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?

* * *

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

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Thankful Thursday: Dear Something

Dear Something, by Drew Myron

Dear Something Like Birdsong,

I remember your stillness.

* *

Today the memory of you is distant.

A throat clears in the next room. A jaw clicks open.

A shoulder tightens. You are barely a hum.

* *

Suddenly, it is fall, the waning light of a going season.

You cling to summer. You are a raft on a lake, floating

through endless light. That’s memory, isn’t it, always

in long, warm light. But you aren’t sentimental, do

not give in to hugs or hoorays. You keep your own sort

of distance, mix of sharp tongue and darting hands.

You are a subject, like a season, quickly changing.

* *

Some days I forget to miss you.

Some days I see you in a painting, or in a scattering of thin clouds.

Sometimes I feel you in a photo that is not even you,

yet there you are — all the voices of my life —

in a soft song that will always play.

* *

Dear birdsong and busy mothers.

Dear early dawn and determined dads.

Dear hum and buzz and steady stillness.

I am fine.

* *

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, and things. Big or small, pea-sized or profound, attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude deepens joy.

Please join me. What are you thankful for today?

Back to School: Campus Novels

Leaves are turning, air is cooling, and I’ve packed away my summer skirts. This means only one thing: It’s back to school season, and I can’t get enough of the campus novel genre.

Academic life can be a such an intense experience. A college campus, boarding school, or even run-of-the-mill high school is a wonderfully charged setting for themes of ambition, power, sex, longing, love, and other formative encounters. And fiction around this theme can display great internal and psychological drama, along with a fevered insider view.

Let’s go back to school! Hit the books with my favorite Campus Novels:

Americanah by Chimamanda Nogzi Adichie

Americanah, a novel that is both is absorbing and enlarging, tells the story of a young Nigerian woman who immigrates to the U.S. to attend university. Published in 2013, Americanah was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Published over 30 years ago, this novel is the first of Donna Tartt’s succesful works (followed by The Little Friend, The Goldfinch, and more). The thriller-mystery gives a moody mix of insular and sinister as it follows a clutch of students attending an elite New England college.

Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

An entertaining peek into the morally complex world of the college admissions process. If you like this novel — as I did — Korelitiz continues the insider theme, this time on writing and publishing, with The Plot and The Sequel (to be published in October 2024).

Straight Man by Richard Russo

Russo is a master of academia insight with a good dose of wry. With a mix of humor and pathos, this novel delivers my favorite story combination: frustrated writer and university life.

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

This 2020 novel is a dark and disturbing exploration of the psychological dynamic between a teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher. It's an intense and compelling story delivered with the steady hand of masterful writing.

My Education by Susan Choi

If you like the student-seduced-by-professor genre, this 2013 novel delivers an erotic, and chaotic, ride. Choi revisits the academic theme again with Trust Exercise, published in 2019.

Your Turn: What am I missing? There are loads of books in the campus novel genre, and I’m in the mood for more! What should I read next?

* * *

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

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A Moment in Time: Postcard Poems

Touring Season — a postcard poem by Drew Myron

Quick, write me a poem —
just a line will do, then
another. Letting go
is all it takes.

The best thing about the annual Poetry Postcard Fest is that it strengthens your creative will.

As with the traditional postcard sent while traveling, poem-messages are written in present tense, capturing small moments of the everyday. Like a freewrite, the poems are spontaneous and original, with little planning and no editing.

Good Medicine — a postcard poem by Drew Myron

What’s the key to postcard poetry success?

“Learning to trust your gut and not worrying about writing a ‘bad poem’,” says Paul Nelson, creator of the Poetry Postcard Fest. “Learning to put poetry closer to the front of your life’s focus once the fest starts (only for a few weeks) and look at everything as potential material for a poem.”

Still — a postcard poem by Drew Myron

It’s good advice, and it works.

The daily ritual readied me for the art of noticing: weather, landscape, light, mood, and more. And with practice I grew to trust my instincts and the mystery that rolled from my pen.

