April Blooms: Poems, Pockets, Picnics

The Story of Water, by Tracy Weil.

'Cause we're living in a world of fools
Breaking us down when they all should let us be.

— How Deep Is Your Love

The Bee Gees were right. Forget April Fools’ Days, and turn instead to what really matters:

Today signals the start of National Poetry Month.

Launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month is now the nation’s largest literary celebration with scores of readers, writers, schools, libraries and bookshops hosting special events and activities to mark the value of poetry in our lives.

Celebrations take place across the map — in major cities and small towns — with readings, walks, talks, picnics, parties, and more. My favorite way to mark the month is Poem In Your Pocket Day. This year it falls on April 10 (get those poems ready!)

How are you celebrating?

In Hood River, Oregon (where I live), the local library and city parks department have partnered to create a Poetry Walk. The project combines 14 nature poems accompanied by the work of local photographers placed along Indian Creek Trail, a popular path within the city. The effort is headed by a committee of writers with connections to the Columbia River Gorge, including Alejandro Jimenez and Leah Stenson.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the annual Poets’ Picnic is a free outdoor event celebrating art, poetry and nature with live readings and music performances.

Visitors are invited to walk the grounds while viewing poems written on brown paper tags tied to trees and shrubs, called Weathergrams (in a playful adaptation of the Asian custom). The haikus are written by New Mexico poets and rendered by local calligraphers. The work is also featured in handsewn chapbooks created by area artists. Proceeds of sales benefit the Open Space Alliance. The community event is led by local poet-artists Dale Harris and Scott Wiggerman.

What’s happening where you live?

Across the country this month, writers will gather in groups with heads bent and voices wobbly as they find safety in the sharing.

Someone pens a poem. Another reads a line that lifts off the page and into the mind. Ideas grow. Feelings swell. Action arrives.

Maybe you’ll write a letter, or share your favorite poem — with a neighbor, a stranger, a friend. In the reading, the writing, the giving and receiving, a thread goes taut, and from the tug, our hearts stretch and strengthen.

In this month of celebration, how will you take part?

* * *

About the Image:

The Story of Water — isn’t that a great writing prompt!?

The image at the top of this page is a painting by Tracy Weil. He’s a dear friend whom I fondly consider the poet of painters. His latest collection of work is Unabashed, a solo exhibition at the Arvada Center in Colorado, opening April 11.

Discover more here.

Wide Asleep

Trying Our Best by Drew Myron

Trying Our Best

 
Last night
an ache so real I stirred awake.

There are so many ways to live
and I try them on, one by one
in deep sleep resurrecting
sorrows long gone.

My mother calls and I can
almost touch her face, now soft,
her smile, now easy. She is yielding
and I am arms stretched to find
the emptiness of expectation.

The trick, she says slipping away, is to keep moving.

Most everything is waiting or prayer
so I stand silent, pebble small
smaller, gone.

On another night
I stand cedar tall and solid.
Leaf and branch wear certainty.
Every root a permanence.

Fake it 'til you make it, she calls out.

Some nights I am sea,
the steady pull and roll of turn and tumble,
a rush forward and a push away.

I’ve never been a seagull, though my mother urges me to try.
They fly because they think they can, she says,
her words lifted from a dusty
poster hanging in our 1970s home.

At night in dreams that feel wide awake
my mother waits for me, eager to share
platitudes we both hope will hold.

— Drew Myron

Trying Our Best — collage materials from Surface Design, a journal of the Surface Design Association, 2000; and Akris ad appearing in The New York Times Magazine, 2025.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

What are you making? I’d love to hear from you!

Thankful Thursday: One Good Line

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Whether puny or profound, attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

Some days I need a great deal to dig out of life’s debris — a vacation, say, or a windfall of some sort. Other days it takes very little to shift the mind and lift the heart.

I’ve taken to collecting small moments: a warm glove, a soft shirt, a beat of sunlight across the floor. This week, a novel calmed and this line called:

She had a feeling that they were

talking in different languages —

each only half-learned by the other.

— from Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

This 1971 novel was written by Elizabeth Taylor (not that Elizabeth but this Elizabeth). In 2005, the book was made into a movie, starring Joan Plowright and Rupert Friend. I saw the movie years ago, and just recently read the book. Both, I’m pleased to report, are warm and loving.

