Kelli Russell Agodon's Blog, page 18

Confession Tuesday: The Long End of Summer Edition

Dear Reader,

I have disappeared for quite a bit. My apologies.

In the summer I tend to disconnect to help untangle my mind. It did untangle a bit. I did work more than I wanted, but in the end, I camped, I paddleboarded, I sat in the sun and thought.

Poets on the Coast is sort of my official end to summer.  And this year we switched locations up to La Conner, Washington, it was truly a beautiful time.

But there's been sadness this year. Some personal and some furry and golden.  I'll explain.
All summer, I had a feeling it was going to be the last summer for my golden retriever, Buddy Holly. He had a tough year because of his failing health, and it's been hard to watch. Knowing this made me both present in the moment while paradoxically three months ahead in my mind dreading the future.

Buddy passed on Thursday evening, September 25th. We were outside and as his body slipped on to another place the clouds opened up and we were hit with heavy downpour of rain. I held him and felt the clouds open up above me. It was incredibly painful and yet, there was this odd beauty as nature shifted for his leaving. A sunny day turned to storm, I felt as if I was in a scene from a movie and this was the metaphor I was drenched with.

Our last trip to Cannon Beach, August 2014
~

So September has been hard to me to catch up, remain focused, and to feel good. But there's a part of me likes the melancholy of fall, part of me that likes to tuck in and disappear for a season in my writing.

And that is good. And even sadness is good because as writers we use it make art, and well, it's a part of being human.

Confessional 101:

I confess tomorrow I'm heading over to a poet's house to write poems all day.  Three of us will be snacks, writing prompts, our laptops, pillows, comfy clothes, blankets, and we will write.  All day from 9: 30 am until 6 pm.

I confess I also have three (3!) writing residencies this year.  And I cannot wait to work on my own poems!

~

I confess in the middle of this crazy time, Two Sylvias Press released a new book of poems by Natasha Moni, The Cardiologist's Daughter, which is just SO good!  

Here's Natasha reading at Richard Hugo House in Seattle last week:




I confess I have become a book designer along with an editor, and I will say, I think this is my favorite cover I've created.

~

I confess while I've been away from Book of Kells, I have returned, and have some sweet reviews coming up on two AMAZING and highly recommended books-- Dorothea Lasky's book called ROME, Ellen Bass's LIKE A BEGGAR published by Copper Canyon Press. Two very different books, both which are a MUST for your personal library!


~

I confess in the middle of my sorrow, I learned Tinderbox chose my poem "After the Death of a Friend, I Feel Enlightened for Approximately Three Days" for Best of the Net.  So a little celebration between the loss. That, my friends, is life.

Amen.

~ Kells 
 
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A Whole Etsy Shop devoted to Book Arts...

From A paper artist in Spain.

I love these.

And she has a paper shop selling her art:

Visit her shop:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/malenavalcarcel

~ Kells
Don't Miss a Post ~ Subscribe to Book of Kells by EmailKelli Russell Agodon
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Postcard from Georgia O'Keeffe

Photo by Ansel Adams at I do not like the idea of happiness — it is too momentary — I would say that I was always busy and interested in something — interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happiness.
Abiquiu, New Mexico, notes to Anita Pollitzer 
~ Kells
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32 Statements about Writing Poetry by Marvin Bell:

Many of you know these, as Marvin teaches them, but they are always as powerful to me as when I first heard them.  (I bolded my favorites.)
And if you share, please do attribute these to Marvin Bell.
32 Statements about Writing Poetry by Marvin Bell:1. Every poet is an experimentalist.
 
2. Learning to write is a simple process: read something, then write something; read something else, then write something else. And show in your writing what you have read.
 
3. There is no one way to write and no right way to write.
 
4. The good stuff and the bad stuff are all part of the stuff. No good stuff without bad stuff.
 
5. Learn the rules, break the rules, make up new rules, break the new rules.
 
6. You do not learn from work like yours as much as you learn from work unlike yours.
 
7. Originality is a new amalgam of influences.
 
8. Try to write poems at least one person in the room will hate.
 
9. The I in the poem is not you but someone who knows a lot about you.
 
10. Autobiography rots. The life ends, the vision remains.
 
11. A poem listens to itself as it goes.
 
12. It's not what one begins with that matters; it's the quality of attention paid to it thereafter.
 
13. Language is subjective and relative, but it also overlaps; get on with it.
 
14. Every free verse writer must reinvent free verse.
 
15. Prose is prose because of what it includes; poetry is poetry because of what it leaves out.
 
16. A short poem need not be small.
 
17. Rhyme and meter, too, can be experimental.
 
18. Poetry has content but is not strictly about its contents. A poem containing a tree may not be about a tree.
 
19. You need nothing more to write poems than bits of string and thread and some dust from under the bed.
 
20. At heart, poetic beauty is tautological: it defines its terms and exhausts them.
 
21. The penalty for education is self-consciousness. But it is too late for ignorance.
 
22. What they say "there are no words for"--that's what poetry is for. Poetry uses words to go beyond words.
 
23. One does not learn by having a teacher do the work.
 
24. The dictionary is beautiful; for some poets, it's enough.
 
25. Writing poetry is its own reward and needs no certification. Poetry, like water, seeks its own level.
 
26. A finished poem is also the draft of a later poem.
 
27. A poet sees the differences between his or her poems but a reader sees the similarities.
 
28. Poetry is a manifestation of more important things. On the one hand, it's poetry! On the other, it's just poetry.
 
29. Viewed in perspective, Parnassus is a very short mountain.
 
30. A good workshop continually signals that we are all in this together, teacher too.
 
31. This Depression Era jingle could be about writing poetry:
      Use it up / wear it out / make it do / or do without.
 