Unfortunately, my penmanship is messy. Quickly, I turned to my typewriter and discovered my typing skills are rough, too. My fingers are still sore from my old, but trusty, Royal Quiet De Luxe.

Typing slowed me down, and I grew to appreciate the clack of stuttered keys and slipping ribbon. Paired with an assortment of vintage postcards, I stepped into another time and place.

Parched — a postcard poem by Drew Myron

The poems I wrote each day for a month are likely not keepers. But no matter, the process planted seeds and exercised the writing mind. Spontaneous writing — and blindly sharing, with no edits, erasures, or fear — is a great way to stretch your creative possibilities.

I’m already collecting postcards for the 2025 Poetry Postcard Fest.

The Art & Joy of Postcard Poems

Well, that was fun!

The 18th Annual Poetry Postcard Fest just finished, and I had a great time.

The Fest is an annual worldwide literary event in which participants write and send 31 poems in 31 days. This year, over 600 poets took part, writing from 48 U.S. states, four Canadian provinces, and 10 countries.

For me, it was a fantastic exercise in daily, shortform writing. I thrive with structure and a nudge. And it was a delight to open my mailbox each day to new poems and postcards, many handmade works of art. Each postcard shined with its own content and style, from evocative phrases to piercing inquiry, from quips and puns to nature-based observations. In a good effort, you can feel the moment slow as image ignites and language distills. I love that moment.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Is a broken heart . . .
This postcard, with its seeming simplicity, is a beauty. An abstract handstamped design is accompanied by exacting language that reminds me of Pablo Neruda’s The Book of Questions, which at first feel silly and then quite profound. Poet Maryrose Larkin says her postcard poems are often “seeds that will grow into other poems.”

And I only know that because I reached out to writers for permission to share their work — and that’s another special part to the annual postcard event: mystery & surprise. For the Poetry Postcard Fest, you write, send, and receive poems to and from people you do not know. It feels like tossing thoughts into the air, uncertain how they may land. And then in the process, you discover the landing does not matter. It’s the act of making that prevails.

Is a broken heart . . . by Maryrose Larkin 

Backhand
This creative collage is so intriguing. For the Fest, artist-poet Joanna Thomas created over 40 original collages, each with what she calls a “word ditty.”

“The dictionary page is vintage, each page glued to cardboard from sources such as saltine boxes, which I collect and trim to postcard size,” she explains. “The portraits are photocopies of Rembrandt's  paintings. Then I cut/paste images from Vogue or wherever to create visual confusion. It's fun.”

Joanna’s work has been featured in numerous art exhibitions and poetry chapbooks.

Backhand . . . by Joanna Thomas

Greater Roadrunner
This postcard poem from Jennifer Johnston carries a quiet loveliness, a moment captured.

And I can read the handwriting! Creating a spontaneous poem in a small space is difficult enough without adding the challenge of human scrawl. I envy good — or even clear — penmanship. And that’s another aspect of the Fest that appeals to me: writing by hand. These days we so rarely write by hand, or see the hand of others. It’s like a fingerprint; no two are alike. For a postcard moment, I “see” you.

Greater Roadrunner . . . by Jennifer Johnston

It’s a treat to get real, old-fashioned, feel-good mail. Try it! Write a line. Capture a scene, a feeling, a fleeting now. You may be surprised at the power of making and releasing your work into the world.

* * *

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

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• If you are here, reading this now — thank you!

Thankful Thursday: Tomato Blues

The world is large, my gratitude small.

Do you know the long stretch between knowing and feeling? Intellectually, I know the world is rich with beauty but lately my heart feels too cramped to feel the magic.

Don’t worry, it’s only sadness talking. She returned this week, a damp seeping that began with a drip drip drip and quickly reached saturation. This will pass. It always does. I’m not drowning, just waving (with apologies to Stevie Smith).

A bout of the blues can really sour the search for thankfulness — but that, of course, is when I need gratitude even more.

Please join me in Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. Big or small, practical or profound, attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy, and my gratitude grows when shared with you.