And really, lately, and maybe always, warm and loving is all I need.

What are you thankful for today?

* * *

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On Sunday: Stillness

Whale Song

Humpback whales sing the way humans speak
— The New York Times

1.

Today my horoscope gives a warning:

“If there is an ambulance in your relationship . . . ”

Yes, yes, I nod. I hear the siren, feel the clutch

of worry and pitched frequency of fear as

the alarm races toward me.

But when I blink and read again, the emergency is over:

“If there is an imbalance . . . ” it says.

2.

For many days you are sick.

Your head fogs, your throat closes,

and I do the talking, too much, because

worry grips my heart and

triggers a babble.

3.

We know now that marriage

is a language of the mundane

passed through generations:  

            “How was your day?”  

            “What’s for dinner?”

            “Do you wanna watch tv?”

We are efficient — this, that, small words that return and repeat.

We slice our energetic costs, find savings we don’t need.

4.

Sometimes we talk softly, gently

because silence is a bridge and

we want to meet in the middle.

5.

Sometimes we don’t talk because there is too much to say.

6.

Tonight before the song,

in the stillness between us,

we look deeper, listen longer,

find each other in the hum.

— Drew Myron

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Fast Five with Luisa A. Igloria

Photo by Gabriela Igloria

“The language of poetry is what I like to turn to, in order to process the information life / the world throws at me.”

— Luisa A. Igloria

Welcome to Fast Five, an occasional series in which I ask my favorite writers five questions as a way to open the door to know more.

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of 14 books of poetry, four chapbooks, and editor of three anthologies. From 2020 to 2022, she served as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Originally from Baguio City, Philippines, Luisa lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where she is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Old Dominion University.

She has been lauded with numerous awards for her work, including the world’s first major award for eco-poetry, and a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Union of the Philippines.

Despite the many accolades and achievements, it was a quiet corner of the internet where I first found her work. Every day for 14 years, Luisa has written and shared a poem at Via Negativa.  

1.
Why write?

I can’t think of a good reason not to. Perhaps this is because I was raised in a book-reading, book-loving family, and developed an early appreciation for language. I recall my late father telling me that we may not have been wealthy, but he would see to it that I got a good education. Also, I’m more of an introvert, and it just seemed natural that I’d be attracted to things that could be done in solitude (reading, writing, making art, playing music). 

For the last 14 years + 3 months (and running), I’ve kept a daily writing practice (in which I write at least a poem a day). This has taught me a lot about myself as a writer— and I’ve come to realize that the language of poetry is what I like to turn to, in order to process the information life/the world throws at me.

2.
You have a full and prolific professional life. What do you enjoy about writing, teaching, leading?  

I love the way my practice as a poet and as a teacher (of poetry, creative nonfiction, and literature) engages language which has the capacity to immediately and deeply address the human in us. The language of poetry, of art in general, isn’t merely transactional. It allows us to access the beauty as well as vulnerability of human experience, and in so doing, feel connected to ourselves and to others. 

From Via Negativa, where Luisa A. Igloria posts fresh poems daily.

3.
What’s the best — or worst — writing advice you’ve received? 

Perhaps one of the worst kinds of writing advice: Write (only) what you know. 

One of the best kinds of writing advice: It’s ok to write into what you don’t (yet) know. That’s how discovery happens; how else could you get to wonder, except by admitting there are so many mysteries in the world that still have the capacity to floor you?

4.
What book do you return to again and again?

I love Federico García Lorca’s In Search of Duende — for his reminder that creativity is more than technical or mechanical mastery of skills. His theory of the duende taps into the importance of also cultivating a connection to more ineffable, intuitive, perhaps even archetypal energies. In other words, anyone can learn to be a good carpenter of language; but learning to make language sing is a different matter.

Another book that is formative and important to me is Magnificence and Other Stories by the Filipina writer Estrella D. Alfon (1960).

5.
What are you currently working on?

A new manuscript on the creation of a hill station in the northern part of the Philippines (where I am from) by the American colonial government, in the 1900s. History continues to fascinate me, as an archive full of narratives that could take on a different sheen depending on the point of view of their telling. Also, from this perspective, the past is not necessarily “over.”

Bonus Question: I'm a word collector, and keeping a running list of favorites? What are yours? 

