Drew Myron's Blog, page 12

Best Books of 2023 (so far)

Good news — good books are everywhere!

We’re only three months into 2023 and I’ve already found my favorite books of the year, so far.

Always an avid reader, I’ve been reading more than usual this month as sickness (bronchitis, followed by covid) left me listless and fatigued. Along with countless episodes of Call the Midwife and Grey’s Anatomy, good books are always good company.

Here are my latest favorites books:

NOVEL
Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson

In this sly, suspenseful novel, a man unwinds the tale of his success. An intimate and engaging tone kept me riveted from start to finish.

ESSAY
Violation: Collected Essays by Sallie Tisdale

With a keen eye and boundless curiosity, Tisdale has worked as a nurse and writer for decades and has written books and essays on rich and varied topics, from nursing homes to reality television. Skilled and prolific, it’s a mystery why this Oregon writer hasn’t achieved greater recognition.

Throughout this collection, I've underlined passage after passage, page after page. And her essay on abortion, Fetus Dreams, is the most compelling piece I've read.

The introduction sets the tone, as she looks back at 40 years of published essays:

Certain themes recur; why should this ever surprise us? Life is just following a trail along a mountain. The path loops back to the same view time and again. Sometimes we see all the way across the plain and sometimes we’re lost in the woods, but the perspective is a little higher each time. So I return again and again to questions about the nature of the self, what it means to live in a body, why we are all lonely, how to use language to say what can’t be said. These are questions of intimacy and separation, and the answers are ambiguous at best. Long before I knew how to describe it, I liked ambivalence. Certainty has always seemed a bit dishonest to me.

NON-FICTION
The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine by Ricardo Nuila

Where do you go when you have no (or insufficient) health insurance and are turned away from hospitals, clinics and doctors? With great empathy, Dr. Nuila reveals the roots of our broken healthcare system and a hospital serving as a model that emphasizes people over payment.

See Also: God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet

SELF-HELP
You Are An Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation by Sara Urist Green

From fanciful to practical, this book offers more than 50 ideas and prompts to stir creative juices in both artists and writers. It worked for me; the interviews with artists and the examples opened my mind and got me energized to play with words.

POETRY
Love and Other Poems by Alex Dimitrov

At turns seemingly simple yet pleasingly deep, Dimitrov’s third book of poems shines with language that is direct, themes that are easy to navigate, and a location distinctly New York. Poem Written in the Back of a Cab runs 14 pages but never seems bogged down. The title poem, Love, spans 10 pages with an in-the-moment pace. After reading a great deal of opaque and overworked poetry, Dimitrov’s work feels fresh and unfettered.

* * *
The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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Dear You,

Dear Faraway Friend,

 I think of you often

and imagine you deep

in your pages, reading

and writing.

 

My poems are

sporadic, coming

in darts and dares,

fits and splits.

 

Winter is slow and

plodding, both

body and mind.

 

As always

I long for sun —

but I'm getting better

at securing the shine

of cold and gray.

 

I suppose every

life has its theme.

What's yours?

 

With love

& goodwill,

Drew

* * *

Salutations

The letter that never arrived. The letter that arrived but after
its intended recipient moved. The letter that you folded in half
and slipped into a book. The letter which let fall a powder
like sugar from its folds. The letter, burned over a candle flame,
which turned its letters into ash. The letter which told me what I
wanted to know, and what I didn't. The letter, being that which I will
never now unsee. The letter which gave you the courage for words
you could never otherwise say. Dear, most letters begin. To whom
it may concern. Being a way to open or break open, break in or down.

Dearly beloved,
our deepest regrets.
Cordially yours.

— Luisa A. Igloria 

* * *

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directly to your email.

As always, thanks for reading & writing.

 

 

On Sunday: Between Breaths

Between breaths — postcard poem by Drew Myron

Everything is a long pause between breaths

Everything is a long pause between breaths
as you navigate the final    months    weeks    days    

The hours twist ever tighter in spirals of complication
and you hang waiting at every door

You sleep longer     deeper     and need all
kinds of light         

                        At the end      discomfort is
disease filtered through leaves as you

move toward the much loved
                             places and patterns of life                 

You are a tree reaching for sun     surprised
to find a tapestry of dark and light

— Drew Myron

More Postcard Poems:
Wintering
Questionable

The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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Thankful Thursday: Trust

Where you’re needed, a postcard collage by drew myron

1.
Sometimes someone will trust me with their story.

As a reporter-writer, the exchange has always been a careful balance. I trust that you are forthright and honest. You trust that I will get it right.

