Free. Here. Now.

Free! Free! Free!

I'm a sucker for giveaways. I especially like contests requiring no skill. You, too? Good.

National Poetry Month is winding down — thank goodness, no more of that poem-a-day nonsense (kidding, please don't send me hate mail) — and that means you've got just a few days to win some swag.

Hurry, hurry, don't delay. Get in on this giveaway:

 > The Surprise Package of Good Books
Prepared, packaged & sent especially to you from me (free, hand-written note included!). Win this drawing and I'll send you a delightful medley of books, with the promise of no has-beens, wanna-be's or duds in the bunch.

To win, simply enter your name and email address in the comments section below, or zip me an email at dcm@drewmyron.com, by midnight on Tuesday, May 3. A random drawing will be held and the winner announced on Wednesday, May 4, 2011.

You may wonder: Why is Drew giving away good books, and paying for postage, too?  Out of love, of course. Live long & read! When you give a book, you give joy. And spreading joy is rarely this easy. I gotta strike while the giving is good.

Restless traveler

I am a restless traveler.

Here's my routine:

1. Finish the one mediocre book I have, then natter at my travel partner who is engrossed in a fabulous novel and annoyed at my prattle. 

2. Wear the type off any newspaper, and an assortment of magazines, including, but not limited to, People, O, Elle, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Us Weekly (I didn't buy it. It was left on the chair. Honest), National Geographic (I didn't buy this either but it does balance out the tabloid trash), and in desperation, Popular Mechanics.

3. Inhale snack foods, search for more, and then battle fierce guilt, remorse and bloat over my indulgence.

All this occurs before I board the plane. 

Thank goodness for Newspaper Blackout Poems, a poetic form mastered by Austin Kleon. This process appeals to my scrappy belief that Poetry is everywhere! You just gotta find it.

Got a minute, or hours? Grab a pen and some printed material —  any newspaper or magazine will do. (For added chuckles, use the Sky Mall magazine). Simply highlight, eliminate and create!

In no time at all, the flight attendant will rally travelers with the universal call, Put your seats and tray tables to the upright position. And you'll depart, or perhaps arrive, with the satisfaction of creativity in action.

 

Hedgerows

To restore the soul
perch between an ocean
and a garden.

Follow the dandelions.
Escape the wealth of order.

Follow the miles of trees
and plant
a fresh air solution.

— Drew Myron


What's in your pocket?

It's Poem in Your Pocket Day -- one of my favorite occasions.

The premise is simple:  Select a poem you love and carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, friends, neighbors and strangers (I added the strangers part. The Academy of American Poets, sponsors of this special day, do not officially include strangers in the sharing process, but really, isn't everyone a stranger until they meet the good, pure love of a poem?).

This is a day to savor and share, and I prefer to travel light, with a short but punchy poem. Here's my pick:

And Love Says

And love
says

"I will take care of you,"

To everything that is
near.

- Hafiz
translated by Daniel Ladinsky
 The Gift, poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master

 

What poem is in your pocket?

 

Fever, fervor, pressure, pleasure

The writers are aflutter.

It's National Poetry Month, an April of fever, fervor, pressure and pleasure. As part of the celebration, challenges are served: Write a poem each day, read a poem, share a poem, be a poem.

It's like prom for writers. Everyone trying so hard. I'm both dizzy with delight and queasy from overload. In this spirit, the other day I was happy to find Mint Snowball, a collection of paragraphs by Naomi Shihab Nye. 

"I think of these pieces as being simple paragraphs rather than prose poems . . ." she explains. "The paragraph, standing by itself, has a lovely pocket-size quality. It garnishes the page, as mint garnishes a plate. Many people say (foolishly, of course), they don't like poetry, but I've never heard anyone say that they don't like paragraphs. It would be like disliking five-minute increments on the clock."

I Was Thinking of Poems

In the fields our eyes whirled inside a blur of green. Before I
wore glasses I came here. Thought the world was soft at the
far edges for real. Green rim of trees alongside anyone's life.
Stalk. Pod. Tendril. Blossom. On a farm you had time. Your
mind on words. Turned over gently and longly inside your
head. Damp dirt under dry surface.

