Drew Myron's Blog, page 71

The hitch, of course

ubiquitous, adj.

When it's going well, the fact of it is everywhere. It's there in the song that shuffles into your ears. It's there in the book you're reading. It's there on the shelves of the store as you reach for a towel and forget about the towel. It's there as you open the door. As you stare off on the subway, it's what you're looking at. You wear it on the inside of your hat. It lines your pockets. It's the temperature.

The hitch, of course, it that when it's going badly,
it's in all the same places.

- from The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel by David Levithan

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Surprises

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

I like small surprises.
Not big and showy acts (parties, skydiving, sweepstakes and pageants) but quiet gestures (daisies over roses, written notes over loud declarations). This week, I am thankful for quiet surprises.

I found fresh herbs on my doorstep. No name, no note, just carefully bundled sprigs of rosemary and other undetermined edibles (dill? oregano? sage?). Last night I made an herb-infused dinner, seasoned with kindness, surprise, and scent.

An unexpected invitation arrived — to lead a writing workshop next month in Newport, Oregon, for the Willamette Writers Coast Chapter. I am surprised and delighted.

Words returned. For the past month, my writing mind has been barren. I've got nothing, I admit to a friend, My poetry permit has expired. I've been here before, and each time I think the dry spell is terminal. Do you know this place? Even before pen hits page your words feel dull and done, and so you stop trying.

When I'm in this space, I counter the dread by ramping up my reading. But lately my enthusiam for books is tepid, too. Still, I trudged through a few so-so selections. The other night, while reading a novel with beautiful prose (but a mediocre plot) I was moved to copy down a few passages. Within minutes, I was jotting my own words. I was writing! (see: Bill Murray in What About Bob? He's tied to the mast, exuberant, shouting, I'm sailing!). 

The next morning I re-read my words, and wrote some more. It's not stellar work, but that's not the point. The surprise is that the tap is flowing. I am writing and thankful.

It's Thankful Thursday. What are you thankful for today?   

Of the earth

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

- John Keats
from On the Grasshopper and Cricket

 

Gardens, farms, things we tend. Someone says make something. I pick up a pen, you a trowel, he a paintbrush, she a spoon.  

We're always tending. Always making.

I'm the Director of Poetry for the Denver County Fair — a modern twist on old-fashioned fun. Speed texting meets Aunt Bee's pickles. I'm excited for Bounty, a poetry contest seeking poems inspired by agriculture, food, gardens and farms. { psst, the contest is open to Colorado writers. Win ribbons and prizes! }

I'm thinking about the earth, how we work it and ourselves. I'm digging for answers in the soil. Hands deep, I want some sort of cleansing, some clarity. Clearing the bramble, I stumble into an answer:

It seems like you could, but
you can’t go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It’s all too deep for that.
You’ve overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you’re given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.
You even thought you abandoned
one or two gardens. But those things
keep growing where we put them—
if we put them at all.
A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.
Even the one vine that tendrils out alone
in time turns on its own impulse,
twisting back down its upward course
a strong and then a stronger rope,
the greenest saddest strongest
kind of hope.

- Kay Ryan
A Certain Kind of Eden

Have you a garden of poems? What's growing? Do you have a favorite poem of the earth ?

 

Searching for sunny skies, good books

Is it summer in your world?

Here, on the Oregon Coast, we're in June-uary. It's 50 degrees and I'm still in sweaters and winter shoes. Despite gray skies and rain, the calendar has somehow turned to June. And because I crave lazy days with good books under sunny skies, I'm going out on a limb and calling it summer. 

Here's the start of my Summer Reading stack: 

The Lover's Dictionary, by David Levithan

Everything Beautiful Began After: A Novel by Simon Van Booy

The Beginner's Goodbye, by Ann Tyler

I'd like to expand my list. Novels, non-fiction, poems, short stories, I'm game for any and all. Any suggestions?

(Sheepish confession: I've read Fifty Shades of Grey. My no-brainer, all-hype, page-turner book quota has been fulfilled).

But enough about me, What are you reading this summer?

