Susan Rich's Blog, page 77

What does this mean about the writing life? 33 events in 7 months

Taking my cue from January O'Neil and Collin Kelley, I decided to add up what the last few months of my life have looked like in terms of my book launch of The Alchemist's Kitchen.

Now I know why I've been so exhausted this holiday, happy to stay home and re-organize closets.

The thing that I can't get my head around is this: if writers need solitude in order to create work - and perhaps even thrive on or love solitude (not isolation) as I do, then how do we cope with this idea of continually being on the road?


Please understand, I adored meeting new friends in San Diego and Miami - people I never would have met if I'd stayed in West Seattle. And actually, I can be social, happily so, on occasion. But 33 presentations in half a year? Two months of that I was also teaching full time. And yet, it is what so many of us learn to do. In fact, I know I would miss the excitement of festivals, the energy from teaching intimate workshops, and the meeting up with old friends if I was not able to take my poems on the road. It actually feels like a privilege to be living this writing life.

But what I wonder is: will it change what I write? Will it zap poems before they're even thought of? I have to confess that I believe the answer is yes. Yes, just the way the printing press changed how books were made, or how television changed the position of going to the movies in the cultural life of the 1940's and 1950's, just like the internet has changed how we live today. In fact, I know that the internt on our laptops has changed how many of us write. What does it mean, for example, to write a poem of interesting facts if you just found the facts on wikipedia (which does have great lists). What does it mean to write word play poems when the word play can be configured on a website? I use facts and I use word play so this is not a diss, it's just the reality that our poems are now internet enhanced.

And yet. I believe there are more venues for poetry today - both on-line and off-line than any time previously. Poetry is no longer exclusively in the hands of the New York publishing houses and elite journals. Because we have the internet -- and frequent flyer cards -- we can communicate in a far more democratic way then has been possible before. And part of that means going on the road.

Tonight  I was just talking with an old friend about how much fun it would be to teach in Alaska next June - to do a few readings and see a part of the country I have been infatuated with but never had a chance to visit. I know there is a famous writers conference in Homer, Alaska that I would love to be part of and then visit my friend's new home - the Ionia community. And yes, that is time away from writing -- but it is also a chance to be nourished by a new landscape and perhaps write a new kind of poem.

So it's the ying and yang of the writer's life in the year 2010. And I guess I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, for 2011, I already have speaking engagements through August. Maybe being a more social person is just something I'll have to get used to. I can think of worse things.

Resolution #1 for 2011 --- embrace the social world of poetry -- be thankful for readers and hosts.


Conferences / Festivals/Teaching – 5 festivals, 11 events

Miami Book Festival, Miami, Florida, Reading with January O'Neil, Nov. 21, 2010
Centrum Writers Conference, Port Townsend, WA July 2010, Invited Faculty (2)
Skagit River Poetry Festival, La Connor, WA, May 2010 Invited Faculty (5)
Get Lit! – Writers Festival, Spokane, WA, April, 2010, Invited Faculty (2)
Edge Program for Writers, Artists Trust, March 2010, Invited Faculty

Colleges and Universities – 4 schools, 6 events

San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, November 2010 (3)
Lower Columbia College, WA, May 28th, 2010
Pacific Northwest American Studies Association Conference, April 16th, 2010
Highline Community College, Writing Teachers Actually Write! April 5, 2010

Community Programs – 14 locations, 16 events

Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA, Reading with January O' Neil, Nov. 17, 2010
The Ink Spot, San Diego, CA Reading with Ilya Kaminsky, November 14, 2010 (2)
Taboo on the Word Beauty, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Nov. 8th with Kelli Agodon
Literary Fires, with Elizabeth Austen and Harold Taw, November 10th, 2010
Humanities Washington, Seattle WA October 1, 2010
New Poets of the American West, Elliott Bay Book Company, September 2010
Hugo House, LitFuse Kickoff Event. September 2010
Pilot Books, Seattle, WA September 2010
Hedgebrook Open House, August, 2010
Elliott Bay Book Company, June 19, 2010
Seattle Library, It's About Time Series, May 13, 2010
She Said: Women's Lives Through Poetry and Prose, Hugo House, Seattle, May 5th, 2010
Village Books, Bellingham, WA April 30th, 2010
Open Books, Seattle, WA April 25th, 2010