Some favorites:

pine       cypress        mountain       archipelago        

From Caulbearer: Poems  by Luisa A. Igloria

Thankful Thursday: Want

Of Want, visual poem by Drew Myron

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

For years I've believed wholly, deeply, not-quite-religiously in the power of positive thinking. What you focus on becomes. What you resist, persists. I really do believe that gratitude is a powerful way to pivot from despair to repair to release to rejoice.

Sounds corny, I know.

But the weekly pause for gratitude helps to counter my small self and petty complaints, along with all the big world aches that crush the spirit. Lately, however, the big and small overwhelm my ability to “find the good.”

In the weary season, I am reminded of Sarah Cord’s description of gratitude:

“To be grateful is to live a full life. It is to know worry and accept worry. It is to shore up the foundations even in the face of the weathering forces of tragedies and time.”

For years, I’ve met you here on a weekly basis and often encouraged you to join me in Thankful Thursday. Just as love is a verb, thankfulness works best when it moves in action and awareness. In giving thanks, either privately or publicly, in solitude or community, the point is not to count your riches / blessings / advantages but to exercise the muscle that strengthens appreciation.

Gratitude is a practice, just as paying attention is a practice. The more you see, the deeper you look, and, in turn, the more you see.

When I feel waves of want — the crushing desire for more time, money, skill, ability, or a better world — practicing gratitude offers a valuable perspective shift. You train your eyes, and your heart, to “see the good.” And soon the exercise feels less a chore and more a pleasure. In this shift, want is the window that lets gratitude in.

What are you thankful for today?

 * * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Love & Other Verbs

Tender, an erasure poem by Drew Myron

O Tender Love

I want

a song

with a

tether of

sound

that

carries

all that

fails us

with a string

that gives

flight

and

lifts us

to the quiet

field of

wonder

we forgot

we had

lost

— Drew Myron

Three words, scratched, can make a poem.

On this day, will you please join me in large & small appreciations:

make something, say something, love something.

xox

Got a Good Line?

Magazines, books, signposts, poems — among the avalanche of words I’m always looking for one good line. A strong passage, an unexpected turn, a moment that lifts and holds. That’s the sign of a good time.

This week, I’ve been lucky to catch a few:

His words make a little corkscrew of sorrow twist inside you.

— by Dwight Garner in the The New York Times Book Review on Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard [ Joe Brainard is author of the seminal stream-of-consciousness poetic memoir, I Remember, published in 1970 ]

At last she entered with a whoosh, as if a gust of wind had opened the door and she’d been blown through in its wake. She had hair the color of scotch, bright green eyes, and freckles that looked like tiny wet leaves stuck to the bridge of her nose.

— from The Tender Bar, a memoir by J.R. Moehringer

I don’t know what to do with old photographs anymore.

— from Congratulating Your Photograph On Your Move to London, a poem by Kami Enzie, appearing in Poet Lore, Volume 118. [ This poem excerpt served as a great writing prompt for me this week. Really, what do we do with old photographs? ]

We trawl the dopamine deserts of the same social media apps, looking for loud noises and bright colors to punctuate the malaise. We have near-unlimited access to information and somehow fail to be curious about any of it.

— from Grow Up, an essay by Helen Holmes, published in The New York Times Magazine

Your turn: Have you read (or written) a good line lately? Please share with me.

Stay curious & keep on.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Scratch & Swirl

Careless, an erasure poem by Drew Myron

It’s been a week.

What can we do — cling and wait, fret and furrow?

Knowledge may be power, and ignorance bliss, but silence is not golden. Indignation spends energy but does not make change. What do we do in the middle ground, in the mid-day, in the rumble of chaos?

I scratch and swirl. It’s not much. It’s something. It’s nothing. It’s this.

What are you doing?

Two for Tuesday

Hello Readers, Writers, Friends:

The days move quickly. Life feels full as everything swells, brims, bubbles, spills.

Or maybe it’s just me?

In the pause, I find small gems. On this Two for Tuesday, I offer you:

1.
Jackals & Fireflies — a short film written by poet Eva H.D. and directed by filmmaker Charlie Kaufman. This 20-minute film delivers a haunting and hypnotic blend of writing, image, music and mood. (YouTube)

Kaufman is the writer/director behind some of this era’s more trippy and thought-provoking films (and many of my favorites): I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Eva H.D. is a writer I first found through Bonedog, a poem that was featured in Kaufman’s film, I’m Thinking of Ending Things. The piece was so movingI raced to learn more about the poem and the poet. (I raved about her here). She has several books, frequently collaborates with Kaufman, and describes Jackals & Fireflies as a “book disguised as a film.”

