Drafts & "How To"

For National Poetry Month, it's been a good April. I've been participating in a poem-a-day project which has produced several drafts I'm really pleased with, plus several more that might have productive strands to work with as revision time swings round. Here's a sample from a longer draft:


Write from the square space of your office,
of the way the paper clips
can only think of tangling together
how these become us
boxed in the days outlined on the calendars:
blank squares marching across the page

And several more poems from the circus, a theme I've been working on for some time now. What I haven't written, surprisingly to me, are more poems for the manuscript-in-progress. I don't know what that means, really. I'm starting to feel like I've finished that narrative and now need to begin the slow tedious process of actually putting the poems in their best order so that I can send it out into the world. This may have to wait until summer, or at least for a long, uninterrupted weekend.


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Just a few days ago, I was able to go hear Sandra Cisneros speak at the public library in Kansas City. Now, this public library isn't like the libraries I grew up with. The library is a beautiful venue for a reading, the evening light was flowing in through the upper story windows, fluted pillars stood guard around the neat rows of wooden folding chairs. By the time she rose to speak, the room was overflowing with people.

Sandra Cisneros read and spoke mostly about being a writer, developing into a writer. She read "buttons"- the small essays that string together to form her books-- from her new book-in-progress to be called "Writing in Your Pajamas." She spoke about thinking in two different languages, creating space for one's self, things she's learned about finding her voice (the voice of a person completely comfortable, in her pajamas)

The audience was very receptive to her and asked many questions in a mix of Spanish and English. She shared with us her "top ten" things to do to develop into a writer. (You'll have to buy her book; I'm not telling!) And she also shared that writing requires both humility and courage, and that we should ask for these things each time we sit down to write. There were several other ideas that resonated with me "You don't know what you're writing about until you finish" "You don't always like what you find out about yourself" and best, perhaps "Write about your community with love, because someone else will write about it without love" (These are from my faulty notes, so not really direct quotes)

She also defined her vison of feminism as "human rights based with a compassionate outlook towards women." She also reiterated the need for writers to write and shared that she struggled with "what good is my writing; should I be doing something more practical?" when writing The House on Mango Street. But it was evident just from the crowd's reaction to her that she has done good work with her writing, showing as one person put it "that voices from the barrio could be heard."

She also encouraged us that we could change the world through small acts, through changing ourselves. I think that's another point on which we agree. I am reminded of Mother Teresa's words:

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

It's nice to hear that writing counts as one of those small things.


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Poetry & Rain

I'm really happy to announce that another couple of my poems are available online. The first is at The Pedestal Magazine (I thought I mentioned this already, but perhaps only on FB.) "A Day Beginning and Ending in Crows" This poem was written after one of the best days I had teaching my introduction to literature class; we went outside as a class and observed the world after reading Henry David Thoreau's essay on walking. Ah, good memories that.

The other can be found at ouroboros review. (If that link doesn't work try: here) The journal has a nifty "faux book" interface which is fun to play with. I forgot to see which page my poem is on, although I did go read it and noticed fellow blogger Dick Jones has several poems there as well.

It's another bird poem "Interviews for Spring." I do write about more than birds. Really. But this month it's birds when I'm growing tired of the real ones. Tired of their bickering on the back porch over the plentiful seed. It's spring, almost, they should be moving on, building their little nests, and sitting hunched over the eggs. I'm tired of the marauding robins, too. They used to come in pairs, now they flock like starlings or grackles.

But it's spring, one shouldn't complain. The grass turns green blade by blade. It's only raining poetry, and that is a blessing.

So, not only have I been writing and actually placing a few poems here and there, more poetry conversation is forthcoming. I am working on a series of conversations and interviews with poets over the next few weeks. If you'd like me to read and possibly talk about your work, please send a note. And check back soon!

Thinking of Korea

Yesterday, the word. Korea looms on the horizon,
perhaps a destination, perhaps the place that separates
us. This land of pagodas and pools and many, many
people living knee to knee I can only imagine in snippets,
noodles and neon bustle companion to temples and
deep green forest trails. I hesitate, better together
than apart, no matter how far the destination.

And on yesterday, too word of another poet's death,
W. D. Snodgrass, whose delightful "Heart's Needle"
helped bring me to a life of poetry. Another candle
burns out, the afterimage remains when I close my eyes.

Submit or . . .

It seems that everytime I'm getting organized to actually send out my work, I have a technical glitch. Out of ink, the driver for the printer is mysteriously deleted, the kids have used up all of the printer paper to draw cartoons on, or I'm out of envelopes because the kid felt he should make packets of cartoons to send to *his* friends.

This week, it's my computer down. I did get a couple of email submissions out the door, and two paper packets out before the end of the month deadlines. I managed a few last month as well, so not too terrible, but not what I was hoping to get done before we packed up and hit the highway for our rather short move to Leavenworth, Kansas.