Thankful Thursday - Midnight Edition

Earlier today I was going to write about rejection. Instead, I am writing with gratitude for the three acceptances  that I received today. Three! I don't think this has ever happened before. It seems a miracle except that this morning I realized it had been months since any of my work had come back with a grand yes -- and just this week there had been a snow storm of no thank yous.

Here is one of the strange aspects of these acceptances: two of them are for essays I've written. Is this because after The Alchemist's Kitchen I have not yet found my next poetry focus? I don't know. I do know that writing in another genre feels both strange and fun.  One of the acceptances is for my essay "Blue Gates" exploring my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger, West Africa. It will be published this March in The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 - an anthology that I have travelled with in past years.


I'm thinking of many, many things I'm thankful for as this year comes to an end. It's been a time of exceptionally high highs and low lows. At midnight, it's hard to know how to articulate the emotional  shifts I've been through. I think I need to sleep on it and think on it a bit more.

For now, I will just say that I am profoundly thankful that I get to live this one life as a poet and writer. There's an entire cycle of life with creating, writing, publishing, teaching, mentoring, and publishing others fine work. This year it's finally occurred to me that I am no longer an emerging writer (I am a bit slow) and I've tried to focus some of my energy on working with new voices.

Inventing this blog as I go is something else that I'm grateful for -- my poetry scrapbook is the way that I think about it. A place holder for poems, poets, book reviews, and everything in-between.  While on book tour I met people in Boston, San Diego, and Miami who came out because they'd come to know me through this blog and who were generous (and curious) enough to come out for an event. In every case, it was a true pleasure to meet you.

There's so much more to be thankful for --- this is only the beginning...

Blogging Extends Storytelling: Geoffrey Philip - Discovering a New (to me) Blogger

One of the great aspects of travel is meeting people. In fact, it is my favorite part. While on my book tour last month, I met Geoffrey Philip at the Miami Book Festival. Geoffrey knew (through blogs) poet January O'Neil who I was reading with and he also knew my friend, novelist, Debra Dean, who I was staying with. These intersections seemed to portend that we would like each other. I'd have to say I felt an immediate connection. Geoffrey's daughter had attended Western Washington University so our three geographies: Washington, Miami, and Jamaica all lined up as well. OK. My Jamaican geography consists of a week in Negril in late August to celebrate finishing graduate school -- but I think it still counts.
I'm writing about Geoffrey Philip today for two reasons. First, one of my New Year's resolutions is to read new blogs. Nothing wrong with what I read now, but I have not been exploring and I know there are many blogs out there that I've no idea about. Geoffrey's essay on Top 5 Reasons Why I Blog is inspiring to me and I've included a link here as well as the beginning of the essay below.
The second reason to include an introduction to Philip's site today, is that his blog is up for an award: the Jamaica Blog Awards for a writer writing in the diaspora. Take a look at his site and then how can you help but vote for him?
Also, check out his excellent article on the Top 10 Things A Writer Should Know.
Blogging Extends Storytelling
Blogging and storytelling go hand in hand.