2.
His Three Daughters - Just when I think I’m done with grief, a powerful film comes along to gut punch me to catharsis.

This 2024 drama follows three sisters as they deal with the death of their father. With taut performances by Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen, this film is close and tight and so very real. If you’ve been near someone at the end of life, in this movie you’ll likely see yourself (and cringe), your siblings (and groan), and all the broken complicated feelings of love and loss.

Do you know this movie? It’s quiet and tense and I stumbled on it by mistake (or by a Netflix algorithm). I don’t usually watch first-run films, so maybe this one is a big hit and I’ve been in the dark? Either way, it’s my latest favorite film. (Netflix)

How about you? What are you reading, seeing, watching, feeling? I always enjoy hearing from you. Send light — write!

Dear You

Bless You, a visual poem by Drew Myron.

Dear You (and you and you) —

Now the rain has wore me down, and I'm slipping into sweets and drink and other gluttonies.

To lift the spirits, I turn to poems and find a good one that urges readers to make art from everyday experience, and I raise my hand in praise, yes, this. 

I told myself I would write a poem in response to that poem, but here I am, sitting in half-light, watching darkness gather and cold collect and I am not writing a poem. I am writing to you, which is much the same but without profound pause and studied punctuation.

Who knows, really, how this all works?

Some days the hush is deep and you swan through worries. But more often, the chaos swirls and you search for branch, dock, pen, paper, a landing.

You are writing in the dark. A phrase arrives that is not your own, that you do not understand, that you can never know until the words stir and settle and say everything you cannot.

I am writing to self, to sky, to the way gray sucks up light and leaves us cold and lonely, without victory or vices. I am waving, dimly, a shrug of a gesture really, across a distance in which only you can see.

With love,

Drew

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Gnaw & Thrall

Gnaw & Thrall, a visual poem by Drew Myron

Gnaw & Thrall

Of all the things

the body absorbs:

sun, salt, water,

heat, freeze, and

endless sinking

it still insists on

staying open, suspended

at the surface of parched

and starving, deep in

the gnawing thrall

of living.

— Drew Myron

* * *

The world turns on words.

What are you reading, writing, making?

Best Books of 2024

Happy New Year! Join me in welcoming a bounty of books to read, re-read, savor & share!

Is there a better gift than a book?

Sure — wine, sweets, and thrift store gems will always make me swoon, but give me a book and you’ve worked your way into my heart. This season, I’m feeling a swell of gratitude for good friends & good books.

Let’s look back to the best of the bunch (umm, books, not friends).

I don’t track the number of books read, though I typically complete at least one to two books a week. Of those, here are the ones that have stuck with me (these are books read, not necessarily published, in 2024):

FICTION

Novels I keep urging everyone to read:

• Long Bright River by Liz Moore

• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

• Commitment by Mona Simpson

• The Wedding People by Alison Espach

A good but disturbing novel that I couldn’t put down:

• History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund. This family drama thrums with creepy yet fascinating tension.

Novels that left me entertained but conflicted:

Months after reading these novels, I can't stop thinking about the topics they raise: writing, race, access, appropriation.

• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

• Victim by Andrew Boryga

Mystery series I gobbled up:

• Vera Stanhope novels by Ann Cleeves. Until recently, I was not a big fan of crime thrillers. But lately, I can’t get enough of the genre. In a series that spans nearly a dozen books, Cleeves is an expert at unwinding story and character with masterful restraint.

NON-FICTION

Most unexpected transformation of a punk rocker:

• Faith, Hope, and Carnage by Nick Cave

Delightful tales with a side of sad:

• Still Life with Remorse by Maira Kalman. An artist/writer turns family grief inside-out with quirky irreverence that soothes and surprises.

• A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. In this slim book containing three stories about his childhood, Capote offers brilliant writing that reveals the tender oddity of an unusual friendship.

POETRY

Poet whose books I can’t stop buying:  Jane Mead
Though she died in 2019, I only recently discovered the work of poet Jane Mead. At every turn I find another book I didn’t know I needed.

