Allons! the road is before us!

I spent the week with a group of lively 11, 12 and 13-year old girls.

As the Summer Camp Adventure Writers (a program of Seashore Family Literacy), we made each day an exploration of the world around us. We journeyed across the historic Alsea Bay Bridge, hiked the temperate rainforest of Cape Perpetua, took the city bus to Newport to wander the working bayfront, and kayaked Eckman Lake, where we paddled against a steady wind that made us feel strong and accomplished when we returned to shore.

As our call to action, we adopted Walt Whitman's Song of the Open Road:

Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Every day we viewed the world with fresh eyes, remembered to taste the air, smell the earth, touch the quiet world within.

One blink is all it takes to see a whole new world.
— Hannah, age 11

Each reflection sparked another so that our pens moved as quick as our feet and words flowed as easily as our laughter.

I search through my mind to find I have seen the small stuff. I have asked why and I know that when you explore yourself you will always find new things.
— Lexi, age 12

Next week, I will attend another sort of summer camp; I've been granted a fellowship to attend Fishtrap, a weeklong writing workshop in eastern Oregon. I imagine it as a summer camp for adults — with the same delicious emphasis on travel, both inward and outward. In fact, this year's theme is Migrations & Passages. The featured guest is renowned travel writer Pico Iyer, who wrote, "We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves."

For children and adults, I'm happy to say the same message applies: 

Allons! the road is before us!

 

 

Read. Floss. Write.

Oh, I have lots
of little morsels of advice:
Read often and a lot. Floss.
Invest in a good pair of shoes
and write letters more often.
Listen to the paper take the ink
when you sign your name.

— Aimee Nezhukumatathil

 


Check out Poetic Asides, a Writer's Digest blog by Robert Lee Brewer, who has gathered writing advice from an impressive collection of contemporary poets, including two of my (Pacific Northwest) faves -- Dorianne Laux and Susan Rich.

How about you: What's the best writing advice you've received, or given?

Thanks to Erika Dreifus for sharing this link on her blog.

 

Thankful Thursday Night

I slip them into letters, serve them with dinner, and sprinkle them into everything from congratulations to condolences. I'm always sharing poems.

But sometimes my enthusiasm can be a bit much. 

I don't really like poetry, a young writer recently admitted. I don't get it.

I gathered myself, rose to full posture and began my poetry pep talk.

And stopped.

She was right. I sometimes don't like poetry either. I get frustrated by clever phrasing, put off by evasive "meaning," and annoyed with lofty voice. Some days I want nothing to do with poets or poetry. All that suffering. All that longing. Too much whining. Let's get a Slurpee instead!

And then, a few days later, I find a killer poem. I climb into the poem like a kid in a tree, reaching higher and higher for the best view and the perfect perch. And then, because I've tasted how words, experience and perspective can blend, bend and sing, I clamber down to earth to write my own.

So I say to my young friend, Yes, yes, I know. But poems aren't secrets or tests. You don't need to analyze, you just need to feel. 

She nods, and I can't tell if she agrees or is ready to bolt. I stop waving the poetry flag. We talk fiction instead.

And then, weeks later, she sends me a poem.

I found this and thought you might like it, she writes. And, of course, I do. I love the poem, the discovery of the poem, and the young woman finding her way with words.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt — marvelous error! —
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

- Antonio Machado

 

It's Thankful Thursday. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? What makes your world, your heart, expand?

 

Join me?

Off the Page, On the Coast 

A one-day writing workshop in Yachats, Oregon
Saturday, August 6, 2011 from 10am to 4pm

A workshop for writers of all levels, experience & interests. From poetry to prose, fact to fiction, the focus is on fresh writing with prompts and practices designed to inspire and energize. Led by Drew Myron, participants will generate new work in an encouraging atmosphere and serene coastal setting.

The workshop takes place at the Overleaf Lodge Event Center, a warm and inviting spot nestled steps from crashing ocean waves, minutes from a shoreline trail, and in the beauty of Yachats, a tranquil beach town of just 650 people on the central Oregon Coast.

Cost is $65, and includes lunch.

To maintain a supportive, intimate experience, workshop is limited to 12 writers.