Just below the masthead of my blog is the phrase, "Every blog is telling a story. What's your story?" I really believe that, and blogging is definitely a part of my storytelling.
My blog is an extension of the non-fiction narratives about my identities (husband, father, son, brother, teacher, writer), my life within my communities (Jamaica, South Florida and the Caribbean) and my concerns (the dilemmas facing fatherless children in the Caribbean, the disruptive effects of the Jamaican Diaspora on family and community life, and the spiritual and political dimensions ofReggae and the Rastafari movement). And I apply the same principles of writing as I do when I am working in other genres: inspiration, selection, distillation, and revision.
I also practice three important parts of storytelling:

Capturing the reader's attention

Maintaining the reader's interest

Creating a resolution

The main difference between blogging and other forms of storytelling is the openendedness of blogging. At least for now my blog does not have an ending, so the narrative (while it does have certain themes) is episodic. This is an idea that I have been pursuing in my hypertext novel,  Virtual Yardies , which uses a series of connected blogs to tell a story about a group of Jamaican bloggers who are being murdered one-by-one by a religious maniac who threatens to "kill all battymen and fornicators."
Blogging is merely another means of expressing ideas, some of which should only be expressed through a non-fiction narrative.

A Spicing of Birds: Poems | The Elliott Bay Book Company

Book idea from Peter Aaron, poet and owner of Elliott Bay Book Company, where the exact center of the store is where you will find the well stocked poetry shelves.
A Spicing of Birds: Poems | The Elliott Bay Book Company

Gratitude and Great Books

I thought I would board the train of holiday gift ideas as a way to express gratitude for all the authors I've met,  books I've read, and friendships I've deepened this year.  Here is a short list of books that run from fiction to non fiction to poetry. They are favorites in terms of both words and the women behind the words. Definitely worth looking at.



Letter from the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press) by Kelli Russell Agodon for those trying to find calmness in a chaotic world. Signed copies available at www.agodon.com/books




The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers & a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife (Simon & Schuster 2009) by Janna Cawrse Esarey, travel memoir about love and other dangerous adventures. www.amazon.com




Beyond Forgetting: Poetry & Prose about Alzheimer's Disease (written for
families, caregivers, and medical professionals caring for those with
Alzheimer's Disease) Kent State University Press, 2009.
www.beyondforgettingbook.com by Holly Hughes.






Forgetting English (travel-themed short story collection), Eastern Washington University Press, 2009. (http://www.midgeraymond.com/purchase.html) by Midge Raymond.




Underlife (poems of food, love, and family all exquisitely rendered), Caven Kerry Press, 2009. Available at better bookstores, Caven Kerry Press or www.amazon.com by January O'Neil.

Goodreads Book Giveaway: Ends in Two Days - Enter Tonight!

Goodreads Book Giveaway The Alchemist's Kitchenby Susan RichGiveaway ends in 2 days (December 21, 2010)1 copy available, 387 people requestinggiveaway details »Enter to win

Poem Revisited: Meditation at Lagunitas

Langunitas, California
I came across this poem by Robert Hass again yesterday while reading Poetry in Person: Twenty-five years of Conversation with American Poets edited by Alexander Neubauer. Thank you Kristen Berkey-Abbott for the recommendation. The book tells the story, through interviews, of what transpired in Pearl London's class at The New School during her 25 years of teaching. A superb book. This poem seems so out of season today; it's a cold December morning with a heavy coat of snow covering the Olympics outside my window. And yet. And yet, this only provides the poem with an otherworldly glow. Enjoy.
Meditation at LagunitasBY ROBERT HASSAll the new thinking is about loss.In this it resembles all the old thinking.The idea, for example, that each particular erasesthe luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunkof that black birch is, by his presence,some tragic falling off from a first worldof undivided light. Or the other notion that,because there is in this world no one thingto which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,a word is elegy to what it signifies.We talked about it late last night and in the voiceof my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tonealmost querulous. After a while I understood that,talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a womanI made love to and I remembered how, holdingher small shoulders in my hands sometimes,I felt a violent wonder at her presencelike a thirst for salt, for my childhood riverwith its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fishcalled pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.Longing, we say, because desire is fullof endless distances. I must have been the same to her.But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,the thing her father said that hurt her, whatshe dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinousas words, days that are the good flesh continuing.Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

Notes on Abstraction: Thankful Thursday

I read these words this morning and was thankful.


