting other women this weekend, I had no clue how much support, laughter, and love I would receive in return. This was one of the big ah-ha moments for me. You get back more than you give.

3. On the drive down from Seattle, Kelli and I suddenly wondered, "can we do this"? For so long we had planned and organized classes, schedules, gift baskets -- but none of it was real until we met our participants. What if we had dreamed beyond what we could deliver? Perhaps that sense of risk pushed us to do our very best work. Aim high and then run to catch up.

4. Poets are shy at first, but warm up quickly. The first evening we seemed a bit quiet and well, many of us had been caught on I5 and had to detour due to an enormous grass fire. However, by Sunday afternoon when we said good-bye, poets were already planning reunions with the others in their area. Perhaps a "Poets on the Coast" in Southern California one day? Three days together is enough to make some new friends. I know I did.

5. The ocean makes everything better. My dream of living by the ocean gets stronger and stronger as I age. The Sylvia Beach Hotel is old and quirky, but it's my idea of heaven, too. A hotel dedicated to writers where the sound of the surf is ever-present. Where one can do yoga on the deck to start the day -- if one is brave. The weekend reminds me of how I want to live my life: as a poet. And I need the support of others to bring me along. Thank you Poets on the Coast, 2011. I am so grateful.
On the calendar now: Poets on the Coast Sept. 7 - 9, 2012

Calling for submissions: The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 8

It is my great pleasure to let you know about a new call for travel essays. Editor Lavinia Spaulding will be editing the 2012 Best Women's Travel Writing and has put out a call for new pieces. I was thrilled to have my essay on living as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zinder, Niger, chosen by Ms. Spaulding for the 2011 Best Women's Travel Writing. This coming October on Tuesday, October 4th, I will be reading with three other contributors (and Lavinia Spaulding!) at Wide World of Books and Travel in the Wallingford area of Seattle. More on this event as we get closer in, but for now you might want to start writing...

I will also be reading 2:00 pm on Sunday, October 2nd, at the new Northwest Bookfest with Kelli Russell Agodon, Elizabeth Austen and Jeanine Hall Gailey -- but that's a story for another day...

Kick Start Your Writing for Fall - With Us! (only two spots left)

Join us at the Sylvia Beach Hotel!
Nine months ago Kelli Russell Agodon and I imagined: what if. What if we designed a writing retreat based on community, generosity, and creativity -- what would it look like? What if we could meet everyone's needs? What if we set out to try? And now from one tantalizing idea to a full-fledged event, we are in awe of what a sense of wonder can breed. Today Kelli and I met to finalize the schedule of workshops, one on one sessions, surprises, and awesome snacks. We can't believe we will be packing up the car next Friday and heading out to the Oregon coast. It's wild what a little sense of wonder can do. Come join us in the realm of the imagination. Poets (and soon-to-be poets) are converging from across the country. Spending the weekend of September 11th in contemplation and play seems just right to me. And oh yes, we're by the ocean. For more information, please click here.

Finding a New Poet: To Accept the Day - Halfway to a House - by Rosa Alice Branco

The view from Anam Cara

It is indeed a grand morning when one awakes to the discovery of a new poet. Thank you Joele Biele for introducing me to Portugese poet Rosa Alice Branco - her use of syntax startles me most (in a good way) and her building of intimacy;  both make me wonder how I could have not known her work before just now. What a pleasure!
Mornings on the Ground
Rosa Alice Branco


To accept the day.  What will come.
To pass through more streets than houses,
more people than streets.  To pass through
skin to the other side. While I make
and unmake the day.  Your heart
sleeps with me.  It wraps me up at night
and the mornings are cold when I get up.
And I'm always asking where you are and why
the streets no longer are rivers.  At times
a drop of water falls to the ground
as if it were a tear.  At times
there isn't ground enough to soak it up.


--tr. Alexis Levitin, New European Poets, Miller & Prufer, eds
Halfway to a HouseI take light from the closet drawers. The first day
of fall. And all those years at the bottom.
Before, it wasn't me. It was a house under construction.
I before myself. Now I dismantle the summer,
dresses flying, naked feet beside a dress.
Time loses itself in the change of the seasons,
but in this loss someone exists in me.
A voice laughs deep within the closet.
The sun so low, in the bottom drawer.--tr. Alexis Levitin

Tracy K. Smith and Life on Mars

Here's a lovely review of Tracy K. Smith's newest collection, Life on Mars, which includes strong poems on her father's death, childbirth, and telling moments of our times. Her second book, The Duende Poems is one of my favorite books of all times. There is also an excellent essay on the Poetry Foundation web site by her on language and translation (which I cannot find this morning but have printed out in the past). Check her out; I believe she's a poet we will be hearing much more from...and certainly about.


Poems of Childhood, Grief,  and Deep Space
by Joel Brouer

I won't blame you for not believing this: The photograph on the cover of Tracy K. Smith's "Life on Mars" is the same one I see every day on my computer desktop. It's a dramatic and vivid picture from the Hubble Space Telescope, with colors I imagine J. M. W. Turner would have admired, of the Cone Nebula, a pillar of dust and gas some 2,500 light-years from Earth. Scientists say it's an incubator for baby stars. I've long used the image as an efficient and emphatic corrective for solipsism. I look at it when I find myself fretting about, say, book review deadlines or my spotty gym attendance. You can't simultaneously contemplate the vastness of the universe and take such problems seriously.


Click here to continue reading New York Times review.