Drew Myron's Blog, page 35
September 16, 2016
Thankful Thursday (on Friday): Kindness
Photo by Rajah Bose/Gonzaga University, via On Being
It's been a rough week and my defenses are low. Sometimes a poem arrives just when you need it. One of my favorite poems and poets popped up this week.
Naomi Shihab Nye was recently featured on the radio program On Being.
First, the poem:
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
- Naomi Shihab Nye
And the interview (transcript and podcast): here.
There are so many gems in this interview. Here are a few nuggets:
Writing things down, whatever you’re writing down, even if you’re writing something sad or hard, usually you feel better after you do it. Somehow, you’re given a sense of, “OK, this mood, this sorrow I’m feeling, this trouble I’m in, I’ve given it shape. It’s got a shape on the page now. So I can stand back, I can look at it, I can think about it a little differently. What do I do now?” And very rarely do you hear anyone say they write things down and feel worse.
and:
You could write a little and still gain something from it. You don’t have to be spending an hour and a half to three hours to five hours a day writing to have a meaningful experience with it. It’s a very immediate experience. You can sit down and write three sentences. How long does that take? Three minutes. Five minutes. And you're giving yourself a very rare gift of listening to yourself.
and:
And so I would get in a little trouble, and my mother would say to me — her charge to me — “Be your best self.” And I would think, “Wow, what is that self? Where is it? Where is it tucked away? Where do I keep it when I’m not being it? And are you your best self? Is my teacher her best self?”
That was just something intriguing to me that we had more than one self that we could operate out of. And I think one nice thing about writing is that you get to encounter, you get to meet these other selves, which continue on in you: your child self, your older self, your confused self, your self that makes a lot of mistakes. And then find some gracious way to have a community in there inside that would help you survive.
It's Thankful Thursday and I'm filled with gratitude for poems that move me to my soft self, my best self.
And you — what are you thankful for today?
September 6, 2016
Love that line!
I have issues with gluttony and gourmandism.
It's like chefs have become gods and restaurants have become the new nightclubs . . . Foodie culture has become the newest cult of conspicuous consumption."
- from Bright, Precious Days
a novel by Jay McInerney
September 1, 2016
Thankful Thursday: The Past is Now
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It's Thankful Thursday.
Please join me in a pause to express gratitude for people, places and things that bring joy.
1.
I like lists.
I fill scraps of paper — from post-its to journal pages to the empty space on envelopes — with things to do, buy, be. Long after the writing, I find these reminders at the bottom of my messy purse, under the area rug, between couch cushions.
In these forgotten essentials I discover eras: a burst of good health in which I listed calorie counts and exercise routines; ideas for poems and stories; website addresses for jeans I must have (and never bought); phone numbers for a hair salon, a great massage, acupuncture.
I find words I like and want to remember: belie, agronomy, citron . . . Yesterday when I ordered my coffee, the barista responded with "super!"
I commended her enthusiasm.
"I'm trying to find words to say instead of perfect," she explained. "I want to bring back the good words, like super and keen, words my father used."
And so I wrote down super.
Writing makes it real, makes my intention stick, and helps me find my way amid life's distractions.
2.
Sentimental journay: these shoes are as old as my marriage. Both have worn well.
3.
Today I turned the clock to 1995 and rollerbladed through my past. No, really, I rollerbladed.
When you were younger and at the park, did you see an old lady rocking the rollerskates and did you smile with a mixture of delight and pity? Well, I'm her! I'm rolling past your craft beer and coffee culture to give you a blast from my past.
What's happening in your world? Are you in the here and now, or yanking at the past? What are you thankful for today?
August 28, 2016
If You Love it, Share It
Hello Reader,
In this season of sun and shine, I'm writing today with gratitude. Thanks to you, 3 Good Books, my labor of love, is thriving.
The blog series now features almost 50 fabulous writers & artists and hundreds of book recommendations from a variety of voices, including Paulann Petersen, Jan Gill O'Neil, Tracy Weil and more.
Together we've explored Dreams, Divorce, Praise, Play, Resilience, Silence, Food, Fishing, and more.