« Is Graffiti Art An Act of Hope? By Joseph Ross
My friend, poet Jericho Brown offers a view on hope that comes from the past and reaches into the future. Jericho is a gifted and hardworking poet whose magnificent first book PLEASE won the American Book Award. We first met when we were both on a panel at the 2010 Split This Rock Poetry festival. He teaches at the University of San Diego. Like his poetry, I have read his reflection below many times and find something new each time I read it. I bet you will too.  ~Joseph Ross Jericho Brown
Notes on Abstraction-Hope is the opposite of desperation, it's not as comfortable as certainty, and it's much more certain than longing.  It is always accompanied by the imagination, the will to see what our physical environment seems to deem impossible.  -Only the creative mind can make use of hope.  Only a creative people can wield it.  -I will never understand the spirit of my ancestors, but I know it.  I know it lives in me.  And though fear insists on itself, I intend to acknowledge this spirit as one that overcomes us.  I write because my writing mind is the only chance I have of becoming the manifestation of their hope.  -I write because my writing mind is the only chance I have of becoming what the living dead are for me.  -Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.  Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.  There's a high note at the end of my body.  A squall inside.  I share one sound with time.  -I exist because I was impossible for someone else to be before me.  I want for our children what you want for your children.  And if my want is right, they will want it too.

Small Side Business Question - Holiday Gift Ideas?

Yesterday I casually mentioned that I have a small side business sending poems out into the world. I know several  poets who would rather scrub floors than take on the job of sorting through their poems and organizing packets to different journals. Since I find this process more playful than stress provoking, I have started taking on clients who want to leave the posting to me.

Briefly, here is what I do. A poet sends me 15-18 poems that she or he thinks are done - or might be done.  I organize the poems into packets of 3-5 and then choose the journals that I think will be most interested in the work.  I get the envelopes ready (stamps included!) and also do line edits of the poems -- if the poet wants my two cents. I offer a model cover letter from my own files and my knowledge of different editors' tastes -- limited as my knowledge might be. I've had pretty good results getting poems placed for people. Because I only take on a very limited amount of clients, I find the process fun and I love hearing good news when the poems are picked up.

If you are interested in talking with me directly about this, just click here.

Sending Poems into the World this Holiday Season

Today I sent my words into the world. Some traveled by way of the ether through on-line submissions and others opted for the old fashioned stamp and envelope method. I am wishing them all a safe journey. Really, there are other things I should be working on right now -- a deadline for an essay looms, a doctor's appointment later this afternoon chirps at me; there is a todo list and sending poems out was not one of the items on it.

I am actually someone who likes sending my poems into the world. They are going on a trip! Quick! Get every comma and semi-colon ready. Is the font right or is there a better fashion statement my words can make? In other words, I try to make a game out of the entire experience so as to not stress whether my work will come back with a "A" grade or an "R."

Some things I entertained myself with this afternoon that may be of some use to you, too.

1. The license plate game -- send poems to states you'e never been to, never even had a poem published in. There is a contest going on right now in Cork, Ireland. Part of the prize is a trip to Cork! I haven't sent to them yet -- but if I can find the information again, I'm going to!

2. Which poems of mine would go well together? This is the wine and cheese portion of the project. Editors often look for pairs of poems that they can take. Have I offered poems that would go well together without being redundant or schizophrenic?

3. Something borrowed, something new. OK. Here's a confession: I've been sending out poems and sometimes getting them published since 1992. That's a long time and it means that many journals in this country (and the world) have had the chance to accept or reject my poems before. Today I sent poems to a beautiful journal that first published me in 1996 -- I was so glad that they were still going strong that I sent them new work and reminded them that they'd published me before. I also sent to brand new journals that look promising and have not seen my work before.

4. Cool stamps are a fun part of this process. I've loved postage stamps since I collected the old stamps of the Solomon Islands and Fiji -- so many are miniature pieces of art. Which journal should get SPCA cats and which Katharine Hepburn.

I could go on ...This is something I love to do and have even created a small side business of helping others send out their poems to appropriate places. It certainly beats doctors' appointments!