Now, more than ever, the trust feels shaky. We are dubious and doubting. We are not seen, accepted, or understood. In this increasing mood of distrust, I accept every telling as tender faith that I will hear, hold, and understand.  

2.
The sharing, both professional and personal, feels more vulnerable now.

Three years of keeping distance has turned me deeper inside myself. I've forgotten how to play with others.  

The last few years have been difficult in myriad ways. The pandemic has walloped our physical, emotional, and mental worlds, and I'm not sure we've fully acknowledged its impact. I'm encouraged that we now have more and better tools to handle the sickness —vaccines, medicines, experience — but I'm still not confident enough to return to life as it was lived before. And even sharing this sentiment is fraught with the potential for division and misunderstanding.

3.
I'm reading and writing with kids again, small groups of youngsters in an afterschool program.

Like children across the country, the students are struggling. For many, Zoom was their first and only classroom. Catching up to learn the foundations that will serve them for life is a tremendous challenge.

How to help? Read with a child!

The most basic act is still the most useful.

“There's really solid research saying that if kids know there's an adult that cares about them as a person, they will feel connected,” notes Robert Balfanz, a researcher at Johns Hopkins School of Education. “And if we give them good instruction and good learning opportunities, many of them will be able to accelerate their learning. And then, for those that had the biggest losses, we know that there's really nothing better than high dosage tutoring.”

My small group of readers and writers begin each session talking about our favorite words. Then we write a bit about ourselves, starting with I am . . . and I am not . . . One girl always eagerly shares her work (there's always one, bless her) and soon the others clamor to take part, too. We laugh and joke, read and write.

But the other day, Anna hunched over her journal and shook her head. Time moved quickly and we were soon done. The kids left their journals and skittered off. I opened Anna's book, and her small cramped writing broke my heart: 

I am 10 years old. 

I am not happy. 

I am very tired. 

I love my dog. 

I miss my bed.

And all night and into today I keep thinking of her.

So, that's a heavy story. But also a light one. Because there are words on her page, I think there is hope. 

4.
The light is frail this morning, the temperature cold.

The winter sun strains to hold steady in the sky.

February carries a certain trust — that winter will end, that trees will bloom, that everything has its time and place.  

It's Thankful Thursday. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? What makes your world, your heart, expand?

Note: Names have been changed to protect privacy.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Good Views

So, what are you watching?

I often write about good books but in the cold season good viewing consumes my time, too. Because there are so many “television shows” (a term to describe the many screen options we now have) it can feel like there’s everything — and absolutely nothing — to watch.

The masterful blend of a good script and great acting is a rare gem. I’m happy to share some of my latest favorites.

* Note that streaming platforms change frequently, check for availability.

Chicken People
A funny and uplifting look at the world of show chickens and the people who love them. Both humorous and heartfelt, at first glance Chicken People feels like a mockumentary (Best in Show is my all-time favorite of the genre) but this documentary is all real. It’s a quirky charmer.

Available to rent on Amazon Prime

Other People
This 2016 “dramedy” stars Jesse Plemons and Molly Shannon in a story about a son who returns home to care for his dying mother. Yes, the premise is tired but the insight and performances are fresh and endearing. For anyone who has cared for a loved one (and by now who hasn’t?), this movie is heartbreaking, funny, tender, and true.

Available on Netflix

All the Wild Horses
A riveting documentary about the Mongol Derby, the longest and toughest horse race in the world. The course traverses more than 600 miles of remote Mongolian steppe, desert, and mountain ranges. 

I discovered this adventure movie while writing a story about two Oregon women who competed in 2022.

On the same theme, Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Loneliest Horse Race is one of my favorite books.

Yes, I have a lotta love for this topic — and I don’t even like animals! (Don’t send me hate mail; I’m allergic to everything and can appreciate animals from a distance).