If gratitude is an act of attention, this week I am working hard to live wide awake to the world. Sadness wants to sap your strength, turn you inward, make you small. In this funk, looking out is more action than I think I can muster and exactly what I need.

Please note, that yes, I am writing with great emphasis. Some days italics and exclamations (!) are excellent props for the enthusiasm I can’t quite reach. Punctuation can be a very cheery companion, for which I am thankful.

To that end: tomatoes!

Can you believe the bounty?! It’s harvest time and I’m eating tomatoes morning, noon, and night. Tomatoes and salt. Tomatoes and balsamic. Tomatoes and cheese. Tomatoes sliced, diced, pureed. Tomatoes in eggs, in salads, in soups, in everything.

Every year I am stunned with deliciousness. How quickly I forget how good the world can taste, how easy it is to feel lifted and light. With this fresh and wild sweetness, sadness has no room to grow.

And that’s my secret: starve sadness, eat tomatoes!

What are you thankful for today?

Ode to Tomatoes 

by Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera,
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it’s time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth,
recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

Blue Moon Monday

A 1910 photo of the Kwakwakaʼwakw, also known as the Kwakiutl, an indigenous people who used outrigger canoes as a source of travel through the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Source: Wikimedia Commons 

Full Moon Paddle on the Columbia River

This is something we’ll never forget, he says.

Over the hillside, a full moon rises to fill the night and
brilliance ribbons the river in light. The paddle catches
water as I reach through the dark. Together we lean and pull,
arms, legs, shoulders, hearts.

Like a camera, the mind sorts and records, click, click, click
and I wonder what memories will keep:  

this wash of shadow and shine, our laughter and sighs,
the train rumbling suddenly alongside our calm?

Or maybe the water — how warm and smooth, and
our voices easy so late at night

as if we are secrets slipping into dreams.
As if we are dreams slipping into life.

— Drew Myron

It’s a Monday and a Supermoon Blue Moon.

It’s a good day (and night!) to make something:

lists, letters, meals, memos, poems, pictures,

cookies, collage, stories, songs, drawings, dreams,

and delights. Please join me. Make something now!

* * *

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

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Fast Five with Paul Nelson

“Writing ought to be a way to learn about the self. To build a soul.”

— Paul Nelson

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.

Paul E. Nelson is a prolific poet, interviewer, broadcaster, and collaborator. As founder-director of the Cascadia Poetics LAB and Cascadia Poetry Festival, he has created and produced hundreds of events and interviews with poets and activists.

He co-created the Poetry Postcard Fest, an annual worldwide literary event and self-guided practice in spontaneous composition in which participants send 31 original poems on postcards to a list of recipients. Now in its 18th year, the Fest includes over 600 poets from 48 U.S. states, four Canadian provinces, and 10 countries. [Sidenote: I’m taking part in the event this year and basking in the pleasure of writing and receiving poetic postcards].

Paul has authored over a dozen books, including, A Time Before Slaughter, American Sentences, 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards, and many more.

He lives in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

1.
How did you come to writing?

I was a broadcaster for 26 years and did writing for many of the jobs I had in radio from 1980-2006. After 1990 I produced a weekly radio interview program and in January 1994, I began syndicating that to as many as 18 stations a week. I wrote the introductions and questions and conducted the interviews. I also did post-production, wrote promotional announcements and underwriting credits. Once in syndication, I started interviewing poets, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Joanne Kyger, Wanda Coleman, Ed Sanders, Anne Waldman, Eileen Myles, Jerome Rothenberg, Victor Hernandez Cruz and many others. What a rush to put poetry on the air at major radio stations, though the time of day it aired was not the highest rated time slot. Inspired by these and other poets, I started writing poetry and attending the weekly Red Sky Poetry Theater open mic.

2.
Why did you create the Poetry Postcard Fest? 

I had participated in the 3:15 Experiment for a few years but found the time of writing (3:15am every day in August) inconvenient. I loved the notion of having a writing project that would be conducted in August and told Lana Ayers, who was in my weekly writing critique group, about wanting to do something with postcards and she said: “I’ll help.” She did and then August turned into 56 days from July 6 to August 31. I did it in part to give folks the experience of spontaneous composition, but the fest unfolds its depth year after year, from the making of cards, to the graphic experience, to the community aspect, to the love of stamps and support of USPS (a huge part of The Commons), to being an antidote to social acceleration, and many, many other aspects.