Register Now
- Register online


- Register by mail
Send check, and contact info (name, address, phone, email) to: 

Drew Myron
Off the Page, On the Coast
Box 914, Yachats, Oregon 97498

Questions? Call 541-547-3757, or email dcm@drewmyron.com

Thankful Thursday: Stains and Stench

Dear Crummy Motel,

Thank you for perspective. A single dark hair clings
to the bathroom sink and mottled dust hovers
on the baseboard edge. But all is not grim.

Stained carpet and a thrift store stench
urge me to appreciate life’s small luxuries.

Last night your thin walls invited me to the party next door,
and in this I am reminded that I am a quiet person in a quiet life.
Sometimes I forget.

On the table a tattered pad of paper calls me to scribble lines
about the barking men on the asphalt edges, revving engines
as their girlfriends emerge halter-topped and happy.

From the comfort of a swanky hotel, all this would go un-noticed.

I would be nestled in thick pillows and smooth sheets
watching Real Housewives on a sleek screen. I would pretend
real means heels, hair and endless parties.

But you, humble motel,
remind me how little I need,
how much I have.

 

It's Thankful Thursday. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? What makes your world expand?

 

Overheard

I'm curious and fascinated by the lives of others.  What's your story? I always wonder.

As a reporter, my vocation provided the ideal excuse to probe for answers. These days, however, I ask less and listen more. When out to dinner, for example, I almost always listen to the conversation at the next table. I don't crane to hear. My nosiness comes naturally.

Lately, I have put my overactive listening skills to use. By gathering the lines of others and making them my own, I am creating overheard poems.


Happy Hour, Happy Birthday

— overheard at the Embarcadero Lounge

I got my AARP card in the mail.
I don’t need that.
I went to Portland to drown my sorrows.

Thank God, there’s always hair coloring.
I don’t know what happened to my boobs.
I don’t have boobs anymore.

It’s a minus tide.

 
How about you? It's your turn to show and tell. What's in your ear? On your page?

 

Thankful Thursday: thx thx thx

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places and things.

Today I am thankful for a Leah Dieterich, a woman who shares my love of the thank you note. Her book, thx thx thx: thank goodness for everything is a collection of her thank you notes to the world.

From houseguests to laziness, clean sheets to berets, Leah appreciates the everyday in a daily record of gratitude. Neither saccharine or sentimental, Leah's notes show great mindfulness.

"A few years ago I was living in the future," she explains in the book's foreword. "Not in a sci-fi kind of way, but in that I spent a lot of time thinking about what I'd do when this or that happened, or what I'd do if it didn't. It was stressful to live like that all the time. There were occasions, however, when I felt more calm, more satisfied, and I noticed these were the moments I stopped to think about all the things I had right then and there. The things I was grateful for."

She acknowledges that a thick book of small notes is a tough sell, and even turns that awareness into a thank you note: "I realize a book of thank you notes could come off as overly sentimental, syrupy even, so I applaud you for being less cycnical than the average person."

 

Surprise !?

Last month I gave away a bag of books. No ordinary grab-bag, mind you, but a carefully selected Surprise Package of Good Books.

And the surprise was partly on me, as the first winner — chosen in a highly unscientific, blindfolded drawing — was a no-show. Oh, Ida, we hardly knew you. In fact, we knew you not at all. Fortunately, the bag of books found a home with our second place winner: Shirley!

And because so many participants have asked (okay, just one) I will now unveil the books you could have won, and could be reading right now. While this tease may seem a bit cruel, do not despair. You can get your grubby little hands on these books; Go to your local library, used bookstore, new bookstore, e-reader — or just hit up Shirley.

Poetry in Person: Twenty-five Years of Conversation with America's Poets
Edited by Alexander Neubauer, this thick volume provides both a historical and insider's experience with a stellar line-up of premier poets.

Pictures of You
The latest novel by Caroline Leavitt showcases the prolific writer's consistent skill at weaving contemporary story with engaging plot.

Living Things: Collected Poems
Anne Porter was 83 when her first collection of poems was published. The book was a finalist for a National Book Award for poetry and was followed by Living Things in 2006. One Minute Book Reviews calls her "an Easter lily in the field of late-blooming poets. . . She describes a world that is, as O’Connor put it, founded on the theological truths of the Faith, but particularly on three of them which are basic – the Fall, the Redemption, and the Judgment . . . Porter transmits her Franciscan joy in created things and reminds us that the idea of the holy is still possible for us."