Available to rent on Amazon Prime

All Creatures Great & Small
The latest adaptation of the book series by James Herriot about an earnest young veterinarian in the 1930s is now playing on PBS. I like a bit of grit and initially the show seemed too wholesome to keep my interest. But this tale of life in the beautiful English countryside is, well, soothing and delightful. Now in Season 3, and I can’t wait for each episode.

Available on your local PBS station, or with a Masterpiece subscription available through Amazon Prime.

The Wire
Treme
The Deuce

All praises for David Simon, the best writer of television tales. I recently revisited my two favorites: The Wire, about the drug trade and its reverberations in every aspect of urban life; and Treme, exploring the emotional, physical, financial, and cultural aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

I never tire of these gems. Stellar writing, combined with excellent acting, make these shows shine. Twenty years after they first appeared, these hold up with unmatched depth and relevance.

The Deuce is one of the newer David Simon treasures. The 2017 series takes place in 1970s and 80s New York when porn and prostition ran rampant. Yes, the subject is gritty but the nuanced storyline and complex characters (James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal!) make this a must-see. 

The thing about these shows is I never really want to watch them — at first. The topics are dense, heavy, uncomfortable. But the writing, acting, and camera work is so tight that after the first or second episode I am hooked — every time.

Available to rent on Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Hulu.

Your turn: What has you hooked? Tell me what you’re watching.

Assembly Required

Coping is eventually a terminal illness, from Lungs, a series of collage poems by Drew Myron.

1.
Like a hungry squirrel searching for the last nut, I’m racing around the internet for medical clarity. Again.

But first: I’m fine.

2.
I’m hunting for answers. There are too many words and nothing I can touch. There is a distance in the language. Like a hug that touches only upper arms. A smile that does not reach the eyes.

After excessive searching, the words blur into meaninglessness:
you may feel . . . symptoms include . . . final stage . . . end stage.

Nobody says death. Dying is happening but also very much not happening.

3.
Ten years ago a friend and I explored death through poems and paintings.

Death is not a crisis, we agreed, then laughed and cried and shared a period of intense creativity through grief.

I like to think that period prepared me for the many people who died in the decade that followed —  parents, family, and many close friends — but I don't know that it ever gets easier, or, really, that it should.

4.
I’ve lost language, the ability to write my own feelings, to say what is. I am trying to feel and not feel.

Remaking can give me words, rearrange reality.

5.
Cut, paste, create.

I call it a scramble. Some call it a cut-up or collage.

The form emerged from the Dadaists, an avant-garde art movement of the 1920s. There are many variations but the foundation of a cut-up is created by taking a finished text and cutting it in pieces with a few or single words on each piece. The pieces are then rearranged into a new text.

Over 100 years later, the cut-up technique has been used by scores of writers, musicians, and artists, from T.S. Eliot to David Bowie. Learn more here.

End Stage, from Lungs: a series of collage poems by Drew Myron

6.
Poet Rosmarie Waldrop refers to collage as “the splice of life,” as recounted in this excellent piece by artist Heidi Reszies that appeared in The Volta:

“I turned to collage early, to get away from writing poems about my overwhelming mother. I felt I needed to do something ‘objective’ that would get me out of myself. I took books off the shelf, selected maybe one word from every page or a phrase every tenth page, and tried to work these into structures. Some worked, some didn’t. But when I looked at them a while later: they were still about my mother.”

The poem will resemble you, said early Dadaist Tristan Tzara. What the mind has assembled—subconsciously and at any given time—will surface in your poems. 

7.
There’s a freedom in the process. A joyful spark of distance and recognition. The words are not mine and yet, I remake them mine.

8.
For these poems, I printed pages of medical text from webmd.com and copd.net, then cut the pages into lines of text, scrambled the order, rearranged into ‘sense.’ In this series I worked to keep key phrases intact. I did not add additional words.

I’m in each line while also standing outside each line.

The image is from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. The 1882 drawing, depicting bronchi and lungs of a male, appeared in Popular Science Monthly.

9.
Do these technical details matter?

Does poetry matter?

Is this exercise or art?

