Drew Myron's Blog, page 58

Thankful Thursday: Shabby Corner

We can never quite be sure which things we have done and which things we have failed to do, the difference between how we long for the world to be and how it must be a kind of crucifixion in the darkest, most excruciating depths of which we discover it’s not that there’s not enough beauty; it’s that there’s so much it can hardly be borne.

Monday morning, putting out the garbage as the sky turns pink above the salmon stucco facades, I bend my face to the gardenia in the courtyard, knowing that every shabby corner, every bird and flower and blade of grass, every honking horn and piece of graffiti, every pain and contradiction, deserves a song of praise.

— Heather King

from The Closest to Love We Ever Get, an essay
published in Portland magazine, and reprinted
in 2008 Best American Spiritual Writing.

Sometimes you read a passage or a paragraph, and you experience a ping of recognition. Something deep in your bones registers, aches, adjusts, and says yes. Days later you are wading into the words, picking through the placement, examining the texture and tone, pulling at the seams of pace and place. You are making copies and sharing with friends.* The Closest to Love We Ever Get, an essay by Heather King, has haunted me for weeks.

On this Thankful Thursday I am thankful for this essay, and for the unbelievable ability of words — just words, really — to shake, wake, move and soothe.

It's Thankful Thursday. Please join me in a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. What are you thankful for today?

 

* What to read this essay? Email me with your address, and I'll pop it in the old-fashioned, envelope-with-stamp mail, dcm@drewmyron.com.

 

Thankful Thursday: Every Shabby Corner

We can never quite be sure which things we have done and which things we have failed to do, the difference between how we long for the world to be and how it must be a kind of crucifixion in the darkest, most excruciating depths of which we discover it’s not that there’s not enough beauty; it’s that there’s so much it can hardly be borne.

Monday morning, putting out the garbage as the sky turns pink above the salmon stucco facades, I bend my face to the gardenia in the courtyard, knowing that every shabby corner, every bird and flower and blade of grass, every honking horn and piece of graffiti, every pain and contradiction, deserves a song of praise.

— Heather King

from The Closest to Love We Ever Get, an essay
published in Portland magazine, and reprinted
in 2008 Best American Spiritual Writing.

Sometimes you read a passage or a paragraph, and you experience a ping of recognition. Something deep in your bones registers, aches, adjusts, and says yes. Days later you are wading into the words, picking through the placement, examining the texture and tone, pulling at the seams of pace and place. You are making copies and sharing with friends.* The Closest to Love We Ever Get, an essay by Heather King, has haunted me for weeks.

On this Thankful Thursday I am thankful for this essay, and for the unbelievable ability of words — just words, really — to shake, wake, move and soothe.

It's Thankful Thursday. Please join me in a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. What are you thankful for today?

 

* What to read this essay? Email me with your address, and I'll pop it in the old-fashioned, envelope-with-stamp mail, dcm@drewmyron.com.

 

Try This: Postcard Poems

A few of the postcard poems I received during the 2013 Postcard Poetry Fest.
Feeling a bit stuck? Write a postcard poem!

In August I participated in the annual Postcard Poetry Fest, an organized commitment to write and mail a poem on a postcard every day for a month. Yes, that's every single day, for 31 days.

Writing on a postcard, I quickly learned, leaves little room to ramble. Every word counts and writing in the short form sharpens your skills — and fast.

As an added challenge, organizers urged poets to write spontaneous poems. This, they emphasized, was not the time to peacock your best work but instead an opportunity to write fresh and with energy. 

For the most part my poems were real clunkers — as first drafts tend to be — and I was embarrassed to share my work with others. But once I gave myself permission to stumble, I began to let loose and the process became one of exploration and discovery. 

"That most of the poems I received were awful was beside the point," explains organizer Paul Nelson. "That most people were trying, were making themselves vulnerable and were learning little by little how to be in the moment and let the language itself have its say, was a victory."

I agree. And for me, the best part wasn't the daily writing practice, or even choosing postcards to share (though that was fun). The best part was receiving postcards and poems. Cards arrived from Arkansas, California, New York, Maine, Michigan, Washington, Oregon, Canada, and more. Nearly every day a new voice spoke to me —and each was unique, fresh, and willing.