Who cares? I do! You do! Because when we read, creativity stirs. And when we create, life expands.
Thanks for joining me in the expansion.
Read on,
Drew
August 23, 2016
Poetry in Action
The Poets Are In: Khalil Jazz Jenkins (left) and Kyle Sutherland work the Poetry Booth. Sometimes, too much of the time, I live in my head. Writing, reading, stewing.
What a relief it is to come up for air. To find a world alive with good people and poetry.
I was recently revived at the Denver County Fair. Now in its sixth year, this new-fangled fun has been called the "craziest county fair in America." It's a mix of old and new, with pies, pickles, drag queens, trick pigs and more. And amid the side-show antics, poetry shines.
As the Director of Poetry, I get to orchestrate all kinds of fun: a poetry contest, a poetry performance, and a poetry booth.
Winners of the Poetry Contest, from left: Carolyn Oxley, Emma Miner, Laurie Duncan.
The Poetry Performance featured Art from Ashes, a nonprofit literary youth organization that jolted us with a reminder of the power and purpose of creative expression; Jovan Mays, poet laureate for the City of Aurora, and instructor at Lighthouse Writers Workshop; and Judyth Hill, my mentor-friend, who years ago taught a writing workshop at the Taos Institute of Arts that turned my head and heart to poetry.
[image error]Poet Jovan Mays performs at the Denver County Fair.
Judyth Hill shares her internationally-known poem, Wage Peace.
Nearby, the Poems-Write-Now table hummed with poets-in-action. Poets penned on-the-spot poems for "customers" (donations benefited Art from Ashes). This was poetry as verb. Sunday morning reverence meets freak show mystery.
"Jazz," an Art from Ashes poet, wrote a poem for my teenage niece. She provided limited info — her name, what was on her mind, and we wandered away to watch the bug eating contest. When we returned 15 minutes later, he had turned out a complete and surprisingly perceptive poem. In the busy hall, with its rumble and echo, we clutched together, bending in to hear his words lifted from page to ear, and we stood teary-eyed and awed.
Sometimes I'm too much in my head. That day I was all heart.
August 17, 2016
What Divides Us
If what divides us is fear —
and surely the root of hatred
and greed and the lust for
power over others is fear —
telling our truths and seeing
ourselves reflected in the
stories of the 'other' might be
not just the best answer
but the only answer.
— Bette Husted
Bette tells it true, at 3 Good Books, a blog series I host.
Please join me there, go here.
August 14, 2016
Love that line!
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Every work is a depiction and a lie. We rearrange the living, exaggerate the light, intimate dusk when it's really noonday sun.
— The Last Painting of Sara De Vos
a novel by Dominic Smith
August 8, 2016
And It's Only Tuesday
August 3, 2016
Reminder, Prompt, Promise
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This is a gift. Lost. And found. And given again.
This is a reminder, an invitation, a promise, a hope.
A door opens. A heart loosens.
This is a start. This is an end.
Love is a verb.
This is a writing prompt. Go!
July 27, 2016
Send Supplies!
By Warsan Shire, from "What They Did Yesterday Afternoon."
Sheesh, cut us some slack!
I'm not sure to whom I'm addressing this plea, but please may I jump to the front of the line?
I'd like to return this era. Okay, exchange. I'm not even asking for money back.
I'm not swearing (too much), or crying, or even sulking. I'm mostly wandering and sad.
But, really, who's in charge here, and how do we get out from under this heavy rock of reality?
It's a rough season, and we're crashing about in the wreckage of politics, killing, and manuevering and manipulation. We're trapped in a mashup of House of Cards meets Veep, with a splash of Real Housewives.
(Yes, I've found escape in the world of television, and it turns out life is mirroring make-believe. There's just no escaping the crazy).
And it's a season of personal sickness and loss. Some seasons are long, and even while flowers burst and the sun shines criminally bright, our hearts remain heavy.
And yet this is the stuff of life, the swirl and the sink.
And so, dear readers and friends, how to keep on? Where do you turn? Words, books and poems?
Please send replies and supplies — and quick!