3.
Please tell us about organic poetry.

Organic Poetry is a term used by Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan in the middle of their 20+ year correspondence. In her foundational essay “Some Notes on Organic Form” Levertov wrote: “it is a method of apperception . . . recognizing what we per­ceive . . . based on an intuition of an order, a form beyond forms, in which forms partake . . . Such po­etry is exploratory . . . words which connote a state in which the heat of feeling warms the intellect.”

Similar concepts are known as “Projective Verse” and “The Practice of Outside.” These are all different takes on a spontaneous approach to poetry in which first take, or something close to the first take of a poem, is used and not extensive revision. Levertov noted that if extensive revision is required it is likely that the poem did not incubate long enough. How each poem written like this finds its own form is quite satisfying to me. My graduate thesis was a group of essays on the subject, which can be found here, along with other essays which in one way or another are related to this topic. The Poetry Postcard Fest is designed so people can have an experience of this kind, with deep attention to, and trust in, the moment of composition. It is a method which, at its best, allows for a connection to something larger than ego.

4. 
You’ve interviewed hundreds of poets, artists, and activists. What have you learned? 

I learned that Allen Ginsberg’s approach to composition was similar to meditation; that Jean Houston believes this is Jump Time and that we are “the people of the parenthesis” existing after the death of the old gods and before the birth of the new; from Joanne Kyger that we can learn how to write projectively; from Michael McClure that “if poetry and science cannot change one’s life, they’re meaningless”; from Bhagavan Das that our time is so potent that three days spent in meditation, or some other kind of devotional activity now, would have the same impact of 30 years of practice a century ago; from Father Matthew Fox that ritual will be a growth industry in the 21st century; from Nate Mackey that serial form in poetry may be the most open art form ever invented; from Brenda Hillman that we have permission to be strange; from Christina Baldwin that people gathering in a circle have access to the circle’s ancient powers; from Sam Hamill that our lives change when we take a Bodhisattva vow to poetry; from Peter Berg that we live on this land like invaders and that a bioregional ethos would change that, change our own selves and save the biosphere one bioregion at a time; and so on and so on . . .

5. 
What’s the best writing advice you’ve received?

Various versions of the notion that abstractions and generalizations are used to cover something up, in poetry, usually a deeper gesture. “Abstractions have to be earned,” said Ezra Pound. Charles Olson warned about “the dodges of discourse” and about how Western Culture has abstracted itself from the very land on which it exists, which is at the core of our climate crisis right now and again validates my interest in bioregionalism.

 Bonus Question: What do you wish I would have asked?

What is your ultimate goal in writing, or your reason for writing?

Writing ought to be a way to learn about the self. To build a soul. So many “award-winning poets” are unhappy, shallow or unpleasant people. I wonder why that is so? I suspect that by chasing fame, they strengthen their egos and, as Brenda Hillman said: “the ego project is doomed to fail.” What writing project is NOT doomed to fail?

I think the Saturation Job, the multi-decade research project, the project tied to place and tied to history of that place is bound to teach the poet something about the world and likely something about their own self. Poetry is so far out of the mainstream, to use mainstream (capitalist) objectives when considering the “success” of poetry, that is a tact that is doomed to fail.

* * *

The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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Good Books, Rereads & Reruns

The world is full of books, read one.

Oh, the lazy days of summer. I love this season, when the light is long and the hours stretch to include more reading, relaxing, and some unintentional re-reading.

Here are some of my latest favorites:

1.
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
I can’t stop telling people to read this book. Yes, it’s a “crime thriller mystery” but it’s so much more. Written in a beautifully spare style that runs emotionally and psychologically deep, this novel is smart, poignant, and incredibly moving. The book debuted in 2020 and was a New York Times bestseller, but somehow I missed it. The world is full of books, and thankfully, it seems we’ll never run out.

