Cut, Consider, Create

Little Did She Know She Would Relapse

On the surface, there is nothing
but style and a suspension of
modesty. I stay sort of ugly.
My lashes are the only things still
looking good. I feel awful that
I feel so awful.

I climb slowly to the top of the hill.
Air thins. Sound expands.
There are more questions than tools
or instruction.

From this vantage, a ribbon of fog
hugs the horizon and it strikes me
I have it all wrong. I shift my thinking:

                     Is confusion also truth?

I like working with that impossibility.

 

- Drew Myron
A Cut-Up Poem with lines from Paris Review, No. 198
and More magazine, October 2011.

 

As I've mentioned before, I love Cut-Up Poems. When my writing feels stale and my thoughts routine, the cutting process invigorates. With a Cut-Up poem, you borrow words and phrases from other sources. With each extraction you create opportunities for words and ideas to jump and explore. With draft and draft, words are rearranged and rewritten so the final poem bears little resemble to your first clipped lines (eliminating the chance of plagiarism).

How to Make a Cut-Up Poem:  Take a work-in-progress poem or journal entry and copy lines onto a clean sheet. Cut apart the lines with scissors. Now mix the lines and arrange in a new order. Throw in additional lines from assorted books or magazines. Play around, shift lines, discard some and add others to make your own poem.

This process sometimes yields good poems. More often it breaks the routine and opens the door for the next good poem. Whether writing prompt or powerful new poem, it always feels good to exercise the writing muscle and produce new work. 

Try This:  Cut-Up my Cut-Up Poem! I'd love to read what you create. Please share your Cut-Up Poem here.


Thankful Thursday: Hi there, stars

Writing poems can help kids [and adults] shift the way they see themselves, especially if they're feeling sad, walled-off or different from others. In poems, being different is an asset; we don't have to think of ourselves negatively. Our idiosyncrasies are like prizes. It's freeing to express our one-of-a-kind-soul. 

— Susan Wooldridge
Poemcrazy, Chapter 26

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for the fog lifting, the rust flaking, and the rediscovery of Poemcrazy: Freeing your life with words.

Do you know this book? I hope your copy is as tattered and loved as mine. Equal parts encouragement and exercise, this gem had gathered dust on my shelf until the other day when a friend and I met to talk and write.

We were both feeling laden with life. We joked that we knew a hundred words for grey. We joked that we were rusty with our writing. After a time, we laughed our way out of our dread and onto the page. We flipped through Poemcrazy and, like a tarot card, landed on Chapter 26: Hi there stars.

And with that we were lifted. We could write again.

Thank you poemcrazy. Thank you friend. Thank you rust. I love the way you flake away.

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?


Submission Season

Harvard Review


Ahh, September. Kids return to classrooms while writers return to computers. In the literary world, September starts the unofficial Submission Season. Writers send their work into the world, hoping to catch the attention of editors, publishers and agents.

As with all things, there is protocol. There are rules. Recognizing that "submission guidelines can be vague, especially for those new to the submission process," the Harvard Review offers a handy how-to guide.

 

Thankful Thursday: "I'm not a poet"

Photo by Shreyas Panambur I like poems by people who aren’t poets.

After a summer of writing workshops — both attending and leading — I am reminded that I like poetry best in small groups. I like the circle of new names. Each of us offering ourselves on the page, like a date, a gift. We are gathered in an effort to make things matter.

I'm not a writer, they'll say, before reading their work. Huddled together in hope, we lean in, eyes open to the words, to the room’s reverent hush.

I’m not a poet, they’ll say between umms and ahhhs and throat clearing. The voice shakes, a hand trembles.

When done, the reader will fix eyes on the page, and then searching, will look to us in a pause between nod and praise. A half-smile of gratitude appears, a bit of disbelief, a rush of relief.

I don’t usually remember the poem, can’t recall lines or even a passage. It's the cracked voice I know, the tremor, the space between the last word and the first applause.

Always a poem is a victory. The writer saying I am.

 

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?