He said "Rain" or "Easy." Said "String" or "Yellow." A boy
said "Yes sir" but meant "I don't get it." A phrase dangled.
Strip of cloud. Wide angle. Line breaks. Where the asparagus
row turned into the beets.

 - Naomi Shihab Nye, from Mint Snowball

 

Thankful Thursday

Because appreciation increases joy, it's Thankful Thursday. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. Today, I am grateful for:

sunshine

mangoes

the translucence of sauteed onions

clients that appreciate my work (and me)

a sound sleep

thin pillows

thick towels

quietude

nail polish that lasts

nimble fingers

lists

the brilliant simplicity of a manual can-opener

 

Tell me, what are you thankful for today?

 

Thankful Thursday on Friday: Practice

I'm a day late but still thankful.

A few things I appreciate this week:

Creative Kickstarts
Writing, like most endeavors, requires practice. To improve skills you gotta practice (just as in piano, painting, running, baseball, dance . . . ). I like the creative kickstart writing prompts provide. They give me permission to play with words.

A Writing Companion I've Never Met
As children we have imaginary friends. As adults, we get virtual friends. I have a poetry friend. We've never met but I'm pretty sure I'm not making her up. Each week we agree to a writing prompt and then share our work. Week after week, despite the whirl of family, commitments, and mental and emotional blocks, we keep writing. I am grateful for the accountability and encouragement this friendship provides. And it's nice to have a pen-pal again, just like when I was 10.

Newsprint
I love newsprint. The smooth yet toothy texture, the way ink glides over its pulpy surface. For me, the joy of writing is tactile. I like the grip of a pen, the physical act. When writing on newsprint — remember Big Chief tablets? — I feel loose. Words flow.

This week the Poets & Writers prompt (click here to get yours) was to:

Write a poem on a page of today's newspaper, allowing your eye to wander slightly and take in the language on the page, and for your text to overlay the text on the page. If you fix your eye on a specific word or phrase, incorporate it into the composition.

This was fun. Newsprint, like yesterday's paper, feels temporary, and so I didn't feel pressure to write something good. It was enough to let words bubble and move, which led to a wonderful realization: Everything, in life & in writing, is practice.

There now, doesn't that feel better?

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places and things that bring joy. Happiness contracts and expands with our appreciation. Tell me, what are you thankful for today?

 

Before I Die . . .

In an act of creative brilliance, Candy Chang turned the side of an abandoned house in her New Orleans neighborhood into a giant chalkboard where residents can write on the wall and share their hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Before I Die was an instant success. Within days, hundreds of people wrote on the wall and more than a thousand have left messages online.

"It’s a question that has changed me," says Chang, an artist and urban planner, "and I believe the design of our public spaces can better reflect what’s important to us as residents and as human beings."

Your turn. Take some chalk and write your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Unfurl no more

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for fresh words, and weary of the worn-out ones. 

I spend a great deal of time pondering word choices:

- At Seashore Family Literacy, the Word Wall is home to our favorite words.

- With clients, colleagues and friends, I mull pressing issues, such as:  What's another word for quell? or Is there a one syllable word for overwhelmed?

- At home, I often roll out words in random but rhythmic succession, producing an eye-rolling husband who says, We're doing this again?

As much as I love words, I loathe a few, too. The other day I got a two-line email from my mother that reminded me of the love/hate state (of words, not mothers):

Words I am sick of, she wrote, crisis, emergency, disaster, bipartisan.

She's right. From politics to pop culture, we get stuck in word ruts: game-changer, end of the day, sustainable, green, transparent.

Words innocuous in small amounts grow unbearable with repetition: amazing, dude, awesome.

And a flip turn-of-phrase — Seriously, really? — grates in the constant replay. 

In fiction and poetry, once lovely phrases have, with repetition, set me on edge: whorl, unfurl, lavender.

