Drew Myron's Blog, page 84
May 16, 2011
Could you stop writing?
Immediately a kind of cocoon began to form around my deepest self.
She gave up writing.
For an entire year, Marjorie Power — a prolific poet with hundreds of published poems and several books — didn't write. Why? How? Intrigued by this experiment, I asked Marjorie, who just this month concluded her year-long hiatus, to share her experience with us.
Thank you, Drew, for asking me to be your guest blogger. I hope what I say will be of use to others.
For most of my adult life (I'm 63) I've been engaged in writing poetry, submitting it to editors, and seeing much of it published by small presses. I stopped during the second half of my twenties, when my son was little, and have taken occasional breaks since then -- breaks that lasted from a few weeks to a few months. I continued to identify with being a poet until the writing slump or too-busy-to-write period ended.
But in the spring of 2010 I began feeling a need to stop writing poems and allow myself not to know whether I'd resume. I chose to take a year to let my psyche empty out, to let life flow through me and beyond without trying to capture it in images. I planned to decide at the end of the year whether to write more poetry, choose a different path, or spend another year floating in limbo. This decision to take a year off came as a relief. Immediately a kind of cocoon began to form around my deepest self. During the following weeks and months, when voices from the outer world started to provoke confusion or a sense of failure, the cocoon would thicken. I read some poetry, but not much. My reading consisted mostly of magazines and works of fiction.
What preceded my decision was a sense of exhaustion and isolation. These feelings had two sources.
First, my husband and I have moved two times since his formal retirement in 2004, first to Yachats, Oregon (on the central Oregon Coast) and then inland (75 miles) to Corvallis. Apart from the physical aspect, the second move proved more challenging. This was a surprise, since we didn't go very far from Yachats. The challenge came in finding new friends and even potential friends, despite many interesting things to do. It became clear why retired people who move often choose communities designed specifically for retirement. We had not done that, either time, though Yachats does have a strong appeal to a certain kind of retiree.
And as a publishing poet, I felt way out on a limb. My publishing record consists of several hundred poems in journals and anthologies, plus seven collections that vary in length from 21 to 58 pages. I never became an academic nor did I transition gracefully to using the internet for promoting my work. (During this past year I did begin posting poems as "notes" on Facebook. I still don't have a website, though I may, in time.) I've never been a performance poet or a slam poet. I've been a featured reader in various venues and enjoyed that, as has the audience. And while there are lots of writers, including lots of poets, in Corvallis, I couldn't seem to find square one when it came to making connections that might lead to reading opportunities. In January I did give a reading up in Olympia, Washington, where I lived for twenty years.
Since beginning my year off, I've given the soul energy necessary for creating poems to another aspect of life. I have been deliberately building new friendships among neighbors and others, including myself, in my new community. Treating oneself as a friend is different than being narcissistic, or simply maintaining good self esteem. It's active, fun, and rewarding. I keep myself company by knitting, a lifelong hobby, and have completed many beautiful and useful projects. My yarn stash seems a manifestation of the cocoon I mentioned earlier. And I am a member of a delightful knitting group here in town.
Another deliberate, quiet pursuit has involved writing: I send out a handwritten letter or note at least once a week. I plan to continue indefinitely. Many such notes go to my young grandtwins in Michigan, since handwritten letters will be extremely uncommon in their future. I have continued submitting unpublished poetry to editors. I've got two full length poetry manuscripts which have received serious attention in contests/open readings, so I continue to enter those, even though one definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing while expecting different results.
In early May, right after my year off ended, I attended the Northwest Poets Concord, a gathering of poets in Newport, Oregon. Sometime during the weekend I heard, "Poetry creates silences around things in a world clogged with verbiage." I had forgotten that. I went home and wrote a page long poem. I know others will follow. I will keep knitting in between.
I'd like to recommend two books, both of which I read this spring: Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce by Peter Clothier, and Beauty, The Invisible Embrace by John O'Donohue.
Widely Unknown
Marjorie Power
To be widely unknown
is to live a long time
as the other apple, the one
the snake almost offered Eve.
It's being recognized by many
who remain strangers to each other.
It is to dangle on the tree
in the last chance light of September.
Pickers may wish
to sample your taste
but they don't give in.
Not with that snake
at eye level, ready to report
who comes in second.
To be widely unknown
means people feel better near you.
Validated, when they feared
going soft at the core.
The one who needs you most
is Eve, with her orchards, houses, lovers.
Her artwork, its prestigious awards.
Her surly but brilliant husband.
Her fibromyalgia.
Marjorie Power lives with her husband, Max Power, in Corvallis, Oregon. She is a native of Connecticut and graduate of San Francisco State University. Her poems appear in journals and anthologies all over the U.S., and in seven small collections.
May 12, 2011
Thankful Thursday: Fallout
I am thankful for things that fall out of my purse just when needed, prompting me to wonder: Is this assignment, reminder, forecast, or chance?
It's Thankful Thursday. What are you thankful for today?
May 10, 2011
Random acts of reading
Lately, my acts of literature are passive: reading.
You know that saying? A bad day of fishing is better than no fishing at all. I feel the same about reading. I haven't been enthralled with all of my latest reads, but I'm always happy to engage in the act.
I started two novels that I did my darndest to like but could not press on. I won't mention names because that just seems mean (but catch me in private and I might spill). I also slogged through a book thinking the story would develop, the characters would charm, but to no avail. I felt so played. Maybe it's me. I'm cranky, impatient, hard to please? But the world is full of books, and readers, so maybe it's not always me.