The move threatens to be all I can see right now. But when I'm busy, I need to write. So, I write. Life is good, no?

$10 Words?

The news some days is amusing. I've been an avid, voracious reader for a good percentage of my life, so I suppose that I take the words that comprise my vocabulary as standard English. "Thespian" and "flippant," according to the article above, qualify as "Ten Dollar" words. I'll give them credit for "sagacious" though, I haven't slipped that one in a conversation recently. And how do you get a job reading letters from prison?

I'll applaud the prisoner's efforts to give his son a large vocabulary and encourage the child to aim for college. Why should it be a surprise that he wants more for his child? Doesn't every parent? And maybe he just subscribes to The Word of the Day. It's those "big words" that teach root meanings which are so essential to understanding:

. . .an average American undergraduate is estimated to have a vocabulary of about 20,000 words. . . .One half of general words and two thirds of all academic, technical, and low-frequency words are derived from Latin, French (through Latin), or Greek, thus indicating the importance of learning the meanings of roots and affixes.

-- Valcourt and Wells

Language is so permeable and so apt to erosion that each generation really does have a "gap."Try reading books from 1950's and see how much the "normal" vocabulary has changed. Or pick up a copy of Shakespeare and see what a couple of hundred years will do. So, I'll applaud anyone who is working to keep "big words" in circulation. Don't the French have a whole administrative wing for that?

And if you learn more words, you'll experience a physical change in your brain:

For monolingual English speakers, increased vocabulary knowledge correlates with increased grey matter density in a region of the parietal cortex that is well-located to mediate an association between meaning and sound.

--Green, Crinion, Price

I like that "mediate an association between meaning and sound" line. It's an article on brain function, but there for a moment, I'm hearing a line from a conversation on poetry.

What He/She Said

In a mailing from Poetry today, a card with a quote and a Triolet. It's a little late for the pocket poem, so I'll post it on the refrigerator. However, paper tends to get dusty and worn and splashed with tomato sauce, so here' the quote that I'm saying Amen to today:

Let us remember. . .that in the end we go to poetry
for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit
our lives and the world in which we live them, and
that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might
be less apt to destroy both.

-Christian Wiman

In this week's library catch: Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

Poetry's work is the clarification and magnification of being.

-Jane Hirshfield

And that's the opening sentence for the preface. Thus far, I've really enjoyed the essays I've sampled. In the library's deep chair under a corner window, I found myself nodding emphatically. I am reminded of this Louise May Alcott quote as well:

She is too fond of books and it has addled her brain.

And if you have a moment to giggle, you can check out an ornament decorated with this quote and the "related items" at Signals.

A Cloud for Spring

It's been a long while since I've posted a word cloud. There is a cloud generator here if you'd like to try it for yourself: TagCrowd.
You can enter your webpage, or a piece of writing and even exclude words (like blog).
Since the webpage, I entered was this one, I'm sure that these are my common words for the last month or so. Can you tell I've been in the garden?

amy birds branches date draft dream evening fine flint frost garden green happy heart hills insistent labels leaves lemon life links literature love marigolds morning peppers photos plant pleasures poems poet poetry primitive promise quebec rain reading remember roots selects store sun things thoughts tomatoes unsworth visit willa year zucchini

created at TagCrowd.com

Truth & Everything After

I follow the conversations at Critical Mass with interest and sometimes just to visit the fox. But today's conversation about truth and memoir raised valid points. Is it all that important that a memoir be 100% truthfully relayed? Of course, the answer is that it can't be ALL that important since it is impossible for memory to stay true. We embellish, we embroider, we edit, without often realizing it. What we do remember as true might be contradicted by someone who was there in the memory with us. One of the things that fills me with dread is when someone close to me asks "Remember when we. . ." because what they ask about is some that is typically important to them and often I don't remember at first.

Asked about my childhood, I can recall the pony that my grandfather pastured near our home. I can remember the feel of the curry comb in my hand, of picking burrs from his (or was it her?) mane. Or have I substituted the tactile experiences of other, less memorable horses? I know that one day the pony bloated while I was putting on the saddle, and as we trotted through the woods and jumped over a downed log, the saddle tipped sideways and I fell off into the leaf mold near the place where my sister and I laid out sticks to form rooms in our pretend house under the hickories and white oaks, where we used acorn cups and pieces of bark to lay the table. Near the pond where one spring the fish were so hungry that I used mushroom caps to catch them on my cane pole because I ran out of earthworms. And wild roses, and blackberries, and persimmons in the fall. Some things are etched deeply. Some things fall and blow away beyond recall.

