Drew Myron's Blog, page 64
February 14, 2013
Thankful Thursday: And love says . . .
Push Pull Books
Thank you Rumi:
And love says
I will, I will take care of you
To everything that is near
It’s all I have to bring today
This, and my heart beside
This, and my heart, and all the fields
And all the meadows wide
Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
& all the many, moony, love-struck hearts who love, long, yearn & write. You make love bearable, wantable, touchable & true.
It's Thankful Thursday and Valentines Day. What's in your heart, your head, your journal, your life? What are you thankful for today?
February 13, 2013
To Read to Each Other
In this season of love and all its many declarations, I return to a favorite poem:
A Ritual to Read to Each Other
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park.
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford
February 8, 2013
Next Big Thing
Because the world turns with the steady hum of creative effort, I am happy to take part in the Next Big Thing.
Writers Molly Spencer and Hannah Stephenson asked me to join in this blog-tag-o-rama in which I share my latest literary act — and I invite you to share yours, too.
What is your next 'big thing' ?
Off the Page, an annual reading event featuring Oregon writers of all ages and experience. The gathering pulses with a party vibe — with wine, music, mingling, laughter and, sometimes, tears.
How did the idea originate?
The event began eight years ago with a writing group that met at my house. I’d serve soup, we’d chat, and then we’d write together. After a time we wanted to share our efforts so we staged our first reading. Some had never shared their work publicly, while others were accomplished writers.
In that first reading, I realized the power of making yourself vulnerable. To share your words — those things directly connected to your head and your heart — is terrifying, but also completely exhilarating.
Off the Page is held every April (during National Poetry Month) and is now in its seventh year. The first year drew 25 people, and recent years have seen audiences of 60 to 80 people.
The event spotlights local writers — from first-timers to well published, from 8 year-olds to 80 year olds — which creates a great mix of creative energy. Often the room is pin-drop still with a hushed reverence, and then the next writer will have the crowd doubled in laughter.
Who or what inspired you to create this event?
Over the years, writing has allowed me to wear many professional hats: reporter, editor, publicist, and more. But for years, I kept my poems covered and close. When I began to take poetry seriously, I discovered that writing needs air. It needs to come off the page and into the world.
One of the best things about orchestrating this event is when I discover people in my everyday life — my neighbor, the pharmacist, the waitress — is a writer. I love encouraging others, and sharing these secret selves with the community.
Each year features a fresh selection of writers, and the changing mix always produces some surprises.
What genre does your event fall under?
Creative expression in all word forms — poetry, prose, song, fact, fiction . . .
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your event?
Write, share, thrive.
What else should we know?
You can do this, too! Don't wait for an invitation. Create your own reading event, or writing group, or workshop. The writing life starts now, with you.
Off the Page - No. 7 is on Saturday, April 13, 2013, from 7 to 8:30pm at the Overleaf Event Center in Yachats, Oregon. Admission is free, and open to all ages.
____
Now it's your turn! Are you writing a novel, publishing poems, or teaching a class? Now's your chance to share. To take part in the Next Big Thing simply borrow the questions above and interview yourself — then be sure to leave us a link to your blog post so we can learn more about you and your creative endeavor.
February 7, 2013
Thankful Thursday: Phlegmy but Fine
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.
On this Thankful Thursday I am proclaiming truth in advertising. Turns out that catchy old jingle really delivers. After days of achy limbs, hacking cough and a gravel throat, I am nearly healed (or on the way to that golden vista). Power to the plop!
Also, it makes me a bit loopy.
It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things and more. What's got you loopy (and grateful) today?
January 30, 2013
Love that line: The past soaks into you
“In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow* crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to your psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.”
- Charles Baxter
The Feast of Love
*also applies to rain
How's the weather — real, imagined, or on the page — in your world?
January 24, 2013
Thankful Thursday: By hand and dots
It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things, and more. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?