How about you, what are you reading? I'm nosy, and hungry for good books. In fair play, I'll share first:
Rescue
by Anita Shreve
The prolific novelist keeps turning 'em out. And though I have trouble keeping the stories straight, each book keeps me riveted to the page.
Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain
by Portia De Rossi
Do we need another memoir from another actress? No, but this was a nice surprise in both quality and content. On a related note, book covers are looking good lately. I love good design, and this cover, and the one above, seem especially evocative.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
by Haruki Murakami
A novelist who runs, or a runner who writes? Both! This book, chronicling the author's experience running marathons and ultramarathons, is inspiring and exhausting.
The Insomniac's Weather Report
by Jessica Goodfellow
These poems are complex and I'm intrigued. I've just begun the book — published last month — and it's clear I'm going to need to read, absorb and circle back.
Your turn. What are you reading, or trying to read?
May 5, 2011
Thankful Thursday: Yellow shoes & more
It's Thankful Thursday.
Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude.
Sometimes my thankfulness feels small. When all about us is war, illness and natural disaster, my gratitude for sunshine and sorbet feels, well, trite. And, indeed, it is. But I wonder if these times of external crisis are when I need to count my blessings even more. Just as the big events can wear us down, the small things can build us back up.
On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for:
Yellow Shoes
My sister sent me shoes. It's not even my birthday. In fact, it's her birthday (and I'm late with a gift). I love surprises + shoes + sun. "I know you don't wear bright colors," she said. "But I think you will like them." And I do (paired with neutrals, of course). I'm thankful for the shoes but I'm most thankful for my thoughtful sister.
A Facebook Intervention
A friend calls me, a bit of mock urgency in her voice. "I'm worried about you," she says. "I'm seeing you all over Facebook. Are you addicted again? Do you need an intervention?" Drat! She's right. I've been here before. And now, again, for a few days (okay, a week), Facebook sucked me back in. I was on a binge of pithy reactions and quick retorts. It was pathetic. I needed air. And as much as I didn't want to admit it, I was glad to be outed.
Anne Herbert
Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. Remember that 1990s-era mantra that was all over car bumpers? Turns out a real person wrote it — Anne Herbert. I don't know where I thought it came from. It arrived before the internet age and as much as I think about words, I never considered the author of those words. And Anne didn't write just one catchy phrase, but dozens, and you can read them here. Next assignment: Discover who wrote Visualize Whirled Peas.
What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? What makes your world expand?
May 4, 2011
Everyone's a winner . . .
but in the drawing for The Surprise Package of Good Books we've just one lucky duck. And the winner is:
I da Freilinger
I'll carefully, thoughtfully, tenderly prepare and send Ida's surprise package — and then I'll tell you here exactly what books she won. Stay tuned & thanks for playing!
May 2, 2011
Can't you see I'm (not) writing?
A friend recently confided in me.
"I don't write every day," she whispered. "I know you're suppose to."
"I don't either," I replied. Relief washed her face.
For years, I badgered myself into writing regimes. I wrote 500 words a day. I wrote Morning Pages, timed writings, and poems on demand. Like a diet with a strict calorie count, every time I fell short — and I always, eventually, fell short — I felt worse than when I began. Cue the berating. Let the self-degradation begin.
But I've eased up. I have, in part, Billy Collins to thank.
"I have no work habits whatsoever," says the prolific poet. "I don't write every day, so often it would be zero hours per day. I kind of hold onto a romantic view. People say in order to be a writer you have to write all the time. The poem will come along when it arrives. I try to be on the lookout for creative opportunities, something that might trigger a poem, but I don't sit down in the morning and try to commit an act of literature before lunch."
Creative opportunities. Acts of literature.
I like that.
Now, instead of wrangling myself into writing every day, I simply look for creative opportunities to commit acts of literature. And my definition is rather broad. Recent acts include reading (newspapers, books, magazines, blogs, cereal boxes), attending a reading, gathering with literary friends, browsing bookstores, and roosting at libraries.
As a writer-for-hire, I do write everyday. I have clients and deadlines and a love of structure. As a poet, I am consistently battling my "write now" brain with my "write when it feels good" tendency.
Writer Jessica Goodfellow recently provided a much-needed nudge: "Even when you're not writing, you're writing."
"Sometimes I just have to remember that everything I do is writing," she says. "It may not look like it to anyone else (it doesn't even seem like it to me!), but what I am doing when I'm doing nothing is writing. And when I'm doing something other than writing, somehow that is writing too."
Now that's a writing regime I can put to work.
How about you? Are you writing when you are not writing? Are you commiting acts of literature?
April 27, 2011
Free. Here. Now.
Free! Free! Free!
I'm a sucker for giveaways. I especially like contests requiring no skill. You, too? Good.
National Poetry Month is winding down — thank goodness, no more of that poem-a-day nonsense (kidding, please don't send me hate mail) — and that means you've got just a few days to win some swag.
Hurry, hurry, don't delay. Get in on this giveaway:
> The Surprise Package of Good Books
Prepared, packaged & sent especially to you from me (free, hand-written note included!). Win this drawing and I'll send you a delightful medley of books, with the promise of no has-beens, wanna-be's or duds in the bunch.
To win, simply enter your name and email address in the comments section below, or zip me an email at dcm@drewmyron.com, by midnight on Tuesday, May 3. A random drawing will be held and the winner announced on Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
You may wonder: Why is Drew giving away good books, and paying for postage, too? Out of love, of course. Live long & read! When you give a book, you give joy. And spreading joy is rarely this easy. I gotta strike while the giving is good.