 

Be the teacher you needed

Job Description
  - for the apprentices

Be nourishing as damp spring soil,
tenacious, faithful as seed buried there.
Be quick, clear as water in a freshet,
determined to go the distance to the sea.
Be solid, dependable as river rock,
smooth and malleable to stream flow.
Have a preference for order &
the ability to laugh during chaos.
Whisper to the bully,
"I don't want to crush your spirit,"
to the shy, self-conscious one,
"I love your socks."
In a world of straight rows
facing the chalkboard, intercom, flag,
Make a circle, listen, sit near the light.
Magician, custodian, queen and scholar,
Remember when you learned to speak Portuguese,
remember the play — no part for you —
Remember the loneliness of the beginner's path,
and be a beginner again —
and again — because you are, will be,
with each new circle, in very lighted space.
Be the ladder, be the lighthouse,
be the lightning bug.
Be the open heart, an idea unspooling.
Be the teacher you needed
that winter your grandfather died,
and the next year when you walked-on to Varsity.
Know yourself as essential,
your students, most important.
You will give and give and give.
No one will witness
your six hundred close judgment calls a day,
but your students will remember
notes in your handwriting
written in the margins of their young lives.

- Ann Staley

A poet based in Corvallis, Oregon, Ann Staley has been a teacher for over 40 years. She has taught grade-schoolers to grandmothers, and has worked in five Oregon school districts, two community colleges, two public universities, and two private colleges. Her first poetry collection, Primary Sources, was published in August 2011.

 

 

 

 

On our knees

 

Words feed us just as they separate us.
We stand at parties, we hold drinks, we tell jokes, we laugh, and we talk politics.
But we are always aware of the differences between us and the people we like or even love. They are a part of the world in a way that we can never be. They inhabit their space. We observe and analyze, rub meaning from moments, and yet none of it is truly real to us until we write it down. And when we don't write — when we pretend that we can be like those we surround ourselves with, and fill our lives with kids and work and PTA and husbands who would rather watch TV than read — we end up on our knees.


Laurie Rachkus Uttich
Why We Write: The Space That Separates Us
from Poets & Writers magazine, Sept Oct 2011

 

10 Ways to Make Writing Friends

“I need more creative conversation," a new friend confides.

It’s a need I know well. And judging by response to the question recently raised — How do you make writing friends? — many of us are seeking meaningful conversation. 

Combining reader response with my own experience, I offer some suggestions:

How to Make Writing Friends

IN PERSON

1. Join (or Start) a Writing Group
Join a local writing group. Can’t find one? Start your own!
Writing Alone, Writing Together is a handy get-started guide.

Success: Years ago I moved to a small, remote town and had no writing friends. I couldn’t find a writing group so I started my own. I created a structure — a monthly drop-in writing session held in my home. I served soup and offered writing prompts — and spread the word by posting fliers in the laundromat, post office and local restaurants. The first session, a dark and stormy night, the house filled with first-time and experienced writers of fiction, poetry, essay and more. We met for more than two years, and then held our first public reading at a local coffeehouse. Over 50 people attended the reading and Off the Page became an annual event. Now in its fifth year, Off the Page features writers of all levels and genres, from all over Oregon.

Caveat:  I found a writing group that met in the next town. They were a warm and welcoming collection of writers — and dedicated, too, meeting for several hours every week. The members were retired and they met in the afternoon, at a time that, unfortunately, did not fit my work schedule. Still, I am grateful for the brief time I spent with these gracious writers. My advice: Find a group that fits your schedule, personality and writing process. Don’t get discouraged. Finding a good fit takes time, effort and an open mind.

2. Take a Class
Polish your skills and meet other writers. Find writing classes at community colleges, bookstores, community centers and libraries. But remember, it’s not enough to just attend class, you gotta participate, and then — gasp! — reach out to others.

Success: “I met my first writing friends by going to a free mini-workshop put on by a local writer's conference,” says Linda, a reader of this blog.  “At that first meeting almost 28 years ago, I met my friend and lifelong writing buddy — we still remain best friends and writing pals to this day!”