2.
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
A very unusual novel that beautifully balances a languid pace with eerie tension. There is a deep mysterious tone that is both frightening and captivating.

(Because I gave the book to a friend, I didn’t include this novel in the photo above. Do you do this: press your favorite books into unwitting hands, urging them to read your latest love? Is this annoying? Please send me a line, let me know!)

3.
Commitment by Mona Simpson
I love Mona Simpson. I’ve been reading her since the 1990s (Egads, that’s “vintage” era!) and in the last decade I kind of lost track of her. A few months ago I was visiting one of my favorite bookstores and spotted this new novel. As usual, Simpson’s taut writing style manages to feel both spare and full. In this story of a family fractured by mental illness, the characters are vivid and flawed, and the sense of time and place is finely drawn.

(I gave this book away, too. What do you do with your favorite books?)

4.
Send Word: Poems by Donna Henderson
Send Word is an absolutely beautiful book, and finding this poetry collection has been an inspiring surprise. In this, her fourth book, Henderson skillfully blends evocative poetry with abstract art and sophisticated design. Henderson lives in Oregon, where she works as a psychotherapist, and is also a visual artist, singer, songwriter and accomplished poet.

(I’m keeping this book, though I did loan it, briefly, to a friend).

5.
Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro  
Confession: I didn’t like this short story collection when I read it in 2016. Then I forgot I read it and picked it up a few months ago — and loved it.

Oh, the power of time and change.

Munro is a master at fiction, and I’m just now understanding the praise she’s earned. To me, this paragraph sums the book, and, well, life:

“I did not go home for my mother’s last illness or for her funeral. I had two small children and nobody in Vancouver to leave them with. We could barely have afforded the trip, and my husband had a contempt for formal behavior, but why blame it on him? I felt the same. We say of some things that they can’t be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do — we do it all the time.” 

But with her recent death, that line now takes a grim view. It’s come to light that Munro’s husband sexually assaulted their daughter and that Munro was aware of the abuse and chose to stay in the marriage.

Oof, I don’t know what to do with this information. Can you love the writing while loathing the action? It’s an old debate. In literature, film, art, there are just too many examples of artists behaving more than badly (Woody Allen, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera  . . . ) My mind churns on the schism between art and artist.

In lighter news . . .

6.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

I loved this book when it was published in 2011. Recently, a good friend was raving about the novel and I agreed with great enthusiasm. But when she got into details, I drew a blank. I have a bad book memory (see above) and rarely reread books (well, not intentionally). But this gem deserved a rerun and I was delighted to return to New York in the 1930s and an engrossing tale of art, culture and class.

7.
Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles

Quick on the heels of Rules, I swanned into Towles’ newest book, Table for Two, a fantastic collection of short stories. Sometimes I forget the feeling of really great writing. The way you get so immersed in the experience that you simply glide through the pages as the characters take shape and the plot unrolls with ease. The reader does not see the turbulence of trying, does not feel the clack and clang of the writer’s hard work. Instead, the experience is effortless. You simply feel the float.

(This is a library book, and I don’t want to give it back!)

In other reruns, I recently rewatched two great movies:

8.
The Visitor
This 2007 movie features a college professor who finds a new outlook on life thanks to an immigrant couple who accidentally move into his apartment. Actor Richard Jenkins, with his dry, understated delivery, brings this quiet movie to life.

9.
Born on the Fourth of July
Yes, Tom Cruise stars in this 1989 movie — but watch it anyway. I’m not a fan of the Cruise machine of blockbuster films, but in this one (and Magnolia, my all-time favorite film) he is a powerhouse. Oliver Stone directs this anti-war drama set during Vietnam, and the message is just as relevant as it was nearly 40 years ago.

I watched this movie on July 4, 2024, and it was an excellent counter to the rockets red glare madness that was blasting through my neighborhood.

Okay, that’s enough from me. I’m tired! Give me some energy, won’t you, and share with me your latest good books, rereads & rewatches. I always like to hear from you.

