Drew Myron's Blog, page 14

What You Give

Be radiant light. Shine on.

- Drew Myron

1.
When we most need light, which is to say hope, the holidays arrive. Is it chance? It can’t be coincidence that the giving season takes place during the darkest, coldest time of the year.

2.
I keep thinking of the poem When Giving Is All We Have by Alberto Rios.

We give because someone gave to us.

3.
Life is a bustle of lists, gifts, food. We light candles and trees, and wrap ourselves into folly. The days are short, nights long, and we’re clinging to any slant of light. When our need is most pressing, we get the nudge that urges us to step out of ourselves, think of others.

We give because giving has changed us.

4.
For months I’ve been trying to write about Pearl and Doris and Walt and Addie and the many others I meet while delivering Meals on Wheels.

Like small stones worried smooth, each person is now lodged in my heart. I think of the man who waits at his door each week to greet me with full-smile and small talk; the woman too sick to chat; the man with a nurse who thanks me for the hot meal; the woman who invites me inside to admire the glow of her Christmas tree.

We give because giving could have changed us.

5.
Maybe I read too much into a moment. Maybe I want to feel something other than the dread and sadness I often carry. Maybe this is nothing more than a weekly task and I’m turning a small scrap into a warm quilt.

6.
But I keep thinking of the woman who can hardly hear and barely see, whose house smells of too many cats.

Each week I’m a new mystery to solve. Still, she often gives a smile and her eyes turn a dazzling blue. She comes to life, and we laugh about nothing, and I like to think we’re both happy — even briefly.

Then she roots around the pocket of the tattered cardigan that hangs from her frail shoulders and offers me a wad of bills.

“Oh thank you,” I say, suddenly flustered and grateful and sad. “You keep that. Spend that on yourself.”

She nods and smiles, and we wave our goodbyes.

You gave me what you did not have.

* For privacy, names have been changed.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

 

I Was Moved: Books of 2021

Read any good books lately?

I’m always reading something, and get nervous when my reading stack runs low. And though I read every day, I’m not often moved. I’m occupied, engaged, and sometimes engrossed, but it takes a lot to move me. The most wonderful reading experience is when I don’t want to do anything that will take me off the page. The writing is so good, the characters so real, the feelings so vivid that I want to binge on the pleasure but also don’t want the story to end. It’s a rare book that can deliver this delightful mix.

In 2021, these books moved me:

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What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

The memories of their parents were like that, sometimes filled with fury, sometimes love, sometimes sorrow. Unforgivable things mixing with dumbfounding things and tender things, the same event in equal parts hilarious and enraging. There was no one way to think of their childhoods.

Set in 1972, this suspenseful literary mystery is a masterfully woven tale of family, siblings, secrets and hope. Stellar writing both comforts and transports.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng 

Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.

In this profound portrait of family, culture, and belonging a story of beautifully aching characters is built. This is Ng’s debut novel, published a few years before Little Fires Everywhere, the bestselling novel that was turned into a television series.

Monogamy by Sue Miller

She’d thought she was memorable. How clear it was that she was not. It wasn’t a quality you possessed, she thought now. It was a quality other people endowed you with.

In this deep and heart-full novel about the complexities of love, marriage, and grief, Sue Miller is master of the details of daily life.

The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh

Neither happiness nor sadness are ever done with us. They are always passing by.

A powerful and aching love story of mother and daughter, told in letters. A beautifully written memoir rendered with a poetic detachment that provides space to hold the pain.

Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane

Others get to midlife, look around — sort of the way you might reexamine your living room when you need a new sofa — and say, What do I have here? What is this room I’ve made? Halfway through life, I wasn’t sure what I’d made.

Don’t let this cutesy cover fool you. What seems a lightweight tale is a wonderfully quiet and charming novel of friendship and self-examination.

The Second O of Sorrow by Sean Thomas Dougherty

Why Bother

Because right now, there is someone
out there with
a wound in the exact shape
of your words.