Haiku Poetry
This slim and unassuming book of poems holds the impressive work of Seattle, Washington-born poet and philosopher James William Hackett, born in 1929. Notable for his work in English, an international award is given in his honor: The James W. Hackett Annual International Award for Haiku, administered by the British Haiku Society.

Waterstone Review
A literary annual published by the Hamline University Graduate School of Liberal Studies, Waterstone published work of all genres as well as essay, reviews and interviews. It's one of my favorite literary journals.

 

This was fun. Let's do it again soon. In the meantime, do tell, what books have surprised you? 

 

Thankful Thursday: By Hand

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.

Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things that bring joy.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for all things handwritten and heartfelt:

1. A postcard from a former student

2. A thank you letter from a recent college graduate

3. A Pay It Forward package. Remember Pay It Forward for Creative People -- the Facebook post? The deal was that you agreed to send something handmade to five people AND agreed to pay it forward by doing the same for another five people.  I sent my handmade items several months ago and forgot about the project — until this week when I received MY surprise package of handmade goods. What a delight!

4. My mother, who taught me to write thank you notes, and who this morning, upon not seeing a Thankful Thursday post, wrote me (not by hand, but by email) this message:

Aren't you thankful anymore?  

 

Is the poem the poet?

The conversation continues!

When I learned of poet Marjorie Power's decision to stop writing for an entire year, I suspected others would share my intrigue. The blog post recapping her experience generated much response, and one especially potent question (edited for brevity): 

I read Marjorie's poem many times. Just now I realized that with each reading I might have been committing a reader's fallacy — assuming the second-person pronoun in the poem is Marjorie's reference to herself.

How many times have I been told not to mix up the persona/speaker of a poem with the poet. And yet I find in this case it is hard to separate the two. . . Does anyone else confuse or muddy the water between persona/speaker and the poet in reading poetry? Maybe doing so, after all, doesn't matter! Am I making too much of my "just now" observation?

This comment raises a critical issue. I, too, was trained to never assume the poem is the poet. But I see this foundation becoming less and less a standard. In our new share-all world  — the proliferation of memoir, the confessional nature of Facebook, the scripted reality of television — it seems we expect a seamlessness in which the artist is the canvas, the poem is the poet.

What do you think: Does the distinction between persona/poem still matter ?


Where poetry blooms

County Fair.

If those two words evoke pig-stink and cowpokes, it's time for a major re-frame. The Denver County Fair is taking old ag tradition and making new sassy fun. Now it's pickles, pies — and poetry. Yes poetry!

I'd tell you all about it, but Susan Froyd of Westword says it best:

Poetry is all about words well chosen; success in gardening starts with the right seeds. Placement, or syntax, means everything to both: While the poet needs to know exactly when to let the sun shine directly on a word and when to hide it in shadow, the gardener must likewise synchronize his watering regime, know when to feed a plant and when to hold off. The point? To help pass on the Denver County Fair's announcement that it will sponsor a poetry contest, Bounty, specifically for verse with agrarian themes, in both adult and youth categories.

Inspired by DCF organizer Tracy Weil's symbiotic art/poetry friendship with poet Drew Myron, the contest is easy to enter -- the $5 fee includes a free fair pass -- as long as you do it by July 18: Visit the website to register. Prizewinners and finalists will all have an opportunity to read their works at the fair's Sunday morning Poetry Performance in the Farm and Garden Pavilion; the top bard of the fair will also win fifty bucks.

This is, of course, only one of dozens of competitions in everything from fattest cat to best tattoo (not to mention the more traditional pie and produce categories) taking place during the four-day fair at the National Western Complex; get all the info at the Competitions tab.

 

Postcard Poem: In the vineyard

earth offers

because nature is flush
mahogany vines hang heavy
against a wide blue sky

the day spreads a feast just for us  
says         yes   now

drink the mystery
of cedar and soil

taste the dark gloss
of plump summer fruit

know the terrain
of this generous world

- drew myron

 

Could you stop writing?

Immediately a kind of cocoon began to form around my deepest self.

 
She gave up writing.

For an entire year, Marjorie Power — a prolific poet with hundreds of published poems and several books —  didn't write. Why? How? Intrigued by this experiment, I asked Marjorie, who just this month concluded her year-long hiatus, to share her experience with us.