Blogs & Charles Dickens

As regular visitors might notice (Hi Glenn!) I've recently updated the blog's look and added the tags. This update made me aware of the blog's serialization of my life. And I noticed that I am always reading other people's blogs as mini-autobiographies or fictions. I follow several blogs quite regularly and it is interesting to watch the "lives" unfold there. (However "mediated" these may be, some strive for more fictionalization than others.) Which reminds me of Charles Dickens and raises questions about the writing life. So, a theory to discuss.

Dickens wrote a great deal of quality work. Is it possible that the actual process of serialization helps a writer develop? I can think of these benefits (even if Dickens didn't do these):

• You have to show up to write, but you don't have to write it all today.
  
• You have to have something exciting/important/gripping happen in regular intervals to keep the reader's attention so they'll buy the next version, but doesn't this help maintain interest in the long (novel) form too?
  
• The possibility of feedback? If you have a bad episode, the readers might complain! But you have a chance to fix it before the printers set the type for the long version!
  
• Offers a chance to let the characters develop as they will, instead of having to map out an entire book at once. (I don't know enough about Dickens to know if he did write this way, but it seems like it might be a positive thing. Any Dickens scholars out there?)
• The possibility to use/exploit current events in your story line. ( the news in poetry?)

I feel as if the blog helps me formulate ideas that I might otherwise let slip into oblivion. It helps me keep a record of what I'm doing and thinking about for future reference. It helps to have a real readership to think of, rather than some abstract vague audience. I realize that having a reader to think of makes be be more accurate when I write and try to fill in specifics and details. When I go back and read old entries, I am amazed at how much detail I don't recall of those moments. I'm greedy, I don't want to lose a single thought.

I came across a Latin quote that seems to sum the idea up nicely: Sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes the glory of the world). I don't know the source or context of this quote yet (a grave inscription?), so allow me to put it in a context for myself for today: There is glory (truth, beauty, things to be grateful for, love, learning, pleasure) in each of the moments passing through our lives. It is there, in the quotidian, waiting for us to acknowledge it.

Again

Writing poetry again, thank heavens. Danny (main character of my poetry manuscript) decided to start talking again--which is really good since I felt that there were too few poems in his voice for the arc of the narrative. Did I mention I need a story-- not just poems in isolation. I mean each poem has to be self-contained, but there is narrative too, at least in this manuscript.

I can't believe how expansive my writing has become over the past few years. I used to write 8 lines. Or 12. Now I'm writing poems that are often over a page, sometimes pushing 2 or 3 pages. I wonder if one day I'll just start writing prose? And I'm amazed at times how a poem will go places I didn't Plan for it to go; but this is good. I don't want to just write auto-biographical poems. I need a little creation, that spark, to make me happy.

Happy Holidays, friends, whoever & wherever you might be.

At the Summer's End

I'm finding it hard to believe that the last post I made was in June. The summer has flown by on the wings of parental responsibility. Yes, I have three boys. And two of them are now taller than me.



When summer does come to the end, I feel a bit of relief. The heat has killed many of my herbs, yet the bindweed and Witchgrass flourishes. I am ready for the school supplies in the aisles of the stores. The promise of lined paper and freshly sharpened pencils. I think Roethke got it wrong in Dolor. But, his is the office and the institution. Mine is the schoolroom and the artroom, where crayons still wait in their green and yellow boxes in twenty-four shade of possibility. And watercolors in their plastic trays evoke the shades of the sea and the skies at sunrise. I am ready for the routine of early morning coffee and lunch-sacks, backpacks, and yellow buses. I am ready to return to my books and poems and the clean promise of white paper.

More Poetry (manuscript) Dreaming

This time, I'm talking to the publisher of my book. He's sitting on the floor surrounded by the leaves of poems. No, he says, holding a poem up to me. You are not allowed to write poems like this one EVER again. NEVER. But, yes, there are six real poems here.

In my waking life, I do have a manuscript, but not a publisher. But I'm looking for one. I believe there are more than six real poems.

I am also dreaming of waitressing again. I wake tired from other people's demands on my time. From having to smile, to wait for the pittance that the people in my dreams tip.

Dreaming Poetry

So, I don't think I've ever done this before, but working on a review over the last few weeks, I was dreaming about the book and what I found so compelling in it. I acutally got up and went and jotted it down and it still made good sense even when I was awake.

I also dreamed that we were hiring John Montague at my university. Which is odd, since I don't actually have a University right now. Of course, Montague because I've written on his work, but what a joy it was to imagine his office just down the hall in my imagined university.

And not dreaming:

I read for a ladies' group on Tuesday. There were only about 10 in the circle but it was a pleasure to read and have others comment and ask questions about the poems.

And three poems soon in journals: "Troupe Portrait with Unicycle" is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry. "From the Greenhouse" and "The Drowned Girl orders a Cone" from Sojourn.