As the stack of postcards grew, I felt a thin but real thread connecting me to people I didn't even know. We're making things, I thought, separately but together — all 302 of us!

And I was reminded how little it takes to shift my mood, my perspective, my day. Sure, it's just a thin piece of paper, sent to a stranger. But it's a small, great gift, given with trust.

Want to stretch yourself and make someone happy? Write a postcard poem today.

 

Why I should give up magazines

reminder no. 3 • a series by drew myron
This is one in a series of reminders that serve as notes to myself (and now you). Consider this a public service announcement, or just one more thing to disregard.

See reminder no. 1. 
See reminder no. 2.

 

Thankful Thursday

— the stanza, a blog by molly spencerIt's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more.

I've been named the Poet Laureate of Vulnerability. I'm flushed and blushed with gratitude. This unusual honor has been granted to me by poet Molly Spencer, in an interview appearing on her blog, the stanza. Thank you Molly.

Molly's kind title makes me wonder what other unusual laureates are lurking among us. Are you the Poet Laureate of Perseverance? of Motherhood? of your Neighborhood? 

And does your title come with a hat and special shoes, or just a quiet knowing that you are appreciated, you are understood?

Please join me in gratitude. What are you thankful for today?

 

What can poetry do?

Lately, reading poems feels like a lot of blah blah blah. I'm tired of the flip, the cute, the acrobatics of clever. 

Do you feel this, too?

There are too many words, trying too hard. My mind wanders and I think, In this communication saturation, what can poetry really do?

In this state, I mope around and flip through an easy read. But I always head back to poetry, a bit shy, a bit resistant. If I'm lucky, I'm stopped short, jolted by a powerful poem, and suddenly I'm energized again. 

Here, two recent finds that spun me around:

Warden, Murder Me is a poem by Allyson Whipple created entirely from the words of inmates facing the death penalty. The piece from which she extracted, Last Words of the Condemned, appeared in The New York Times.

It's a challenge to create a found poem that is both refreshing and resonate, and this one works by delivering a mix of restrained observation and intimate detail.

Here's the first stanza:

I wish I could die more than once           
to tell you how sorry I am.
I am the sinner of all sinners.

I deserve this.            
          Tell everyone                        
                   I said goodbye.

Let’s roll. Lord Jesus            
                      receive my spirit.

I love all those on Death row.            
                 I will always hold them                        
                        in my hands.

Read the full poem at The New Verse News.

Lillie was a goddess, Lillie was a whore, a poetry collection by Penelope Scambly Schott, is a piercing look at prostitution.  These are bold and fearless poems, covering historical, political and emotional ground. In this unique work, the poet serves as hostess, historian, reporter, and voyeur. Schott's skill and control (she's published more than a dozen books) give the collection significant power, perspective, and, at times, humor. 

The book's running theme is cause and effect, and the correlation is examined with microscopic care:

Why Lillie Became a Prostitute — version six

He stood next to my bed
I'm your father
he slid under the covers
I was wearing my pj's with pandas.
I would never hurt you
he hurt me with his thing
Nothing happened
I don't remember any thing
I don't remember anything
I don't like pandas anymore

 
While Schott looks to the past, she snaps us back to now. Prostitution may be an old routine, but so are the agreements of modern marriage:

In which this wife tells her husband the truth about sex in marriage

I am tired of cooking dinner. Instead
I'd rather lick caterpillars just for the feel
of fur on each of my tongues.
I have one hundred slippery tongues
and each speaks a different dialect.
Is any one of them yours?
Often my breasts are annoyed
by the tedious fact that every penis
is an antenna.

. . .

Sometimes, though rarely, my body
is struck by lightning.
Other times I'm the best liar in Portland,
Oregon. Strangers have paid me
to lie. For you, my beloved,
I'll do it for free.

Rattle , one of my favorite journals, applauds Lillie, noting ". . . the historical sections of Schott’s book are smart, interesting, compassionate, and worth reading, but the contemporary poems are truly urgent and compelling." 








That's not overstatement. It's a careful hand that can craft such power. With Lillie, Schott informs, illuminates, shakes and stirs — and that, I'm now certain, is what poetry can do.

 

Thankful Thursday on Friday

This, I thought, will make a difference.

The bright aisle offered so many tidy, shiny choices, each packaged with carefully chosen names — bamboo pink, eternal rose, tender berry — and I enjoyed a rush of delight. 