No sweeping statements, no big ideas, no declarations or decisions. On this Thankful Thursday, I offer three simple joys:
On National Handwriting Day, I received this envelope in the old-fashioned mail from the young editor of The Yachats Gazette.
A new polka dot blouse is a perfect pick-me-up.
I'm a planner. I like to look forward. Preparing for this writing workshop makes me happy.
Enough about me. What are you thankful for today?
January 21, 2013
To make is to unmake
There is a peculiar cleansing quality about writing. To make is to unmake, to untie a very tight knot. The urge to write may have to do with a powerful form of forgetting, of loosening perspectives, of banishing some of the more restricting bands of identity.
— Lee Upton
Swallowing the Sea: On Writing & Ambition, Boredom, Purity & Secrecy
January 17, 2013
Thankful Thursday: Road Trip!
We've stayed at two KOAs, stopped at three Stuckey's,
bought one kachina doll, and sang the same Norwegian
song for sixty miles. We ate ham sandwiches on
Grandma's rye bread, and though I don't like the
taste I love the grandma effort, and even at ten
I know this matters.
Sometimes you need a little nudge. The gates of memory swing open, and the pen rolls on its own. Thank you, Lynda Barry, writer/cartoonist, for the road trip flashback. Thank you, Hannah Stephenson, for sending me to Lynda.
Now it's your turn: Write here!
It's Thankful Thursday. Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things. What are you thankful for today?
January 15, 2013
The writer you're supposed to be
I think that when you
break out of the idea
that you have to be
a certain kind of writer,
you can actually be
the writer you're
supposed to be.
For weeks I've been mulling these words from a friend.
Writing came naturally, and at an early age. I churned out the neighborhood newspaper from my own mimeograph (a Christmas gift, age 10). The high school paper saved my life. The college paper honed my skills. An internship expanded my vision.
All along, I imagined a future as a journalist, covering hard news and uncovering injustice.
But while my friends were starting careers at the hard-hitting dailies — the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News — my first job took me to a small town far from anything I knew. Instead of breaking news and fighting for truth, I was writing obituaries, attending city council meetings, and taking photos of the latest Eagle Scout.
In short, I wasn't the hard news reporter I thought I should be.
Instead I was immersed in the mundane, and drawn to the offbeat and ordinary: the 100-year old fiddle player, the woman who saved a historical church from wreckage, a young family rebuilding from a fire. As natural as breathing, I was drawn to people, to their simple stories. But it took me years to feel good about it, to feel that what came naturally held any value.
Later, when I left newspapers for nonprofits — promoting good grassroots organizations — I liked the work but still worried it wasn't "substantial." I wasn't a journalist.
Ten years ago, when poems bubbled, it was all over. I could barely look my news colleagues in the eye. What kind of journalist writes poems, for god's sake?
In an essay about faith, Andrew Cooper writes, "My failure to accomplish or attain any of what I had hoped I would, I think, is the thing that has most enriched my practice."
For years I struggled to be a "real journalist," and discounted my writing and reporting as not serious enough. But now, I see that I've explored and enjoyed more terrain that I ever imagined I would in my original, and very narrow, definition of a "real writer."
After all these years, I think now I was always the writer I was supposed to be.
Are you the writer you were supposed to be? What did you imagine, and what have you learned along the way?
January 10, 2013
Thankful Thursday: Name it, claim it
Thomas Hawk photo
Never wear white shoes.
Never arrive at a party without flowers, wine, a token gift.
Never say, you look great for your age.
Never get to Thursday without a bit of thanks.
But here I am, empty-handed.
It's not that I've had a bad week. Or that I'm a self-absorbed ingrate (working on this) badgering the waiter: what, only one dessert? I want more!
It's that today my gratitude feels both too small (the brilliance of chopsticks) and too large (to love and be loved). I don't want to share my insipid observations (sun shines after many damp days), or accomplishments that made my head and heart swell, if just for a bit.
This week, I'm looking to you. Make this space yours. Name it, claim it, big or small, tender or tacky, tell me, what are you thankful for today?
It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things (and poems). Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?