My husband asks me "What would be enough? Your first book?" I don't think it's possible to set a finish line for poetry. Is it? One goal leads to the next, one hurdle passed prepares you for the next. I want to run forever.

happy poetry month

Dedication & Inspiration

Bly lived for a while in New York City, where he set out to write 12 hours a day at least six days a week. --The Writer's Almanac

I really admire this goal. I can't imagine how I could possibly fit 12 hours of writing into my day. I think I might be able to fit twelve hours of writing into a week. For the challenge, I completed 26 drafts in 31 days. The attempt at 30:30 has taught me this much:

I need to make time to write, to let ideas brew, to examine the world.

Update on the 30:30

Ok, so this drafting a poem everyday business is getting tough. The first few days went well but the last few days I've been struggling. I fell behind, but wrote three drafts yesterday all on a similar topic: a series I suppose. It's strange that I have three seperate ideas in play as I write.

1. I've begun what I hope will turn into a chapbook, there's a narrative idea floating around of a family set in Detroit in the time between the two great wars. There's a few poems towards this in my 30:30.

2. I'm also still struggling to write poems about my cancer experience. I always feel like no one will want to read about what it was like: it's too private, it's too personal, there is a limited audience. But isn't that audience an important one? Would it help if there were more poems in the world so we were less afraid of the challenges that lie ahead? There was no road map for me, perhaps I can put a few dots on the maps for others who (lamentably) must follow.

3. I have a poem about a girl murdered as a witch. A poem about women who are oppressed today. I don't know if this really qualifies as a theme yet.

And the semester ended. And the new semester looms. I am still tired, still have papers to mark with a red pen, and festive merrymaking to attend to.

I am thinking about the gifts I have been given. I do not want to squander them. Tonight I will pull out my flute and fill the house with carols.

A Joyful Noise.

Be blessed as you travel and spend time with your loved ones. Be blessed as you stay home and cook soup in the peace and quiet of aloneness. Be blessed on this holy evening and on the days and weeks to come. Be blessed.

New Tricks

Ok. So maybe if you're one of those people who actually took a class on Microsoft Word you might know this already. You can "score" your readability and the grade level of your writing in Word by chosing "options" under the "check spelling and grammar." When you get done with your spell check, they'll be listed!

The site, linked above, says we should aim to write between the 60-70 % for readability and the 7-8th grade mark for "standard writing."

But this doesn't work for poetry; the program hates that the lines don't begin with capital letters, and it thinks that the sentences are mighty short. According to the program, one of my last poems was so easy to read that a 1st grader could read & understand it. Alas. I don't think my writing is that simplistic.

It's good to be a word person. We're so easily amused with just a few facts about writing, a dictionary, some white paper, and a few bottles of ink.

As Mr. Strand would say:
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

30:30

So, it appears that blogging is falling out of favor with the poets-in-the-ether.
Now, 30:30 is the "in" thing. I'm playing along. It is a challenge to write 30 poems (or drafts) in a 30 day period. There's a public accountability & peer pressure factor that means I have others looking over my shoulder going "Where is that Draft? Get busy!" Hopefully, the practice will help me establish a daily habit of putting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard as the case may be.)

at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot

always.

Creation Buzz

What is it about creating a poem, a book, a piece of art, that gives one a buzz? When a poem is "right," I have a "high" that lasts throughout the day.


Who needs red wine?

Oh, and I saw a new journal today "Fickle Muses" which is calling for poetry & writing that intersects with myth and legend. Looks interesting to me.

Not Me. . .

Somewhere in the UK there's an Amy Unsworth that works in a cancer lab. She's published a short piece of non-fiction here at LabLit.

Strangely enough, I had an acceptance in my in-box for the piece although I'd never heard of the site before. But, apparently they've caught up with the right Amy Unsworth now. Thank you Amy for whatever you do to support cancer research & for reminding us to laugh now and again.

Things I've written

other than poetry. I was recently revisiting a series of articles I wrote for the "beginning poet" at Poems Niedergasse. I think as time permits I'll add a list of my reviews and other articles to the side bar. But tonight, I have other work to complete. So, if you'd like to see these this link will take you to the list of titles:
"From the Pencil Box"

I have a few reviews at three candles as well, I'll link them later.

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I'm also excited about being the Prose Editor at three candles. After many years of focus on poetry, it has been interesting to focus on what makes a story or piece of prose compelling. I might have a new selection for you soon.

I'm branching out.

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I also believe that to continue to write that one must continue to read and participate in the critical conversation. To that end, I'll be at Dekalb U. this weekend for the ACIS.

Is it snowing there yet?

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I'm reading Richard Jeffery Newman's book. More on this soon.

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It is suddenly fall. The leaves forget the branches. The branches illustrate the sky, structure revealed after the abandon of green.