And while I can sling the snark, I take my own arrows, too: I must stop replying to surprising news with Wow!  And I must stop peppering poems with gloomy and gray, and ending with again and again. Perhaps this public airing will remind (read: shame) me into finding fresh words (and stop complaining about the weather).

The world is full of words, let's use more of them!

How about you? What words are you sick of seeing? And what words do you over-use? 


Thankful Thursday

In the wake of of tsunamis, earthquakes, radiation, war  — and, closer to home, rain, wind and gloom — I'm having trouble with joy. Finding it. Holding it.

Yes, I am grateful. Grateful to be spared natural disaster. Grateful that in my world, on the central Oregon coast, the tsunami siren and reverse-911 call was, ultimately, unfounded. I am thankful to be safe, but feeling so comes with realization that too many have perished. My gratitude feels a bit like gloating.

And grateful is not thankful.

Gratitude is counting blessings and a wash of relief. Thankfulness — cousin to gratitude — is light and bright, as in thank you ma'am, and a good day to you, too.  

I am wondering: Where is the light step of joy — thankfulness — in these days colorless and fraught?

Yesterday, engulfed in a list of chores and worrying over an early morning misunderstanding, I ventured out of the house and into the rain. Soaked with frustration, every face I saw — at the post office, in the market, crossing the street — was wearing my same scowl. All of us furrowed, worn, and ready to snap.

I live in a small town. You can't glare or galumph to people you will see again, and likely soon. There's only 600 of us, and if we're all sneering, life gets real miserable real quick.

Still, I couldn't help myself.

As I pulled from the post office parking lot, a woman darted in front of my car. The rain had worsened and the wind was whipping. From her dripping hood, she raised her head, leveled her eyes, and glared.  

Gripping the wheel, I began to glare back — and caught myself. Inexplicably, I offered a smile. Not calculated or smarmy, but instant and without thought. To my great surprise, she smiled back.

Since then, I've been thinking about that moment — and it was less than a moment, really. How, in just a flash, my shoulders eased, my jaw loosened and my mood lightened, and in turn, hers did, too. For an instant we were nothing but grins.

I am thinking how little it takes, this tranquil shift.

 

Love this passage

I wondered how often the future waits on the other side of the wall, knocking very quietly, too politely for us to hear, and I was filled with longing to reach back into my life and inform that unhappy girl: all around her was physical evidence proving her sorrows would end. I wanted to tell her that she would be saved, but not by an act of will: clever Gretel pretending she couldn't tell if the oven was hot and tricking the witch into showing her and shoving the witch in the oven. What would rescue her was time itself and, above all, its inexorability, the utter impossibility of anything ever staying the same.

— from Hansel and Gretel, a story appearing in The Peaceable Kingdom by Francine Prose

Read, run, read

I'm running a 5k — from home!
Will you join me?

Sara Roswell, of Life's a Wheeze, is hosting the Wheezy Virtual 5k. Everyone is invited— from couch slugs to marathon hounds. All breathers and wheezers welcome.

It's simple: On Saturday, March 19, run 3.1 miles, on the treadmill, around your neighborhood, in a park, at the mall, whatever works for you. Before and after the race, check in at Life's a Wheeze.

To get in the groove, I'm taking literary inspiration from running-related reads:

Heartbeat, by Sharon Creech, is the engaging story — told in verse — of 12-year-old Annie, who finds solace in running as the world around her shifts and swirls.  Creech, with a masterful light hand, explores how we become who we are, how we are unique and yet how we are all alike, and to what degree we should conform.

Running for the Soul, from Road Runner Sports, is chocked with short, real-life triumphs from runners of all ages and abilities. This slim but powerful book will have you lacing your shoes and raring to run long before you've hit the last page.

I've got a week of reading and training ahead, and I'd love your help. Tell me, What gets your mind and body in the movement mindset?


Pull me from this winter coma

March, you vex me.

You are a tease, a taunt, a passive agressive yes and no and not yet. The only way to get through this passage bridging winter and spring is to eat, drink, nap, and read. It was in the throes of these vices that I found March Afternoon, a poem by Sandy Longhorn. 

Stun me, she writes. Pull me from this winter coma.