3. Volunteer
Schools, libraries and community centers are in desperate need of caring, committed volunteers. When you volunteer, you help others and you help yourself by expanding your social circle. "How about volunteering at the library?" suggests Fred, a reader of this blog. "Maybe not all are writers, but they all read." He's right. Volunteer at the library and you’ve already got a common bond: a love of books.

4. Attend Readings & Open Mics
It’s not enough to read and write, you’ve got to support other readers and writers. You want your words in the world? You want attention and applause? You’ve gotta give it to get it. And here’s the bonus: While you’re cheering on others, you’re also increasing your odds of making new friends. 

5. Write a Letter
I enjoy writing letters of appreciation to authors. When I was 10 years old, I wrote my first "fan" letter, to Judy Blume, author of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. The handwritten letter I received in response made me a dedicated fan of Blume, and of books. “Write fan letters to your favorite authors,” says Linda, a reader of this blog. “Sometimes they respond and become writing friends.”

Caveat: In recent years I've penned letters of appreciation to poets whose books I enjoyed. Sadly, I've received no response. And while it's disappointing, it's also a good reminder that we're each at different places and paces in our lives.

ONLINE

6. Read (and Respond to) Blogs
The web is chocked with writing blogs. These online resources offer information and inspiration, and most bloggers want to interact with their readers. Get connected by leaving a comment on a blog post, or sending an email to your favorite blogger. Reach out. You may be pleasantly surprised to find a writer — like you — ready to make a friend.

Success: A friend, who I met through my blog, calls herself a "lurker" — a person who reads blogs but never leaves a comment. She lurks on the edges as an observer. When this shy reader-writer took a chance and entered a blog drawing, she won the book — and made a friend. 

7. Linked In
LinkedIn is a business-related social network, and a good place to meet writing professionals. The site is packed with hundreds of writing-related groups with active message boards and opportunities. Check out: Book Writer, Certified Professional Writers Association, Poetic Asides, and more.

8. Facebook
Sure, Facebook can be an endless feed of meaningless banter, but when used with focus this social network can yield writing groups and support. For example, do a Search for “Poets” or “Fiction” or "Writing Groups" and you'll find numerous options. Or search for your favorite author or book and you’ll easily find a ready-made group with at least one thing in common.

9. GoodReads
What writer doesn’t love to read?  (If you don’t read, don’t tell me. It’s too painful to know). Share your love of books with others on Goodreads, and let this shared passion lead to new friends — and book suggestions.

10. Be Brave
Making friends can be difficult. Like dating or a job search, finding friends can stir all kinds of insecurities. Sometimes you just have to buck up and be brave. I made friends, explains Molly, a reader of this blog, by asking classmates if they wanted to get together after class. “I mustered my courage to go a step beyond.”

 

Your life must be witness to this impulse.

Illustration by Austin Kleon

In the early 1900s, Franz Kappus was an aspiring poet enrolled in military school when he wrote to Rainer Maria Rilke for writing advice. Rilke’s response turned into a six year correspondence, and spawned Letters to a Young Poet:

“ . . . ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

Austin Kleon, the inspired artist-poet, cleverly illustrates Rilke's writing advice. See more here.  


The world is full of words. Use them.

Annoying Words
(I Beg You Not to Speak, Write or Use)

Really? Seriously?

Hand me a muzzle. I cannot bear to hear one more tart and snarky Really?

Used as a barb to show displeasure, this one word response requires no articulation, and no carefully considered critical thinking. Really? — delivered with an annoying inflection, and followed by Seriously? — is just plain lazy. And overused. At one time, say three years ago, this succinct response was clever and a little bit cute. Now really is yesterday's amazing.

Actually

Actually is an unnecessary word, a filler that quickly bloats and bothers. Diane Lockward at Blogalicious offers this well-put rant: "I want to place a restraining order on the word actually. Forever, not temporarily. The word has used up its lifetime quota. Overused and misused, it's become a sort of verbal punctuation mark or a space holder. Well, actually. How many sentences now begin that way? Actually, a lot. How many responses begin that way?"

Literally

Like so many good words, literally has been abused.