Say Goodbye - Winner

In the drawing for
Ten Poems to Say Goodbye
the winner is . . . .

Ruth F. Harrison

 

My thanks to all those who entered for a chance to win. I enjoyed the conversation, and appreciate you stopping by, dropping a line, and joining the fun. Stick around, there's more fun to come.

 

Thankful Thursday: Rain Angel

Soft rain smells like apples. It tastes like pine trees. In class, against the windows, it sounds like somebody shushing a child. The subject today is existentialism. Existence is not a necessity, Sartre wrote. What is, might not have been. Your life, all lives, are facts without explanation. "When you realize that, it turns your heart upside down and everything begins to float."

In the quad, a student lies on her back in soft rain, licking moisture off her face. When she stands up, there is an outline of her body, light against dark pavement — a rain angel.

                              - Kathleen Dean Moore
from Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature

It is Thankful Thursday. I'm thinking of gray skies, lifting sun, the way dark and light pull in painfully beautiful tension. I am searching for angels, and the scent of apples.

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?  

Say Goodbye - Win This Book

That's how we live,

                  always

     saying goodbye.

— Rilke, 8th Duino Elegy

For months, I've been dipping in and out of Ten Poems to Say Goodbye, by Roger Housden.

It's a thoughtful offering, a slim but deep book. And it's the last in Housden's Ten Poems series — Ten Poems to Change Your Life; Ten Poems to Set You Free; Ten Poems to Open Your Heart; Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime — in which he highlights the beauty and magic of poetry.

In Ten Poems to Say Goodbye, he examines and honors work from some my favorite poets: Ellen Bass, Pablo Neruda, Dorianne Laux, Jack Gilbert, Gerald Stern, Robert Hayden, e.e. cummings, Leonard Cohen, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Jane Hirshfield.

And though the topic is heavy, the exploration is touching, conversational, valuable, and real.

I'd like to share this book with you. No strings. No complicated entry requirements. Simply leave your name and contact info in the "Post a Comment" area below by Sunday, June 3rd. I'll randomly draw one name, and announce the winner on Monday, June 4th, 2012.

 

Thankful Thursday: Near Miss

I t's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

Sometimes I am thankful for the near miss — the check that doesn't bounce, the tree that falls inches from the house, the benign tumor, the car door ding instead of the side-sweeping crash. Crisis, big and small, averted.

This week a friend (for whom I am thankful) sent me a poem, with this perceptive note: I like the poem for many things, among them its reminder of the hair's breadth we always are from not-being.

Thanks

Thanks for the tree

between me & a sniper's bullet.
I don't know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
against that anarchy of dusk.
I was back in San Francisco
wrapped up in a woman's wild colors,
causing some dark bird's love call
to be shattered by daylight
when my hands reached up
& pulled a branch away
from my face. Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken
like mist over the grass,
as we played some deadly
game for blind gods.
What made me spot the monarch
writing on a single thread
tied to the farmer's gate,
holding the day together
like an unfingered guitar string,
is beyond me. Maybe the hills
grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.
Again, thanks for the dud
hand grenade tossed at my feet
outside Chu Lai. I'm still
falling through its silence.
I don't know why the intrepid
sun touched the bayonet,
but I know that something
stood among those lost trees
and moved only when I moved.

— Yusef Komunyakaa

 

What are you thankful for today?  

 

A Poem Each Day: What I Learned

I didn't want to write a poem every day.

When good, disciplined (read: over-achieving) writers gear up for the annual rite of writerhood — the Poem-A-Day challenge to celebrate National Poetry Month —  I steer clear. I dread adding another thing to my "didn't live up to it" list. But this year, as April rolled around, something shifted. A friend — not a poet, but a novelist — asked if I would write a Poem A Day with her. I set my resistance aside and said yes. I'm glad I did because I learned so much:

1.
Write drivel, dreck, and dregs.

I was a reluctant participant. I agreed to join the Poem A Day bandwagon with one critical caveat: I can write junk. I can write sloppy drafts and then, later, consider revision. For now, this month, I will simply write.