Thankful Thursday: Plenty

Plenty - an erasure poem by Drew Myron

Thank you for spending Thankful Thursday with me, for keeping me accountable, appreciative, and grateful for things big and small. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy, and my gratitude grows when shared with you.

Some days are more difficult than others, to sort through the grim, to find the good. Here's what I've found to appreciate this week:

It’s a season of abundance.

In the orchards nearby, cherries hang heavy on sun-drenched trees. We pick and pick, more than we can eat. Under the thick canopy of branches, the deep red fruit feels like unexpected treasure and we can’t believe the fortune we hold in our hands.

At home, the blueberry bushes planted last fall have produced an unexpected bounty. The skinny shrubs struggled through winter, then wind and rain, and finally emerged with dusty purple reward. It feels a miracle, this simple plenty.

But how long we waited for summer, for this fever of heat rising like a thermostat now measuring joy. We loll in the heat, until the oven is oppressive. Then quickly, we want escape from the string of 100-degree days. A friend likens the heat wave to hot yoga. “I pushed myself,” she says, explaining the merits of too-much. “I leaned into the heat and taught my body to adjust and my mind to accept.” The discomfort was turned into a physical and mental experiment in fortitude and plenty.

Plenty, abundance, appreciation. Want it, get it, know it, hold it. The theme runs through our lives.

With that in mind, I offer this praise of plenty:

Ode to Heat

Praise flip flops,

tank tops and

linen relief.

Praise the cool

tile floor and a

morning breeze.

The early birds

chirping to cherries

sweetening by

every degree.

Praise Otter Pops

and river swims.

Languid days and

breezy books.  

Praise the beauty

of a frosted glass

and ice cubes rattling

in my tonic & gin.

Praise open

windows and

starry nights.

Praise this sun,

how easily it

erases the wreckage

of a winter long gone.  

— Drew Myron

Please join me in Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. Big or small, practical or profound, what are you thankful for today?

* * *

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On Independence

1.
Sometimes in deep quiet, clarity announces a fresh start and you have suddenly lost five pounds of worry and weight.

This is not that time.

Sometimes in the shower, sometimes late at night, in this sometime of now you are sitting in your bare yard, among weeds and tattered sky, sidelining a holiday of collective cheer.

2.
How did we get here?
Muddled for answers, questions become conversations that may never end.

3.
You’re looking for a different way to speak, you’re looking for beautiful things, impossible things, things to hold and touch, mountains and memories, stories and seasons to gather and release. You are looking for safety, for things that matter, like early in the year, early in the morning, late in the day, late in life, things you can never really know

when the screech of rockets red glare scatters your solace and you cannot remember the clear plans you had just yesterday on that long even drive beneath blue skies, along wide river, when the day welcomed you like an old friend and everything seemed more possible than you could believe.

 4.
And now, jangled and jittered, there is nothing but a dark night, a blank page, and a gusty wind that could change your life.

5.
Tell me again, what does independence mean?

* * *

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Wish You Were Here . . .

It’s postcard season, and I’m ready!

Once, a young friend went to Europe. “Send me a postcard,” I said as she departed. She arrived in the foreign country, purchased a postcard, and had no idea what to do.

Where do I write a message, put the address, place the stamp?

Some kind (and probably older) person taught the young writer the magic of postcard communication. Weeks later I received a colorful card filled with good cheer.

Like the rotary phone, stereo turntable, and film camera, the postcard harkens to early days and simple pleasures. Of slide shows, long strolls, and life without constant contact. And now, briefly, the past is present. Retro culture returns. Bring back the postcard!

To that end, I’m taking part in the annual Poetry Postcard Fest, a self-guided writing project that involves writing and receiving poems on postcards. The festival, launched in 2007, was created as an exercise of “both community and discipline” in which participants commit to writing 31 poems in 56 days, using limited space, and mailing the postcards to other participant poets around the world.

Join the fun! The event begins on July 4. Register here.

Writing a postcard is both challenge and delight. Like my young friend, I work hard to wrangle big ideas into small space. And really, this is an excellent exercise for all writers. Make every word matter. Prune, edit, prune more. Postcards, like poems, shine when they are vivid, concise, and image-heavy.

