Rachel Dacus's Blog, page 50

National Poetry Month and Poem-A-Day

I've done the April daily poem for five or six years, with a break one year, and rarely did it generate a useable poem, but boy did it stir up the creative juices. The fun of it is doing it in a group, seeing what others post (when they dare, if they dare) and sparking each other through sheer audacity of trying. For me the effect was post-NaPoWriMo, the poems I wrote after that terrific marathon of 30 daily poems in a row, some as slim as three lines, some more than a page. The machine was well oiled by then and running well, and some of the poems after were keepers.

Many websites are up and running to gather NaPo-ers. The fun is in the workshop effect: we are all in it together. Here are just a few sites. It's not too late to join!

Carrie Etter
Pacement NaPo
Potpourri of NaPo Writers' Sites

What is NaPoWriMo? Short explanation here.

Finally, a little bloghop to a writer blog that interests me because her new novel has similar themes to mine.

Bloghopping - Words Dance, The Camel Saloon, Umbrella

I am so often thrilled by poetry I read in entrepreneurial litzines like the three I'm linking here, Amanda Oaks' beautiful Words Dance, and Russell Streur's exciting Camel Saloon. Words Dance pairs poetry and images, one of my favorite things an online journal can do that a print mag cannot. Some great poems up in these journals right now.

Like Kate Berndadette Benedict's Umbrella, these are magazines energized by the literary vision of one poet-editor who does things their own way, without committees and advisory boards, first readers, and junior editors. The results in these cases are stunningly original. Enjoy!

My new novel -- exploring publishing options

As you might know, for the last couple of years I've been working on a novel, a contemporary story about a group of college teachers and spouses touring northern Italy and finding themselves dramatically changed by that beautiful and exciting place. The book's called The Renaissance Club. I haven't secured an agent yet, but in this emerging digital world, I find I'm considering alternatives. I'd love to hear from others who've gone ahead of me in publishing novels, about your experiences, ideas, warnings even. Yes, especially warnings! So here's the elevator pitch:

Renaissance Italy, with its palazzos, hill towns, Venetian islands, and sumptuous art, sets the stage for a contemporary Midsummer Night's Dream of comedy, desire, mayhem, and magic. A month-long art history tour promises its organizer, Norman Wesley, a new life of freedom from his messed-up marriage and deadening career, but what he gets is his old life in shambles. May is grieving over her inability to conceive a child and is distressed to find herself surrounded by images of Madonnas, infants, and cherubs. Eva's painting career has foundered on the rocks of a long-term grief that also threatens her marriage. As Norman leads The Renaissance Club through Italy, temptations, infertility, discord, betrayal, and theft shuffle the marital deck for some, illuminate the process of making art for others, and prove to several that love is a chameleon. But Italy's magic, and magical appearances by some of its most famous sons and daughters, open for more than one traveler the path to a whole new life.

Greatly Re-Reading

Someone mentioned the pleasure of re-reading favorite books and that made me think of how often I return to certain touchstone volumes for emotional and literary sustenance. How certain reading experiences were seminal for me, impressed on me as strongly as peak life experiences. And so I reread a strange little collection of dog-eared volumes that seem not to even be on speaking terms with each other. My Family and Other Animals, Emma, The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Operating Instructions, Bird by Bird, Travels with Alice, Bitter Lemons, The Towers of Trebizond. I like childhood memoirs by writers who were lonely children, travel writing that's funny, dysfunctional lopsided families that are funny and eccentric, and stories of desperation and loneliness that are funny. I guess if a book doesn't have humor somewhere in it -- or serious tips on the writing craft -- it just isn't going to remain on my shelf. Also descriptions of gorgeous landscapes and fascinating exotic locales. I've been to some fascinating exotic locales and never yet managed to write well about them. But I aspire. And continue to reread.

And yes, I've been there, to Jaipur. Did I write well about it? No, just some notes about the flocks of green parrots, the novelty of passing elephants in a bus, and the prevalent red stone. We moved on after one glorious night of staying in, literally, a palace, now turned into a hotel. I was too busy recovering from the previous night's dinner to tour the famous ancient Jaipur Observatory. So I missed a world landmark, thanks to "India Belly," which occupied a lot of that trip. But I do have notes. One of these days ... in the meantime, I'll reread funny, gorgeous travel memoirs, preferably ones loaded with hints about how to write well when traveling. And stay at home where I can count on the food agreeing with me. (I'm a lot like Emma's father in this respect.)

Dear Mary

It's seldom you get to send a thank you note to a poet who's been an inspiration and model for you to strive for a higher level of art, but today I had that chance, thanks to the wonderful blog Dear Mary. The brainchild of Julie L. Moore and Julie Brooks Barbour, the blog gives us the chance to write thank you notes to Mary Oliver. Mary is coping with illness at the moment -- expecting make a good recovery, but nonetheless struggling at the moment with it. So the Julies devised this terrific way to convey cheer and affection to Mary Oliver. I'm happy that my little note went on it today. I hope Ms. Oliver gets a chance to read this paragraph from a devoted fan.