I have no satisfying answer. But I have the pull to create order from everything that swirls and screams, that wonders and whispers, that calls me gently to make sense, to make something.

“The mind is assembling stuff all the time,” writes poet Ralph Angel.“Poems, stories, paintings—art objects are like mirrors. No matter what we think we’re up to when we make them, they reflect precisely who we are at the time.”

_____

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Wintering

Oh January, you are a difficult teacher.

We’re slogging through rain and gray.

In the western U.S., we’re deep into a damp season. In California, floods and storms batter entire towns. In Oregon, where I live, rain is nothing unusual but this year we’ve seen an especially cold and soaking gloom. It seems weeks since we’ve seen the sun, though I know that can’t be true. We search the sky for pinholes of light, patches of blue that surely exist beyond the steady gray.

In this wintering, I turn inward again. Make something of this season, I say, and nudge myself into words and books, pen and page.

Postcard poems feel like a comforting container right now — small enough to manage and not large enough to daunt. Rendering just a few lines matches the season, and my mood, too.

These are my spare days: monochromatic sky, the outline of trees, a stencil of thought.

What gets you through these darker days? Have you a trick or tease, a form you fancy, something to nudge you forward when the (real or metaphorical) weather pulls you back?

In this wintering, what are you making?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Questionable

Who loved you into place?
Postcard collage by Drew Myron

But why?

And how?

Even before Google trained us all in the dogged pursuit of immediate answer, I asked a lot of questions.

I’m curious. Big and small questions natter in my head. It’s natural for me to pepper each interaction — no matter how brief — with who, what, when, where, how, and most pressingly, why?

Too many questions, I’ve been told. I don’t intend to be rude. It’s a thirst, or just instinct, for deeper, wider, more.

This week I turned my questions into collage. There’s something satisfying in turning incessant inner chatter into paper curiosity. The ether of wonder is now ephemera.

Is it true that the world will show you where you’re needed?
Postcard collage by Drew Myron

Possible or impossible — is it yours to say?
Postcard collage by Drew Myron

The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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Best Books of 2022

Are you in the liminal space — the time between Christmas and New Year that lingers at a languid inbetween pace? I feel neither here nor there. It’s not a bad feeling, really, but there is a quality of un-presence that feels a distant cousin to uncertainty.

Where are you? Can you hear me calling into the void?

The end of year is traditionally a time of reflection. We wrap up, weigh, evaluate — just before diving headstrong and determined to do things differently. Uggh, no resolutions for me. I’ll stick to my time-worn commitment: read, sleep, eat.

On that note, let’s wrap up the year with books. Here’s a list of favorite books enjoyed in the past year.

NON-FICTION

Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race
by Lara Prior-Palmer

I'm not a horse-person and I loved this book. An unexpected story that ventures well beyond the typical sports-story drama. The writing is drifting, descriptive, poetic, and oddly wonderful. The story unfurls in thought-full pondering with a fallible narrator who tenders unexpected realness. 

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death
by Maggie O'Farrell

A story of health challenges beautifully and deftly told. This kind of creative and intense literary skill is what turns readers into writers; we long to write with such beauty and weight.

Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur

An emotionally complex and extremely addictive memoir that reads like a captivating novel.

FICTION

Notes on Your Sudden Disapearance
by Alison Espach

Stunning! This novel is a sad and heavy story but so, so, good. Masterfully rendered and alive with characters written with depth, perception and tenderness.  (Also recommend her earlier novel: The Adults)

The Five Wounds
by Kirstin Valdez Quade

A tender and redemptive novel spanning one year in a family of five generations. This novel is an unexpected gem, rich with characters who are beautifully flawed. I quickly grew attached to this complicated family and I'm eager for the next novel from this author.

I Married You For Happiness
by Lily Tuck

This is a love story that is tragic, ordinary, and extraordinary — all at the same time. Beautifully told in elegant stops and starts that mimic memory and grief.

POETRY (AND DICTIONARIES)

Bough Down
by Karen Green

Lovely, unusual, beautiful and sad. This evocative 'story' is told in spare but full language that makes you both slow and rush, all at once — combined with small images of text-based art.

Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief

The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang

This was the year I found Victoria Chang (she's written nearly a dozen books, what took me so long?!). In Trees, Chang constrains language and by distilling thought she masterfully enlarges emotion. In Memory, she weaves letter, poetry, and memory to create a moving story of family, past and present.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
by John Koenig

I read the dictionary.
I thought it was a poem
about everything.
— Steven Wright

This unusual reference book is a "compendium of new words for emotions" — and from the first passage I'm hooked. Page after page, word after word, this is an evocative and utterly original exploration. It's not a poetry book, or a traditional reference book. It's a door, an entry, a delight for thinkers, writers, readers, feelers. 

All the Words
by Magda Kapa

Poet and photographer Magda Kapa created an innovative "private dictionary of aphorisms, epigrams and "naked verses."  Each entry is no more than 140 characters, creating an economy of essential thought and feeling.

Mistake: mostly done again and again until it has a name.

Light: the idea of a tomorrow.

Dream: memory fast forward.

Age: our body's cage


* * *

What are you reading? Any favorites from 2022?

The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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Thankful Thursday: Library

Isn’t a library a sort of heaven?

The library is my church: a place of peaceful reflection, sanctuary and retreat, a quiet pull of possible worlds.

The best libraries have natural light and nooks where you can comfortably tuck into your thoughts. There is a hush of concentration and discovery, with a quietude that carries tender clarity.

When I am urged to “think of your happy place” I do not imagine a tropical beach. It’s always a library I see.

On this Thankful Thursday I am grateful for the public library. Let us hail these places of refuge and discovery! And now, as censorship is at an all time high, public libraries are working harder than ever to provide equity, diversity, and inclusion in their communities.

The pandemic hit hard and low-income families and people of color struggled more than most. Across the nation, libraries stepped up to meet the need. My local library, for example, has a dedicated bilingual outreach librarian who has spent the last two years going door-to-door, park-to-park, giving free books to children. She’s encouraging youngsters to read and thrive.

During the early days of the pandemic — when we all stayed home — I began borrowing digital books, thanks to the free service offered by my library.

This free service, along with online book holds, allows me to access library books at a distance and at absolutely no cost. It still amazes me that we have this enduring system across the nation: free books!

I’m especially thankful for my library because I have been away for over two years. In my world, the pandemic is not over. Covid cases are ticking up once again, and for the elderly and those with chronic health conditions, these numbers demonstrate that vigilance is still required. This week I visited the library and when I saw librarians wearing masks, I sighed with relief.

This may sound silly to you. Most have moved on, tossed the mask, and forgotten about the old and sick among us. Still, nearly 9 out of 10 deaths are now in people 65 or older, the highest rate since the pandemic began, according to the Washington Post and other sources.

It’s true we now have better tools to address the virus, such as vaccines and medicine. And while most covid cases are now more mild, long-covid still racks many and for the medically fragile catching covid introduces a swarm of complications.

When I was just five and learning to read, I spent six months in the hospital for the treatment of severe asthma. Unable to run or spend much time outdoors, I found my life in letters and books.

When I was 25 and a tumor took my lung, I recovered in the company of books.

It’s been years since I’ve suffered a severe asthma attack. While I still have days of wheezing and tightness, with a steady regime of twice daily medications I’m able to bike and ski and live a ‘normal’ life. But I’m always aware of a sniffle or stumble that can upset the balance.

I share this (or perhaps overshare) not for sympathy but for understanding. There are scores of people in similar situations; they are healthy and vigorous individuals who are held in place with medicine, science and trust. These last few years have left many of us feeling battered and left behind.

We can’t live isolated forever, I know. Like you, I want to attend parties and eat in crowded restaurants. I want to fly without fear. But I remain cautious. And maybe this is why I find profound comfort in libraries and books. In a story, I am transported. I am here and not here. I am not alone.

PRAISE SONG

Praise the light of late November,

the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.

Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;

though they are clothed in night, they do not

despair. Praise what little there's left:

the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,

shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow

of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,

the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky

that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down

behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves

that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,

Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy

fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.

— Barbara Crooker

Please join me for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for things small and large, from the puny to the profound. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. What are you thankful for today?