32. Art is a way of life, not a career.

~ Kells
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The Vision Test by Mona Van Duyn (for the poets)

For anyone who has ever had to tell someone s/he's a poet:



By Mona Van Duyn, Selected Poems

~ Kells
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Postcard from Kerouac: "My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them"

Photo by Allen Ginsberg

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” 


        ― Jack Kerouac


~ Kells


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More Summer Book Mini-Reviews: Poetry

Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words that Move Them by Anthony & Ben Holden.

First line: Late one afternoon in the mid-1990s, a close friend of long standing called to tell me of a sudden domestic crisis.

What is interesting about this book:  It's always fascinating to see what poems people (in this case, men) are moved by.

What is not interesting about this book: The majority of poems that men are moved by are by other men.

Thank you Terrance Hayes for choosing Gwendolyn Brooks. Thank you Billy Collins for choosing Victoria Redel. Thank you both John Ashberry and Andrew Solomon for choosing Elizabeth Bishop. Thank you Colin Firth (yes, celebs are in this book as well) for choosing Emily Zinnemann. Thank you Anish Kapoor for choosing Adrienne Rich and Marc Forester for choosing Mary Oliver and Douglas Kennedy for choosing Emily Dickinson.

There may be a few others I missed, but not many (or should I say men-ee).


While some of the men offered lovely insights, some of the poems and thoughts fell flat. I think this is a great idea for a book, but just not executed precisely or as well as I would have liked.

I prefer this book and highly recommend it:
First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and Inspired Them
~

Wild Thing in our Known World by Claudia Putnam
First line: Running the Highline:

This book is grounded in landscape, in earth, sea, and sky. Mother Nature is twofold--what is outside & a mother and son. A chapbook that seems to move effortlessly between both relationships--human and nature. Though as poets, we know nothing is ever effortless, it's craft.  We exist in the beauty of the images throughout this chapbook.

~

And Now This by Terry Persun.
First line: I'm standing in the corner,

The poems in this collection tell a beautiful & heartbreaking story from childhood to adulthood dealing with life, loss, struggle and coming to terms with our own lives.  The narrator is easy to connect with, the narrator who "lives among invisible winds."  These poems share stories and many of the images stayed with me long after the book was set down.




~ Kells
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Postcard from Kurt Vonnegut: We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down

Kurt Vonnegut in Rolling Stone. Photo by Peter Yang

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. - Kurt Vonnegut

~ Kells
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Recipe from Emily Dickinson: Coconut Cake!

Emily Dickinson's Coconut Cake, Retouched for the 21st Century(This recipe was adapted and modified from the original — Letter #665 in The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas Johnson, and is indebted to several measurement suggestions in Emily Dickinson: Profile of the Poet as Cook.)2 cups Coconut Secret® coconut sap sugar
1 cup Earth Balance® butter substitute
2 cups brown rice flour (Arrowhead Mills® gluten-free "Improved Texture" mix works well)
6 eggs (separate yolks and whites)1 ½ to 2 cups shredded, unsweetened coconut (can also use flaked coconut, coarsely chopped)
1 cup coconut milkRather than make a simple icing, standard fare in the 19th-century, based partly on the ingredients I had lying around, I decided to go with this topping instead. It worked very well.1-2 cups flaked coconut, unsweetened
½ cup orange blossom honey
Zest of four limes
Juice of two limesPreheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, blend butter-substitute and coconut sugar. Add brown rice flour and beaten egg yolks. Beat egg whites until slightly frothy and add to batter. Gradually add shredded coconut and coconut milk, blending all ingredients thoroughly. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with coconut oil. Pour batter into the greased dish (the baking dish should be half full). Bake for 25 minutes in a convection oven (probably 30-35 minutes in a regular oven). Mix the coconut-lime topping. Remove from heat, let cool for a few minutes, spread the topping evenly over the cake.

Full NPR Article by Nelly Lambert here:
A Coconut Cake From Emily Dickinson: Reclusive Poet, Passionate Baker

~ Kells
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The Art of Steampunk: Extraordinary Deviced & Ingenious Contraptions from the Leading Artists of the Steampunk Movement

The Art of Steampunk: Extraordinary Deviced & Ingenious Contraptions from the Leading Artists of the Steampunk Movement by Art Donovan




If you love Steampunk (or just art, or art from mostly found objects), this is a book that can inspire.

It's broken down by artist and the images are sharp and on glossy paper.

I just love to browse through it and let my mind wander. But if you want to learn more about the artist's vision and/or thoughts, that is included as well. There's also a 4 page essay called "Steampunk 101" written by G.D. Falksen where he answers so many of the questions asked about steampunk.

If you ever wanted to know more about steampunk or be inspired by its art and artists, this is the book for you.  Absolutely beautiful stuff.




~ Kells
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