Was it vanity or hope, and does it matter? It was lipstick and I felt good.

Other thankfulness happened this week: a trusting friend, a head cold that didn't move into my lungs, a $4 blouse from Goodwill, a dinner of pho, a sun-filled dawn, a Pittsburgh salad (healthy veggies with a handful of fries in the center), a husband who makes me coffee every single morning. But really, it's that moment at the makeup counter that sticks. I don't question gratitude; I'm just thankful to catch its vibe.

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things.

What are you thankful for today?

On ratings, reviews & love

It means a great deal to me when someone tells me how much he or she liked a particular book of mine. I think almost all writers feel this way . . . writers love to hear substantive commentary or praise. It may just be because it feels good to have your ego stroked, but I think it’s also because writing so often delivers delayed gratification, and the sudden pleasure of a reader’s reaction is a welcome burst of immediacy. Mostly I just enjoy getting hard evidence that people who aren’t my mother or my relatives or my friends are actually reading what I’ve written.

— Meg Wolitzer
author of The Interestings

Sing it, sister!

Writers are a hungry bunch. We crave. We want to be known, heard, seen. See me, see me, can't you see me? When you're filling a deep well of need, no praise is too loud, too often, too much.

And social media doesn't help. It feeds the addictive nature of our need for attention. In this age of hyper-visibility, every experience is reduced to a rating, a star system, or a "like" button which leaves little room for nuance. We live in a time in which everything — from books, to movies, to meals — is "amazing."  Nothing is ordinary, and what was once satisfactory, say three stars instead of five, is now seen as undesirable. Okay is obsolete. Exaggeration is king.

I'm part of this system — active on Facebook, LinkedIn, this blog and others — and increasingly I want out. On Goodreads recently I was excited about a colleague's new book and promptly wrote a positive review. It's a good book, and I said so clearly. Within hours the author questioned me. Why, she asked, didn't you give the book more stars?

We are hungry. We cannot be filled.

Last week I came home to a wonderful surprise. Among the stack of bills and credit card offers addressed to Mr Drew Myron was a letter from a friend. She had taken time to read my book and give a nearly page-by-page response. It was praise and I lapped it up like a puppy.

That's what we all want, isn't it, someone to take time to weigh and consider, to carefully care. Sure, stars and "likes" and Amazon reviews make us feel good. But don't we really want more? To be seen, to be loved, to be understood?

I'm looking for a solution to our incessant need (our meaning my). We are human. We scream for a voice, and cry for acknowledgement. Is our social media culture feeding our need or reflecting it? And is the answer an easy one, such as simply turning off the computer? Or a more complicated pursuit, such as finding fulfillment in deeper and more lasting ways? I don't want to erase ego, or even self-promotion, but in this crazy pursuit of attention there must be some way to saner ground, to a place that leaves us more balanced, less desperate.

My office is open, please send suggestions.

"Just This" Winner

From this box, winners are made
We have a winner!

Karen Britton has won "Just This," the newest book of poems by Margaret Chula.

Thanks for playing. Check back for more good books, good interviews, and good giveaways.

 

Thankful Thursday: My People

Nuclia Waste at the Denver County FairIt's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places and things in our lives. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?

I spent the weekend spreading poetry love at the Denver County Fair. A modern interpretation of the traditional fair, this annual event is a creative mash of farm fun and freak show crazy.

The weekend includes a poetry contest (ribbons! cash!  prizes!) and a poetry performance in which finalists take to the stage. The reading was nicely sandwiched between the pie eating competition and the hot dog eating contest (How much can you eat in three minutes? Behold the beauty of gluttony!).

Just before the reading, a woman motioned to me, gripped my hand, and gave me a laser stare: Thank you, she said. Thank you for making a place for poetry, for us. 

And I thought, power to the poets! To those who explore the world with words and know the value of a well-placed comma. To those who study line breaks, music and meter. To those lifted by language and stirred by stanzas. Power to the misfits, to the outcasts and understudies.

Among the chickens, children, and clamor, I heard a crowd chanting eat that pie! eat that pie! I knew I was home and among my people: the freaks, geeks, artists, and outsiders.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for my people.

What are you thankful for today? Who are your people?