Poet whose work I wish to inhabit: Mary Ruefle
A Little White Shadow, a small thin book published in 2006, kicked off a world of erasure poems. Yes, there were others before her (and a great many since) but Ruefle really amped the form.

Poetry books I keep close and return to often:

Given by Wendell Berry

The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang

Hush by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

The Way It Is by William Stafford

Words Under The Words by Naomi Shihab Nye

QUESTIONS:

• Where do you get your books?

I am committed to supporting the work of writers by buying their books — but I read a lot and gotta pay my electric bill too. To that end, I obtain books in a variety of ways, namely at independent bookstores (Powell’s City of Books, Klindt’s Booksellers, and Bart’s Books are my favorites); at used bookstores (Artifacts: Good Books & Bad Art and Thrift Books are my top picks); and for poetry I purchase directly from the publisher because these are often small presses without the resources to get product placement at mainstream outlets.

And, firstly and lastly and always, I borrow books from my local library — where anyone can read books for absolutely free! Isn’t that a wonder?!  

• What’s your best book of 2024?

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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The Work of Christmas

Hello Dear Reader,

Tinsel glistens, carols ring, and gifts sit wrapped and ready. Now, the busy of Christmas comes to its crescendo, followed by the quiet dim of a holiday glow.

In this rush and release, I turn again to one of my favorite poems of the season: The Work of Christmas by Howard Thurman. *

Written in 1948, this poem remains as powerful and relevant as when it was penned 76 years ago.

Howard Thurman was a professor, pastor, and civil rights leader. Born in 1899, he founded the first major interracial, interdenominational church in the United States, was the first black dean at a mostly white American university, and served as mentor to scores of students, including Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yet, Howard Thurman remains widely unknown. The activist was not boastful or loud. He believed real change was internal, individual, and often quiet.

“There must be always remaining in every life,” he wrote, “some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathless and beautiful.”

Colleagues and scholars have long praised Thurman’s work and heart.

“He gently and powerfully moved through the world in a spirit of grace, dignity, and humility,” says Walter Fluker, a professor at Boston University, where Thurman served as dean.

With grace, dignity and humility — the spirit of Christmas shines on.

With warm wishes to you in this season of darkness & light.

— Drew

* My other favorite seasonal poem is: When Giving Is All We Have, by Alberto Ríos.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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-

Thankful Thursday: Finding Song

Photo by Pedro Alonso, courtesy of Creative Commons.

I'm not a poet but I’m trying to understand awe.

— Cecilia Fischer, The Ocean Foundation

Long before dawn, the roosters call. A repetitive caw that rattles and gnaws, then becomes, like so many things — bird chatter, dog barks, thumping bass, an engine’s roar — a background to life.

Sometimes you grasp for any small thing, a tether to something stronger, bigger, better than the self.

When a young woman talks to you plainly, as if reciting the soundtrack of your inner life, you lean in close to catch every word: 

Keep a sharp focus on the contents of your mind, she says. The words you hear, think, and speak will support or thwart you.  

In a clattering cafe, far from the thrum of holiday cheer, you hear the distant threads of a familiar song. Silent Night calls you closer. You reach across a table, ask another, Do you hear it, too?

Or, in the dim light of evening chatter, above the twinkle of a crumbling courtyard wall, you hear The Drummer Boy. The rump-a-pum-pum is faint but you crawl along the soft slow beat.  

In the morning, church bells ring with You Are My Sunshine, and a chord pulls within you. You understand now that this is the most reverent song you have ever heard.

Inside, you step lightly toward the steady hiss of candles burning. This, too, is song. Heart to throat to eyes, a gentle welling reminds you: every day holds the holy.

* * *

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

What are you thankful for today?

 * * *

small things

the world is full of glass

unpack slowly

shake petals

serve tea

give wide starts

live among psalms

pull thin light

stand tall

give thanks

— Drew Myron

Question on a Tuesday

GOODNESS

Rain reinvents the world.
Flowers draw strength from sun.
Prayer is just wish shifted.

Imagine a kind tenderness like wild
roses singing across a lonely field.
Who we are unfolds through experience.

You change beyond what you can ever dream.

— Drew Myron

QUESTION:

What is unfolding, and how have you changed?

I’d love to hear from you. Send light, write!

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Escuchar

We drive just 35 kilometers to another time, another place, another world within us.