All month my partner and I exchanged what we called, "drivel, dreck and dregs." It's our minds that hold us back, of course, and starting each day with permission to write junk allowed us dive in and play, and cast the internal (and eternal) critic aside.

2.
Structure is good.

In writing, as in life, structure is my friend. In my professional life, I compose a daily To Do list. I rarely accomplish everything on my list, but the process helps me filter and focus, and provides a frame for the day.

My writing life benefits from the same routine. Every day for a month, I jotted my list, leading with Write poem. This is the magic of hand and mind. Structure, agendas, lists — these are my best writing tools.

3.
Writing is exercise.

I don't like to run, but I always feel better after a run.

Alas, the same holds for writing. Many times I don't want to write; I'm not "feeling" it. I'm too tired, cranky, or busy. Much to my surprise, in the practice of daily writing I found the strongest work resulted from the days I had little time and/or desire to write.

Like a run, I know now that I've gotta push through. With a jog, the first 10 minutes are the most difficult; my body is sluggish and my mind resistant. In writing, the same holds true. If I can get past the 10 minute mark, if I can carve out a slice of time to write, I can usually unrattle my mind and body and get to the good stuff.

4.
A writing partner makes all the difference.

I would not have taken part in this project without a friend urging and encouraging me on. It's critical to choose your writing partner wisely, establish "rules," and cross your fingers for a good fit.

Before we began, we agreed on some ground rules:

1) Show up daily

2) We are allowed to write junk

3) Offer only encouragement

This was not the time to critique work; these were poems too fresh for the scalpel. At the same time, we agreed not to cheerlead. We could comment, or not comment, without pressure or obligation. Some days we applauded and others we simply said, Thanks for showing up.

The trust of a kindred spirit deepened my appreciation for poetry, and for my friend. In my month of writing, there may be one or two poems worth reworking, but it's the exchange — the sharing of poems and process — I value most.

Did you take part in the Poem-A-Day Challenge? How’d it go?

 

Thankful Thursday: Why I Write

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

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for the way one thing leads to another. Of course, and always.

A chance meeting leads to a conversation, leads to introspection, leads to examination. Hours later, rushed and heavy-hearted, I am in a writing workshop with nature essayist Kathleen Dean Moore. She's speaking softly but fiercely, and I am gathered on the edge of every word.

The world is invested in renewal, she says. Everything blooms, grows, dies, and tries again. What is the role of the writer?

She shares this manifesto. We read it aloud, line by line, in a circle, our voices rising and falling — grasping, getting, giving. On days when the world spins with questions, it's comforting to examine and then hold, if even briefly, a slice of certainty.

Why I Write

by Terry Tempest Williams
from Writing Creative Nonfiction

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.

I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change. I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends. I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure. I write against power and for democracy. I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams. I write in a solitude born out of community. I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that keep me complacent.

I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain. I write to migrating birds with the hubris of language. I write as a form of translation. I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know. I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness. I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating-always anticipating.

I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around. I write because of the humor of our condition as humans. I write because I believe in words. I write because I do not believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox. I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand. I write because it belongs to the force of the moon: high tide, low tide. I write because it is the way I take long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness. I write because as a child I spoke a different language. I write with a knife carving each word through the generosity of trees. I write as ritual. I write because I am not employable. I write out of my inconsistencies. I write because then I do not have to speak. I write with the colors of memory.

I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as a witness to what I imagine. I write by grace and grit. I write out of indigestion. I write when I am starving. I write when I am full. I write to the dead. I write out of the body. I write to put food on the table. I write on the other side of procrastination. I write for the children we never had. I write for the love of ideas. I write for the surprise of a sentence. I write with the belief of alchemists. I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short. I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by both understanding and misunderstanding. I write out of ignorance.

I write by accident. I write past the embarrassment of exposure. I keep writing and suddenly, I am overcome by the sheer indulgence, (the madness,) the meaninglessness, the ridiculousness of this list. I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds-and then I realize, it doesn't matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass. I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.

I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.

 

What are you thankful for today?