For the Fest, poets are urged to create first-draft originals by writing spontaneously, with limited (to no) editing. Rather than dazzle with polished poems, the Fest encourages creative stumbles and leaps. “The point is to experiment, stretch my subconscious’ mind-muscles,” explains Kat Bodrie, a longtime participant in the Poetry Postcard Fest. Founder Paul Nelson (with Lana Ayers) says the process is all about “having the guts to write without a net.”

Because I love freewriting, personal mail, and a good nudge, I’m eager to get started. Let’s work the writing muscle:

1. Join the Postcard Poetry Fest.

2. Too much of a commitment? Send me a postcard.

3. Or, let me send you a postcard poem. Send me your address, and I’ll send you a postcard poem.

4. Let the summer writing fun begin!

Need some postcard poem inspiration?

Village

Outdoors, a breeze
makes all the shrubs
look sociable.
White butterflies in a field
are the frayed handkerchiefs of those
who didn’t finish saying  good-bye.

— Bert Meyers from Postcards

See also:

Postcard from the Heartbreak Hotel by John Brehm

Postcard by Olena Kalytiak Davis

A Certain Slant of Sunlight by Ted Berrigan

* * *

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

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Try This: Design Rules

Remember the joy of magazines, those glossy print publications with large photos and worlds of possibility? Like the nearly extinct newspaper, the magazine has left the modern world, diminished in size, scale and popularity. Still, I like the shiny pages providing a peek into other worlds.

They also make an excellent writing challenge.

When I want low-pressure word play, I reach for the nearest magazine and make a scramble.

Here’s how: Flip to a page, copy words and phrases onto your own paper, then rearrange words, lines, and ideas to make your own poem. You can add words of your own, or increase the challenge by using only words from the magazine page.

A tip for the thrifty (me!): Get free magazines at your local library.

The scramble is a great writing warm-up, a good remedy for writer’s block, and a fun way to create unexpected word pairings that expand your creative power. The key is to stop making sense, while also creating some cohesion. Play with your words!

Design Rules

Never block a window.

Spindle strife. Vault the ceiling

and hang your mismatched expectation.

More-is-more makes a grand entry

but here’s a smart trick: get small.

Strike yourself from the room.

Bring in light.

— Drew Myron
created from Real Simple, June 2024


Your turn! 
Make your own scramble (or scramble my scramble). If you feel moved, share your poem with me at: dcm@drewmyron.com 



Want more word play?
Wordcatching
Cut Up
Overwrite
Headlines
Wild Card
I Remember
Where I’m From

You Showed Up

Happy Birthday! — with help from CakeWrecks.com

On the anniversary of saying too much, too often, I pause to remember when “blog” was a ridiculous made-up word. And sharing your personal thoughts on the internet was just weird and self-involved. 

Oh, how far we’ve come (and stumbled, tumbled, tossed, and turned).

Established in 2008, this blog is now 16 years old — time for a party, a curfew, a driver’s license!

On this long road, we’ve made good time. We’ve traveled from flip phone to smartphone, from cable cord to streaming ease. We’ve clunked through myspace and facebook, then snapchat, instagram, tik tok, substack and more. We keep reaching for the next shiny tease.

We’ve raced from Twilight to Towles, from Banksy to Holzer, from skinny jeans to wide leg flares, from Taylor Swift to, well, Taylor Swift . . .

Those early days now seem sweet and naive (ahh nostalgia, there you are). But I see now that time moves fast in a flurry of change yet sometimes slows enough to suggest familiar shapes in fresh form.

So many years ago, I started this blog along a quiet stretch of lonely road. I was hoping you might appear, for a moment, a pause, an occasional nod.  Much to my delight (and relief), you showed up, shining light, sharing thoughts, and shaping days — thank you.

Thank you for joining me in making something from our scraps and scrapes, for showing up to mull and mix, to circle and swap, to wonder and wander with mind and heart. The world turns on words — thank you for reading, writing & responding.