This poetry collection gathers together a striking blend of short powerful poems and lyrical prose pieces from a poet described as “a blue-collar, Rust Belt romantic to his generous, enthusiastic core.”

Your Turn: Read any good books lately? What books moved you?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Who Are You?

Six Word Memoir by Drew Myron

Can you tell your life story in six words? 

Six Word Memoirs are the potato chips of poetry. You don't think you're hungry so you eat just one, but the salt is so delicious you just can't stop. Go on, make a mess, eat the whole bag. 

No really, give it a go. Once you write one, you’ll find yourself thinking of everything in six-word summations.

Six Word Memoirs were introduced in 2006 by Larry Smith, a writer and editor who went on to create a massive series of bestselling Six-Word Memoirs. 

I love this form! Years ago, the first six words I wrote turned out to be the theme of this blog (and my life):

Push words, pull light, carry balm.

Recently, my writing group — a hardworking and hardwriting collection of writers from all over the map (literally and literarily) who ‘meet’ weekly by email — played with six word arrangements. The gems they created are simple, striking, surprising . . . and fun to write & read.

Here, with permission, are a few:

Loving, being loved.
Work.
Books.
Noticing.

— Vicki Hellmer 

tried to become

someone I'd miss

— Shawnte Orion

Triptych 

 1) 
hide, seek,
lost, found,
repeat, repeat

2)
 moon song,
swoon song,
swan song

3)
 ruby slippers for sale,
well-worn

— Audrey Mlakar

Four Attempts by Sarah Cook

Sarah Cook enlarged the idea to create four linked nuggets, combined with her photos. See the series on Instagram @ freelance.feminist

Your Turn: Write a Six Word Memoir (or two, or ten . . . ). And if you’re feeling communal, share with me.

Write on!

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Thankful Thursday: Gather Gladness

I can’t stop scribbling these pages.

On this Thankful Thursday, I’m thankful for worn old books.

Day after day, these thin yellowed pages call me awake. The erasure poem — or in my case, one or two ‘found’ lines — is just the low-stakes, high-yield sense of accomplishment I need right now. When my thoughts are dull and mind is stalled, finding an unexpected nugget is a small and lovely yes.

Do you know Mary Ruefle, master of wry and beautiful erasure poems? She spends every morning in old books erasing text. She’s made over 100 books and her mind works in mysterious, wonderful ways. I’m thankful for her, too.

It’s the season of gratitude (and platitude). I work hard to avoid the sappy praise of rainbows and kittens. But some days there is a rainbow, and I feel the jolting swerve of gratitude, platitude, joy. And really, I’m grateful for the swerve.

Gather gladness

and spread delight.

Love the gales that

sweep the dream.

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?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

 

On Sunday: Tumult

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The Tumult

In this fever

we wonder

what

links

us.

tu·mult | \ ˈtü-ˌməlt
noun
1 : noise and excitement, or a state of confusion, change, or uncertainty

There’s so much noise now.

Even in the quiet spaces, especially in the quiet places.

In mind and heart, I feel the tumult of the times. I’m trying to turn down the volume, turn up the good, trying to make something in the rumble. For now, I’m erasing to find my way.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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On Sunday: Autumn Rain

Rain, rain, and rain.

It’s a good day for old books. For small thoughts. For space to fill the gaps, for words to fill the space. For erasing one thing to make room for anything. For making meaning from absence. For marking your days, your page, your life.

Join me, please. Make something.

Let
the sound
of autumn
rain secret
tears.

— Drew Myron

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Thankful Thursday: Hold the Light

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation. Remember that?

Ummm, yeah, it’s been awhile. Life is hard, still, again. I’m trudging. Are you, too?

“I’m trying to look on the bright side,” a friend tells me, “but everything is so heavy.”

Another friend feels constantly tired. It’s not about sleep. It’s the mental and emotional energy required to just keep on.

Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude — especially in the heavy days. On this Thankful Thursday, I’m reaching for the light, trying to make the small things shine (without feeling like an annoying "life coach”).

I found a gem at the library today. Just when I think I’ve read every William Stafford poem available, I walk into the library, turn to a shelf and find a poem that speaks to the walk I just made from here to there. My head had been full of longing and my steps slow with a vague rootlessness. I scuffed through wet leaves papering the street, thinking how brilliant this last step to decay. But I also thought, with a clarity only autumn’s letting go can bring, that the end is rarely so pretty. This golden brilliance of trees, this crunch beneath my feet, I know death’s slow ugly ebb and this is not it.

But of course it is, in its way.

And then I found a worn slim book, Braided Apart, and turned randomly to this poem. And then, because the poem felt like an ushering in, I wrote it out. Copied by hand, again and again, until I could feel the words, the pace, the core. Until a poem made me feel more clear, more light, more me.

The Saint of Thought by William Stafford, from Braided Apart by Kim & William Stafford.

What are you thankful for today? From the puny to profound, what makes your world, your heart, expand?

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The landscape in you

1.
Where are you?

Not place, but yes, place. I mean: within you, where are you? No need to respond. No obligation to wonder, to wander.

But, please, do try.

2.
I thought the ocean would redeem me. Sprawled flat-back against warm September sand, palms open and lifted, I once declared a new start.

But winter came and came and came and flattened me into something less. Granular. Between wave, wind, and saturating storm, the dull pressure of gray soaked and rearranged. Through rain and tears, I curled into my self.

I traveled for miles, for years, then stumbled back where I began, on dry land where suede hills roll across a landscape scraggled and wide. Canyon, mountain, meadow and swale, in all directions the earth does not erode or ebb, does not shift or sink, does not wear me away.

Here, the horizon is an unbroken line of nothing. This is the long gestation, a slow appreciation for absence. When you think there is nothing, the smallest life blooms. Sage in spring, bunchgrass summers, rabbitbrush in fall, and winters of scrubby strays that tumble through lonely stretches.

A single meadowlark calls, another answers from far away. Everything here is away, and yet this distance draws you near. Just as silence fills a noisy gap, absence is a virtue. The something of nothing. I hunger for it now, these vast saddle soft edges, a place to put my quiet.

3.
If only we could keep going, out of harm's way, writes Robert Vivian in Hereafter in Fields, and take with us only the best parts of ourselves.   

4.
There are hundreds of routes to the same place. Sometimes I imagine how this geography can make me better, or that one kinder. Sometimes gauzy appreciation is truth steeped in love. Mostly, though, it's hope for better around the bend, a few more miles, the very next stop. 

5.
Why do I need these landscapes, Anna Kamienska asks. The roots of my astonishment at the world cling tight to my inner life, in a tangle of memories, experiences.

6.
I have learned this land slowly, mulling as I usually do. Resistant then relenting, hiking through gravel and shale, basalt ridges and sun-bleached plateau, doubting the way, doubling back. This is the shape of my days, which is to say, my life. 

In this terrain, a tether is tendered. It's a filament so slight that trust must fill what the hand can't grip, what the heart is desperate to hold. 

7.
But sometimes, says John Ashberry, standing still is also life.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Back to School: Writing Books

In this September glow I get that back-to-school feeling that makes me want to grow.

I’m hungry to write and stretch. And I’m reaching for my favorite books, those dog-eared, post-it noted classics that always get me revved up & writing.

Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words
by Susan Wooldridge

Full of joy and encouragement, this lovable book reminds me that good writing is rooted in fun.

“It’s impossible to teach anyone to write a poem. But we can set up circumstances in which poems are likely to happen. We can create a field in and around us that’s fertile territory for poem. Playing with words, we can get to the place where poems come from.”