San Javier is a town of just 150 people, though we see only a few along the stone streets, standing in the shade of lime trees, in the doorways of homes and small cafes with tables and chairs beneath thatch roofs.

It is the church we have come to see. Maybe it is the oldest, the tallest, the most beautiful, the most something of somethings that I can't recall. The details rarely matter.

At the entry, a man with a soft voice and gentle smile ushers us in. The church was built in 1699, he says. We are alone here, nodding in awe and repeating his words in whispers.

I am not looking for god. But time holds reverence and attention is the currency of care.

He shows us all the places god would live:  the diminutive wood closet for confession, the baptism basin made of smooth marble remarkably unblemished after hundreds of years. The oil paintings above the altar, dark with time, with repetitive prayers. He pauses at each square of art, points one-by-one to say the name. I do not know these saints, these ways of adoration, but I nod along, feign a following I wish to feel.

I am not looking for god — or I am, by default, always searching for something. It’s more that I am seeing beauty in the details:  thick walls that cool our weariness, the solace of hushed words, the way the man mixes both Spanish and English and when I comment on his skills — how did you learn English, I ask — his smile is soft as he points to his ear, “escuchar,” he says.

After three months of Spanish lessons, this is one of the handful of words I know (and love):  escuchar, to listen.

Even saying the word produces a lovely soft sound: ehs - koo - chahr
Hear the beauty of the word, here.

This church, this gentle man with four generations planted in this remote desert place, shows us every small thing we need to know.

Later in the day, after hours of oven heat, the world feels loud and full, bustling and busy. I head to the sea. I long to cool off but mostly I wish to slip into a long pull of plunging quiet.

The next day I wake early to an orange sky that turns the morning pink. The roosters have already begun their announcements, followed by dogs, by birds, by cars, by the crackles of day. The day barges and enlarges, and I listen for the hush.

Escuchar, escuchar, escuchar.

Fast Five with Donna Henderson

“Poetry and psychotherapy are about ‘discovery’ and that requires me to become deeply curious about our experience of humanness — our wounds, longings, losses, regrets, and hopes.”

— Donna Henderson

Welcome to Fast Five, an occasional series in which I ask my favorite writers five questions as a way to open the door to know more.

Donna Henderson is a rare blend of creative accomplishment. She is a poet, writer, artist, singer, songwriter —and psychotherapist. Rooted in the arts, she is author of four poetry collections, two of which were named finalists for the Oregon Book Award. Her latest book, Send Word, published in 2022, is an evocative combination of poetry, art, and design.

Donna lives in Maupin, a town of 500 people situated along the Deschutes River in north-central Oregon.

1.
Why write?

I’m not sure I could have answered this question for the first few decades of my writing practice (that is, not with any answer that would not embarrass me to be connected with now!); all I knew was that I felt impelled to somehow, for (I understand now) the way writing organized and grounded something in me, from the very moment I began to be able to write words.

Writing let me feel seen in a family and a world at large in which I felt essentially unseen. I felt loved appreciated, to be sure, but not seen. And it wasn’t that I experienced writing as a way for me to be seen by others, I hasten to clarify: as a child, I didn’t share my writing anyway, and it wasn’t my purpose to. It was that writing gave me a way to hear my own voice, to register my own responses to the world (just as painting and drawing, which I also did from childhood, offered ways for me to see my own seeing). Like that, writing made it possible for me to see me.

Then, in 1975, as a student at Oregon College of Education (now Western Oregon University), I enrolled in a class in Craft of Poetry from George Slawson, in which I had a profound experience with language that I am still dazzled by, grateful for, and continue to be led and informed by in my poetry practice these 50 years hence. I remember that I was trying to render into a poem the experience of both being part of, and observing, women in the shower room after a PE class, when suddenly I felt language itself take over, the words as they arrived (“skin”…“steam”) plunging me more deeply into the pure experience and wonder of the moment than before language had been engaged. Such that the poem that resulted (slight as it was, I still like it!) was a record of an experience of that: of an experience of wonder and discovery, intensified and made more intimate by the engagement of language.

Which is when and why I felt in love with poetry, which has been my primary writing practice since (though the purpose of my prose writing is the same): not as a means of self-expression (whether that be of emotions or opinions), but rather an engagement with language that engages me more deeply with wonder and with the senses, to see what there is to be made and to be understood by way of that engagement.