 

Thank you, Drew, for asking me to be your guest blogger.  I hope what I say will be of use to others.

For most of my adult life (I'm 63) I've been engaged in writing poetry, submitting it to editors, and seeing much of it published by small presses. I stopped during the second half of my twenties, when my son was little, and have taken occasional breaks since then -- breaks that lasted from a few weeks to a few months. I continued to identify with being a poet until the writing slump or too-busy-to-write period ended.
 
But in the spring of 2010 I began feeling a need to stop writing poems and allow myself not to know whether I'd resume. I chose to take a year to let my psyche empty out, to let life flow through me and beyond without trying to capture it in images. I planned to decide at the end of the year whether to write more poetry, choose a different path, or spend another year floating in limbo. This decision to take a year off came as a relief.  Immediately a kind of cocoon began to form around my deepest self. During the following weeks and months, when voices from the outer world started to provoke confusion or a sense of failure, the cocoon would thicken. I read some poetry, but not much. My reading consisted mostly of magazines and works of fiction.
 
What preceded my decision was a sense of exhaustion and isolation. These feelings had two sources.
 
First, my husband and I have moved two times since his formal retirement in 2004, first to Yachats, Oregon (on the central Oregon Coast) and then inland (75 miles) to Corvallis. Apart from the physical aspect, the second move proved more challenging. This was a surprise, since we didn't go very far from Yachats. The challenge came in finding new friends and even potential friends, despite many interesting things to do. It became clear why retired people who move often choose communities designed specifically for retirement. We had not done that, either time, though Yachats does have a strong appeal to a certain kind of retiree.
 
And as a publishing poet, I felt way out on a limb. My publishing record consists of several hundred poems in journals and anthologies, plus seven collections that vary in length from 21 to 58 pages. I never became an academic nor did I transition gracefully to using the internet for promoting my work.  (During this past year I did begin posting poems as "notes" on Facebook.  I still don't have a website, though I may, in time.)  I've never been a performance poet or a slam poet. I've been a featured reader in various venues and enjoyed that, as has the audience. And while there are lots of writers, including lots of poets, in Corvallis, I couldn't seem to find square one when it came to making connections that might lead to reading opportunities. In January I did give a reading up in Olympia, Washington, where I lived for twenty years.
 
Since beginning my year off, I've given the soul energy necessary for creating poems to another aspect of life. I have been deliberately building new friendships among neighbors and others, including myself, in my new community. Treating oneself as a friend is different than being narcissistic, or simply maintaining good self esteem. It's active, fun, and rewarding. I keep myself company by knitting, a lifelong hobby, and have completed many beautiful and useful projects. My yarn stash seems a manifestation of the cocoon I mentioned earlier. And I am a member of a delightful knitting group here in town.
 
Another deliberate, quiet pursuit has involved writing: I send out a handwritten letter or note at least once a week. I plan to continue indefinitely. Many such notes go to my young grandtwins in Michigan, since handwritten letters will be extremely uncommon in their future. I have continued submitting unpublished poetry to editors. I've got two full length poetry manuscripts which have received serious attention in contests/open readings, so I continue to enter those, even though one definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing while expecting different results.
 
In early May, right after my year off ended, I attended the Northwest Poets Concord, a gathering of poets in Newport, Oregon. Sometime during the weekend I heard, "Poetry creates silences around things in a world clogged with verbiage." I had forgotten that. I went home and wrote a page long poem. I know others will follow. I will keep knitting in between.
 
I'd like to recommend two books, both of which I read this spring: Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce by Peter Clothier, and Beauty, The Invisible Embrace by John O'Donohue.  



Marjorie Power lives with her husband, Max Power, in Corvallis, Oregon.  She is a native of Connecticut and graduate of San Francisco State University.  Her poems appear in journals and anthologies all over the U.S., and in seven small collections.


Random acts of reading

Lately, my acts of literature are passive: reading.

You know that saying? A bad day of fishing is better than no fishing at all. I feel the same about reading. I haven't been enthralled with all of my latest reads, but I'm always happy to engage in the act.

I started two novels that I did my darndest to like but could not press on. I won't mention names because that just seems mean (but catch me in private and I might spill). I also slogged through a book thinking the story would develop, the characters would charm, but to no avail. I felt so played. Maybe it's me. I'm cranky, impatient, hard to please? But the world is full of books, and readers, so maybe it's not always me.