If you are working on a book

Susan Rich, over at The Alchemist's Kitchen, has an interesting item up today. It's about the process of working on a book, including a wonderful poem on that theme by W.S. Merwin.

An exciting new multimedia project, including poetry, has been started at Kinship of Rivers. Wang Ping is a poet, writer, photographer, grant writer and fund-raiser, organizer for the trips and manager for the whole installation collaboration. Born in Shanghai, Wang Ping now lives on the bank of the Mississippi. She's been photographing and writing about the two rivers for the past decade, and would like to build bridges across the rivers with her art and poetry and with this river project. Check it out, it's fascinating and bridge-building.

I don't usually post music here, but if you haven't heard this hip young French singer, you should get to know Zaz. Even if you don't speak French. I'm thinking Piaf reincarnated into much better circumstances.

The Art of Fiction: Writing Sex Scenes and Romance

As I've spent the last year and a half writing a novel, naturally I've devoured books and articles on the craft. But this article by Jessica Barksdale Inclan makes such sense out of a thorny (ouch! why are we doing it in the rosebushes?) question: how much to put into a scene involving sex and/or romance, and how to write on an age-old subject without sounding aged and old. Of course, the answer is age-old: simply write the characters well. Use the scene to reveal character. Put in as much as needed for that and no more (that becomes prurience).

In writing a novel whose plot centers on four marriages, it becomes impossible to leave it out, and those are the scenes I've found most difficult to write. I keep thinking about how the scenes in Lady Chatterly's Lover were masterfully character-driven. How you couldn't tell that story without them. Imagine that book if he had tastefully glossed over what they actually did when making love! It would have devolved into the most puerile of romance novels. Well, maybe not the most puerile, given his immense gifts, but not a book that would have been remembered as a great book. And not just a racy one.

Inclan's article is a mini-course in writing good sex scenes, complete with reading suggestions and a list of best scenes in contemporary books. A great resource.

Church and State

With a lot of noise in the air about how much of a role religious values should play in our American democracy, I remembered writing a poem on the subject of Jefferson's famous definition of "a wall of separation between church and state." While it seems an unlikely topic for a poem, I had fun with it. Here it is, as originally published in Adirondack Review

A ROAD TRIP

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

– Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association,1802

He's on the road because He needs elbow room
and a stretch of open where He can go, vroom-vroom!
He's doing wheelies for the Danbury fathers
and Pennsylvania Quakers who shun
paying their taxes to Congregationalists.
He's careening into cirrus-streaks,
bolting lightning to ground, scattering
ideals like prairie stars.

The skies were too big and Monticello's dome
too small, but Jefferson limned a vast geography
of state and religion – let's see, grace connects to liberty,
bisected by community. He threw up a wall
between soul and country's imperatives, then prayed
in the Senate Church. Hemmed in by customs
he penned a secret tract: Let them shake,
let law be rock, and let God roll.
But even Jefferson could not envision
the heavenly Highway-hound's momentum,
the lifts He would give to every Papist, Roller
and doler, myriad beliefs popping like prairie stars.

Despite Jefferson's apprehensions, the Harley
slips and weaves, easy as the air that flows
across a snake tattoo that reads: Tread Lightly
on My Amen. The white hog passes everything,
so fast it's invisible – or mythical, a white horse
for a White House, steed that may only exist
as a people who won't be taxed for faith
or bound by laws springing up weed-wild --
a people who can build their creeds
of nothing but heart, wind and speed.

(to be published in Gods of Water and Air, Kitsune Books, 2012)

Dear Mary

Mary Oliver has announced that she was diagnosed with a serious illness and as a result has had to cancel all engagements. But she also said she's healing and anticipates a full recovery.

The news of her illness, however, hit a lot of people as a blow. For many -- poets but also a large number of readers who are not poets -- Mary Oliver's work has sparked significant moments of spiritual epiphany, comfort, and joy. Her poems are important to us for deeply human reasons.

So to channel the sympathy pouring out toward Ms. Oliver, poets Julie Brooks Barbour and Julie Moore came up with a marvelous way blog of personal notes of support, Dear Mary. Hopefully it will be a sustaining comfort to Mary Oliver as she gets better. It's certainly a joy to read for those of us who are her devoted fans.

Can Poetry Matter?

The question was famously asked by former NEA Chairman Dana Gioia in a provocative essay some years ago. It does matter, it seems, in China, where a poem can get you arrested. That's what happened to Zhu Yufu, a poet and dissident, who was arrested for a poem. At Camel Saloon, a Free Zhu Yufu site has been established and a petition started to urge authorities to free him and allow more free speech. It's time to sign the petition! Please do, if you feel so moved.

His poem begins, "Its time, China!" It is time for China to open up and allow free speech. This is the first stanza, as translated by Andrew E. Clark.

t's time, people of China! It's time.
The Square belongs to everyone.
With your own two feet
It's time to head to the Square and make your choice.