But let’s not get too frilly. Let’s just cut the cake!

* * *

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Thankful Thursday: Culling

“Memories” of Charlotte, Texas — photo by Billy Hathorn.

It was the Dutch Bros gift card that split me open.

“One small latte,” I said, handing the card to the peppy barista, “but I don’t know if there’s anything on here.”

“Sure, I can check that for you,” she offered, returning with hot coffee and the card. “You have $21.50 left,” she said, smiling.

I drove away near tears.

It wasn’t his wedding ring or wallet that drew me to tears. The photo albums and baby book did. His harmonica, too.

Then the culling got granular: ticket stubs, postcards, pesos, a checkbook balanced in his shaky hand, my mother’s driver’s license that he’d kept after her death. And then a neat, small stack of photos tucked in his dresser drawer, each image showing my parents last years together: traveling to New York, the Grand Canyon, Mexico. A bucket list of desires, check, check, check.

One by one, I put his life in a box, in a bin, in the trash. I was the hand of discarding, closing a life.

* * *

Maybe you know this process. After a death, the ephemera. What to toss, what to keep? Do you hold tight or let go?

Between tears, I’ve tried to be thoughtful and kind but also practical. No one wants the baroque silverware. Thrift stores, glutted with precious “heirlooms,” have stop accepting one man’s treasure. It’s now trash. Literally, actual trash. I am filling the landfill to its brim.   

Again and again, I ask: where will I keep so many things, while also knowing the heart can only hold so many memories. Mind space, like closet space, is full. Memories tarnish, fade and often slip away. I don’t know what to do with the stuff of a life, moved and stored and tucked away, from family to family, from death to death, to now me.

These everyday items — a school tablet, a baby book, an old ring, a few coins — seem small individually. And yet, how much does one preserve history, and at some point, is this personal history worth packing up and storing once again, in some other house of some other relative who has lost the thread of the generations before? Does history — these items — require perpetual storage? If the answer is yes, the question is what are we preserving, and why?

* * *

cull

/kəl/

verb
to select from a group; choose

to reduce or control the size of by removal

noun
something rejected as inferior or worthless

* * *

Maybe the process of culling is really the act of cherishing. In sifting through my father’s past, I remember anew with each review. This is, of course, the value of history. The events do not change, but our perceptions do. Maybe the act of attention is enough. To hold briefly, and then release.

May memory make permanent the tenderness of today.

* * *

I wear my father’s jeans. Levis, soft, faded. They are a bit big in the waist, but barely, and too long, but easily cuffed. With each wearing, the denim stretches and bags and I cinch the waist higher, tighter.

It’s weird, I know, and kinda creepy. But in the weeks after my father’s death, the jeans were soft and familiar. And I had unintentionally found a symbol for our relationship: an uneasy, make-do fit in which we craved encouragement and approval.

My desire for my dad’s clothing takes me by surprise. His full and organized closet showed a particular taste. The thrift shop clerk, when handed dozens of colorful shirts, sighed kindly, “Oh,” she said, “older men love their Hawaiian shirts.” 

My father never succumbed to sloppy. Perpetually thin, he was lanky and loose, with shoulders back, head up, and a face that would open into a wide smile. Even as he was dying, he showered, shaved, dressed. He would not let anyone see him disheveled.

This is not sentiment of longing.

I am not holding onto his clothes as one would a generational watch or beloved hat. We loved each other as much as we were able, and often it seemed not enough. These clothes, I see now, may be the closest I’ll get.

* * *

cull

To select, reject, discard.

To glance and glance again,

to study and gaze, to weigh and wonder,

to want for a moment. To pause and toss. To let go.

* * *

The last thing to sort — the wallet, thin and spare, a life pared. Credit card. Insurance card. Library card. A coffee card he never had the chance to use.

Our every visit, in every weather, involved coffee. Always a strong hot brew, with cream and chatter. Now, three months from his death, I slip the stiff plastic card into my own wallet.

Throat clenched in memory, hot coffee in hand, I drive away.

“Thanks Dad,” I say, to no one but myself.