2.
You are an artist, singer, songwriter, poet and psychotherapist. What came first, and how did you develop and hone your skills?

Art came first, and was always there, and I credit my mother with that: she had five of us in quick succession, and while I experienced her as perpetually overwhelmed, and seeming to be more distracted than gratified by child-raising, creativity itself was her highest value (she herself was never happier than when writing, painting, playing the piano or dancing). So while we were expected to clean our rooms and help keep the house clean in general, the one place that never had to be cleaned up was the huge art table in the basement playroom, nor anyplace else that had to do with creative play.

Similarly, writing was just something we did in my family, (both my parents were journalists), so I suppose I started writing when I was given a diary at age five or so. And music was always a thing; mom played the piano, and both my parents loved music of all sorts, so I grew up listening and singing to music: it was just part of the water I swam in. So I really don’t remember a time that music, writing and art weren’t a part of my life, and I was fortunate that the public schools I attended valued and encouraged all of these also— I had some wonderful teachers! But I do think it is my mom to whom the most credit has to be given, and which was persistent throughout her life. I remember her unhesitating encouragement to me as an adult, when I was trying to decide whether or not to fork out the funds for a piano of my own (not really sure how ready I was to commit to actually playing it). “Of course you should buy it!” she told me. “Creativity, honey, it’s the most important thing.”

Later (and with each of the arts), I developed my skill by seeking out experiences of various kinds that would help me to learn the specific skills I wanted to learn. With poetry, I received that by attending summer writing workshops for many years, then an MFA (I graduated from Warren Wilson Program for Writers in 2006).

More recently,  after languishing for many years, my visual art has been experiencing a happy renaissance since the year of covid quarantine, when I started taking classes on Zoom with Eugene, Oregon artist Zoë Cohen, who has been an important mentor and teacher since. In fact, the two of us are going to co-teach a class at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in the fall of 2025, involving language and art practices.

Excerpt from title poem, Send Word, by Donna Henderson.

As for psychotherapy: I have always enjoyed listening to others, and especially to (and for) how people cope with difficulty and make meaning and connection in their lives. So it kind of felt like a natural, I guess, to choose a profession based on that, and I went about learning to do it in the usual ways: school, graduate school, supervision, licensure, and (most importantly) a lot of great mentorship, continuing ed, and a wonderful network of wise colleague-friends, over the almost 40 years since I began practicing.

The practice itself of psychotherapy actually feels very much like simply another genre of creative work, in the way I practice it anyway. Because while poetry is commonly thought of as being about “self-expression,” and the objective of therapy as being “self-improvement,” I actually understand both poetry and psychotherapy to be about “discovery.” And that requires me to become —and to remain—deeply curious about our experience of humanness — our wounds, longings, losses, regrets, and hopes — with my clients, and to engage in that curiosity through language. And while psychotherapy typically begins with the stories clients carry about who they are and why they are that way, the actual process of therapy involves inviting clients to step off from there into what is unknown and unseen: to become more curious than certain themselves.

So I guess that you could say that “seeing and being seen” is what art, writing and psychotherapy all engage in…and it’s why I got into all of them!

3.
You co-founded Airlie Press, a collective poetry publisher. Why? And what have you learned through the process?

I’ll be briefer with this one (you’re welcome!): In the early 2000s, I’d been a member of a long-running writing group, most of the members of which had manuscripts of poems “circulating” (looking for a home).

But books of poetry are particularly difficult to place, since poetry does not make money for publishers, so there are fewer presses that publish it than that publish other genres. Because of that, a manuscript of poems, no matter its quality, has something like a 1% (or even less) chance of being accepted for publication by a press. On top of that, for poetry presses to even cover their costs of publication when they are unlikely to make much of a return, they charge a reading fee of around $25 for submissions. Given the number of presses one ought to submit to to increase the chances of an acceptance, a poet can (and we each did) easily spend $500 a year on submitting, with close to no chance of a bite.

So (to make a longer story much shorter) one of us proposed dedicating our time and funds instead toward starting a collective, shared-work press run by poets, based on the model of some others (Alice James, and Sixteen Rivers Press in particular), beginning with publishing each of our own completed manuscripts, and then opening to submissions by other poets who (if their manuscripts were accepted) would be willing to make a 3-year commitment to the work of the press.