Can she call it, or what? 


March Afternoon

Emergency flare of a sun,
                                                      an empty sky.

Wind gusts ruffle the remains of last year's tall grasses —

                         the stand of ornamental pampas
                              and the pond rushes gone brown and dry.

I am talking to the hawk and the horizon when I say:

                                                                   Stun me.
Pull me from this winter coma.
Cleave me open
                           like sod split by the plow.
                                                                             Lay me bare.

The red wasps hang in the air,
                                              dangerous question marks.
                    The sun slides toward the tree line,

collides with a forming cloud —
                                                             a muscular light blooms.

 

— Sandy Longhorn
from Blood Almanac


Life is visceral, and other lessons

1
Be authentic. The most powerful asset you have is your individuality, what makes you unique. It’s time to stop listening to others on what you should do.

2
Work harder than anyone else and you will always benefit from the effort.

3
Get off the computer and connect with real people and culture. Life is visceral.

4
Constantly improve your craft. Make things with your hands. Innovation in thinking is not enough.

5
Travel as much as you can. It is a humbling and inspiring experience to learn just how much you don’t know.

6
Being original is still king, especially in this tech-driven, group-grope world.

7
Try not to work for stupid people or you'll soon become one of them.

8
Instinct and intuition are all-powerful. Learn to trust them.

9
The Golden Rule actually works. Do good.

10
If all else fails, No. 2 is the greatest competitive advantage of any career.


— 10 Lessons for Young Designers
from John C Jay, Executive Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy.
Courtesy of AIGA.

 

Thankful Thursday: Unanswerables

XLIX

When I see the sea once more
will the sea have seen or not seen me?

Why do the waves ask me
the same questions I ask them?

And why do they strike the rock
with so much wasted passion?

Don't they get tired of repeating
their declaration to the sand?

- from The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda

The Book of Questions — a series of 320 questions in 74 poems by Pablo Neruda — has no answers. Instead, these poems nudge us to experience inquiry, not for rational, practical answers but for the sensation of wonder and what-if?

"We may ask our own unanswerable questions, and might come to find reflected in ourselves the world beyond might and sight," explains William O'Daly in the introduction to the poems he translated. "Neruda believed the inner quest was never-ending, that on some level what we learned was forgotten, so that we might learn it again."

On Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for questions that require no answers. For a change, I am content to let the queries dangle unknown, impossible, infinite.

 

We're all strangers here

"Love," Yo enunciates, letting the full force of the word loose in her mouth. She is determined to get over this allergy. She will build immunity to the offending words. She braces herself for a double dose: "Love, love," she says the words quickly. Her face is one itchy valentine. "Amor." Even in Spanish, the word makes a rash erupt on the backs of her hands.

Inside her ribs, her heart is an empty nest.

— from How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez


I've been on a binge of immigrant stories. Not memoirs of displacement, but beautiful fiction inspired and influenced by real-life events and experiences. Some of my favorite novels (and films) are stories that illuminate cultural divides. Perhaps I feel an empathy for those who live jarred between past and present, or maybe it's the sense of alienation I understand — after all, even if we never leave our own country, we're all strangers in a strange land at some point in our lives. Through the eyes of others we can see ourselves, and through our stories we gain a deeper knowledge of one another.

A few of my favorite stranger-in-a-strange land tales:

Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
"A deeply moving story of the men and women who risk everything to cross the Mexican border . . . Succeeds in stealing the front page news and bringing it home to the great American tradition of the social novel."

 

Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal
With great humor and wit, Satyal tells the story of a pre-teen Indian boy with grandiose aspirations.

 

 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Oscar, a first generation Dominican-American teen, "a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd." 

 

 

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
A heartbreaking yet joyful tale about a young girl growing up in a Latino neighborhood of Chicago.

 

 

Stubborn Twig by Lauren Kessler
Not a novel, but a true story recounting three generations of Japanese Americans. History is painful and cruel as Kessler shines a light on one family forever changed by the WWII internment camps that forced over 100,000 people into mandatory relocation.

 

 What have I missed? I'd love to hear your suggestions!