How about you, what are you reading? I'm nosy, and hungry for good books. In fair play, I'll share first:

Rescue
by Anita Shreve
The prolific novelist keeps turning 'em out. And though I have trouble keeping the stories straight, each book keeps me riveted to the page.

 


Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain
by Portia De Rossi
Do we need another memoir from another actress? No, but this was a nice surprise in both quality and content. On a related note, book covers are looking good lately. I love good design, and this cover, and the one above, seem especially evocative.

 

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
by Haruki Murakami
A novelist who runs, or a runner who writes?  Both! This book, chronicling the author's experience running marathons and ultramarathons, is inspiring and exhausting.

 

The Insomniac's Weather Report
by Jessica Goodfellow
These poems are complex and I'm intrigued. I've just begun the book — published last month — and it's clear I'm going to need to read, absorb and circle back.



Your turn. What are you reading, or trying to read?


Thankful Thursday: Yellow shoes & more

It's Thankful Thursday.

Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude.

Sometimes my thankfulness feels small. When all about us is war, illness and natural disaster, my gratitude for sunshine and sorbet feels, well, trite. And, indeed, it is. But I wonder if these times of external crisis are when I need to count my blessings even more. Just as the big events can wear us down, the small things can build us back up.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for:

Yellow Shoes
My sister sent me shoes. It's not even my birthday. In fact, it's her birthday (and I'm late with a gift). I love surprises + shoes + sun. "I know you don't wear bright colors," she said. "But I think you will like them."  And I do (paired with neutrals, of course). I'm thankful for the shoes but I'm most thankful for my thoughtful sister.

A Facebook Intervention
A friend calls me, a bit of mock urgency in her voice. "I'm worried about you," she says. "I'm seeing you all over Facebook. Are you addicted again? Do you need an intervention?" Drat! She's right. I've been here before. And now, again, for a few days (okay, a week), Facebook sucked me back in. I was on a binge of pithy reactions and quick retorts. It was pathetic. I needed air. And as much as I didn't want to admit it, I was glad to be outed.

Anne Herbert
Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. Remember that 1990s-era mantra that was all over car bumpers? Turns out a real person wrote it — Anne Herbert. I don't know where I thought it came from. It arrived before the internet age and as much as I think about words, I never considered the author of those words. And Anne didn't write just one catchy phrase, but dozens, and you can read them here. Next assignment: Discover who wrote Visualize Whirled Peas.

What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? What makes your world expand?


Can't you see I'm (not) writing?

A friend recently confided in me.

"I don't write every day," she whispered. "I know you're suppose to."

"I don't either," I replied. Relief washed her face.

For years, I badgered myself into writing regimes. I wrote 500 words a day. I wrote Morning Pages, timed writings, and poems on demand. Like a diet with a strict calorie count, every time I fell short  — and I always, eventually, fell short — I felt worse than when I began. Cue the berating. Let the self-degradation begin.

But I've eased up. I have, in part, Billy Collins to thank.

“I have no work habits whatsoever," says the prolific poet. "I don’t write every day, so often it would be zero hours per day. I kind of hold onto a romantic view. People say in order to be a writer you have to write all the time. The poem will come along when it arrives. I try to be on the lookout for creative opportunities, something that might trigger a poem, but I don’t sit down in the morning and try to commit an act of literature before lunch.”

Creative opportunities. Acts of literature.

I like that.

Now, instead of wrangling myself into writing every day, I simply look for creative opportunities to commit acts of literature. And my definition is rather broad. Recent acts include reading (newspapers, books, magazines, blogs, cereal boxes), attending a reading, gathering with literary friends, browsing bookstores, and roosting at libraries.

As a writer-for-hire, I do write everyday. I have clients and deadlines and a love of structure. As a poet, I am consistently battling my "write now" brain with my "write when it feels good" tendency.

Writer Jessica Goodfellow recently provided a much-needed nudge: "Even when you're not writing, you're writing."   

"Sometimes I just have to remember that everything I do is writing," she says. "It may not look like it to anyone else (it doesn't even seem like it to me!), but what I am doing when I'm doing nothing is writing. And when I'm doing something other than writing, somehow that is writing too."

Now that's a writing regime I can put to work.

How about you? Are you writing when you are not writing? Are you commiting acts of literature?