It was a tremendously gratifying venture, and while I am no longer involved in the editorial work of the press (I currently serve on the Board of Directors) , I could not be more proud of how the press has thrived — it’s going on 17 years now, and continues to produce beautiful books of poetry (I think something like 40 titles to date), representing an increasingly diverse array of poetic voices.

Excerpt from title poem, Send Word, by Donna Henderson.

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned from the experience was that the editors at Sixteen Rivers (who mentored and advised us) were right when they warned us not to try to start a press with fewer than seven initial members. Only four of us were up for it, so we decided to go ahead with it anyway and…well, burnout of the original members from active involvement was ultimately unavoidable, I think. A press is a LOT of work! I would not try it again with fewer than six compatriots, but oh what a splendid vision and venture it was, and (thanks to the dedicated work of the member-poets who have kept it going) and is!

 4.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve received (or given)?

Here are three pieces that come to mind: one is from one of my mentors in graduate school, Karen Brennan, and is particular to poetry: “Remember,” she said, “poetry is not made out of ideas, poetry is made out of lines.” which  advice keeps me grounded in letting language, and not concepts, lead.

Another great piece of advice comes in the form of the poem, Berryman by W.S. Merwin.

 And the third? In his book Mere Christianity (I think that’s where I read it) C.S. Lewis wrote, “I pray not because it changes God; I pray because it changes me.” That’s why I write, and what I urge other writers to focus on: the practice and the process, not the product. Paradoxically, the more I remember that, the truer (therefore better) my work becomes.

“Creativity, honey, it’s the most important thing.”

5.
I’m a word collector, are you too? What are your favorite words?

Here are a few: mimulus, gloom, cluster, pandemonium.

Also antidisestablishmentarianism, though only because it is (or was, when I was a child) the longest word in the dictionary, and because it gave my father endless delight that I could spell it (as I was often called on to do) when I was five, following his fervent tutoring to that very end.

Thankful Thursday: Flickering

Flickering

Along the surface of the water

clouds blow a secret square of light.

In the hushed hours, the god I want

is flickering in my breath.

— Drew Myron

Flickering, a poetry collage by Drew Myron

In a way, it seems we’re all wading rough waters — sloshing through the thin layer of over / under, true / false. The sea is shifting and in this long stretch, I’m reaching for reclamation and a gratitude that grows.

Please join me for Thankful Thursday, a weekly occasion to express appreciation for people, places, and things. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. In this storm, we need glimmers of light.

Thank you for spending your time with me, for keeping me accountable, appreciative, and grateful for things large and small.

What are you thankful for today?

Strike a Match

Stories Live Forever by Drew Myron

Tracy is making big, bold paintings.

Beth is organizing a book-in-progress.

Kathy is mastering a foreign language.

Suz just won a poetry contest.

My friends are thinking, feeling, making, creating. It’s enough to fill you with encouragement, and also shrink you in comparison (the thief of joy).

Get a project, a friend suggests.

It’s your fallow season, consoles another.

Yes and yes, both make sense. I love the focus of a project, such as the Poetry Postcard Fest, and Sweet Grief, and Weilworks collaborations.

But I also value the quiet season, a time of puddle and mull. I’m betwixt and between. Not here or there, but in the search and on the way.

“What is the meaning of life?” writer Virginia Woolf asked in To The Lighthouse.

“The great revelation perhaps never did come,” she wrote. “Instead there were only little daily miracles, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”

Yes! And so, as I wait, I still make.

The Most Important Things by Drew Myron

It’s advice that writer Sarah Cook offers, too:

“You have enough time to write,” she urges in For the Birds, a Substack newsletter.

“Short, frequent instances of contact with your creativity are extremely valuable. The modern average attention span is 40 seconds. FOUR. FUCKING. ZERO.

Okay then! Write for 40 goddamn seconds. Write for EIGHTY seconds, if you’re feeling really saucy. . .

If you wish you had more time to write, start with anything more than nothing. Anything more than nothing is good! This advice can be applied to any creative endeavor / most goals.”

With that energy, I’ve been taking short bursts of time — 10 minutes, an hour, an afternoon — to make a medley of image and words, texture and color.

Maybe it’s collage, maybe it’s poem. Maybe it’s a creative exercise, or just a good stretch. But mostly, it feels good to strike a match and see what burns.

What are you making?

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The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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