The Writer’s Portable Mentor
by Priscilla Long

I’ve had this book for 10 years and still haven’t reached the end. It’s a dense manual for advanced writers dedicated to improving their craft. While geared primarily to fiction writers, I’m a firm believer that exercising the writing muscle is a good workout for writers of all forms. This book’s guidance is valuable across genres, and I enjoy dipping in and out.

Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures
by Mary Ruefle

Wise and wry, Mary Ruefle is poet, guide, and smart-sharp professor in the din of a cocktail party lobbing sly observations:

“There is a world that poets cannot seem to enter. It is the world everyone else lives in. And the only thing poets seem to have in common is their yearning to enter this world.”

and this:

“The greatest lesson in writing I ever had was given to me in an art class. The drawing instructor took a sheet of paper and held up a pencil. She very lightly put the pencil on the piece of paper and applied a little pressure; by bringing her hand a little in one direction, she left a mark upon the paper. ‘That’s all there is to it,’ she said, ‘but it’s a miracle. Once there was nothing, and now there’s a mark.’ ”

Tell me: What gets you revved up to write?

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

Dear,

1.
It took just one letter to hook me on a lifelong appreciation of correspondence.

At six years old, I wrote my first letter. My grandparents had given a gift and my mother insisted I write a thank you note. Her method was simple: I told her what I wanted to write, she wrote the words, then I copied her words to compose my own letter.

With each letter received, I eagerly wrote back. Back and forth. Soon, I was writing on my own. For over 30 years, my grandma and I exchanged letters.

Do other mothers do this? It seems a brilliant way to bring personal expression to life, while also instilling a love of writing. Decades letter, writing and receiving letters is among my favorite things (thanks Mom).

2.
Letter

Today I did almost nothing.
Read a little, tried to write a sentence
to make another sentence seem necessary.

I wasn't unhappy. Everything
I could will myself to do I'd done,
so I said I'd done enough.

Now I'm looking out my window:
white pine, ash, a single birch,
the leanings and crossings

of branches. And then the sky:
pale, undecided. Years ago
you wrote to me about a matter

that worried you, and you said
at the end, "That's probably the best,
and most true, way to think about it."

I kept your sentence in my notebook.
I liked its shape. I admired the way,
young as you were, you could feel

one kind of thinking
adjusting into another, one truth
becoming a better truth.

Now you're far off, and alone, and I
have no advice you haven't already
given yourself. What can I tell you?

That I'm here? That today, when I saw
how tenderly the light was moving
among those trees, I thought of you?

—Lawrence Raab

3.
Does anyone write letters anymore?

I get a few, on occasion. I savor the delivery. How a letter arrives unexpectedly, with a messy scrawl or loopy letters. How a hand on paper can make a mark on the heart, even before the envelope is broken. How the greeting sets a tone, ushers me in or holds me back.

“To say what letters contain is impossible,” writes Anne Carson in The Beauty of the Husband. “In a letter both reader and writer discover an ideal image of themselves, short blinding passages are all it takes.”

I have written letters laying bare all I am or am not, all I wish to be. And I have felt an exhilarated exhaustion.

4.
In a letter we are hungry for connection, for compassion. Are you, too, restless, reaching for a clarity, seeking to both know another and understand yourself? And really, is it not the same quest?

5.
“We’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for,” said David Foster Wallace in This Is Water, a commencement speech. “How else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we’ve never even met?”

Yes, yes, more than just a form of communication, a letter is bridge.

A letter is a call across miles, a plea for presence.

6.
Elegy for the Personal Letter

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and crossouts that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationary, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges
ragged as their scribbled messages—
can't much write now—thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at—
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far—
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.

—  Allison Joseph

7.
Today a six-year old writes me a letter, full of loops and curves, butterflies and hearts. Did her mother help her form the words, sound out each spelling? Did she labor and love? In the receiving, I am both excited child and calm adult, both writer and reader. I am hopeful and heartened.

A few words on paper, that’s all it takes.