In its standard use, literally means "in a literal sense, as opposed to a nonliteral or exaggerated sense." In recent years, according to my trusty dictionary, an extended use of literally has become very common, where literally is used deliberately in nonliteral contexts, for added effect: they bought the car and literally ran it into the ground. This use can lead to unintentional humorous effects: we were literally killing ourselves laughing and is not acceptable in formal English.

Kelli Russell Agodon sees the lighter side of literally: "I confess I love it when people misuse the word literally.  I literally yelled my head off.  Really, that must have been very painful for you and how weird you're still alive.  I literally died laughing. Really.  So you're a zombie now. I know some people get really annoyed with the misuse, but in my head, I love it. I literally see all the things these people literally did."

Bless her heart, I'm not there yet.

I may be cranky but I don't think I'm alone: What's got you bothered?

 

How to make friends (and win a book)

After I gushed last week about my gratitude for writing friends, a reader raised a critical point:

How do I make writing friends? 

Excellent question! It's not easy making friends, at any age, and it can be a real challenge to find niche companions. Want a running partner? Head to the running store. Seeking foodie friends? Take a cooking class. But writing friends? Do you stalk bookstore shelves looking for people with pens? Pace the paper aisle of your local Staples?

Desperate needs call for desperate measures but you don't want to appear desperate. Get too needy and you are a neon sign broadcasting Danger! 

You want to cultivate literary friends, but how?

I've got a few ideas, born out of desperation and desire. But before I spill my first-hand blunders and sometimes success, I want to hear from you — and I'll sweeten the deal by offering a free book. Tell me:

How do you make writing friends?

Where and how have you made friends? What's worked? What hasn't?

Jot a note in the comments section below, and I'll enter you in the drawing for Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words by Kim Rosen.

Feeling shy? Send me an email with your suggestions to dcm@drewmyron.com. I'll include you in the drawing, too. 

Deadline to enter is Thursday, August 25, 2011. Winner of the random (i.e. highly unscientific, blindfolded drawing of name) will be announced on Friday, August 26, 2011.

Looking forward to your ideas, experiences and suggestions!

 

Secrets of Adulthood, and other happiness

It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.

— G.K. Chesterton

Because life sometimes seems a checklist of adversity, I groaned a bit when my sister pressed The Happiness Project into my hands. But contrary to first instinct, this book is not just fluff. The Happiness Project is an engaging, action-oriented read. Author Gretchen Rubin thoughtfully explores — through research and personal experiments — what it takes to feel happy. And while she seems a tad Type A (charts, resolutions, progress reports) I applaud her tenacity. A zealot for happiness sure beats a zealot for gloom.

Packed with commandments, secrets and manifestos, the book appeals to my love of lists and order. I especially like her Secrets of Adulthood:

People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think.

It's okay to ask for help.

Most decisions don't require extensive research.

Do good, feel good.

It's important to be nice to everyone.

Bring a sweater.

By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished.

Soap and water remove most stains.

Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.

If you can't find something, clean up.

You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do.

Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

You don't have to be good at everything.

If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.

Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

What's fun for other people may not be fun for you — and vice versa.

People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.

You can't profoundly change your children's natures by nagging them or signing them up for classes.

No deposit, no return.

 

And speaking of happy, the Secret Society of Happy People is celebrating Happiness Happens Month.

"Somewhere between The Ed Sullivan Show and The Jerry Springer Show talking about being happy became politically incorrect," notes the Society. "We're more comfortable airing our dirty laundry than telling people we've had a happy moment. . . Since happiness is contagious, if more people are recognizing and talking about it then more people will be happy. And ultimately, our world needs more happy people."

 

Thankful Thursday: Writer Friends

"You must have writing friends. Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. We suffer anyway as human beings. Don't make it any harder on yourself."

— Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

For years I wrote in the dark, clutching pen and paper and hiding anything that might reveal my loneliness, my need. I was a reporter in the early years of my writing career and I valued the ability to peer into the lives of others with measures of detachment and objectivity. Writing poetry was entirely different: I felt exposed, vulnerable, and afraid.

Attending my first writing workshop — with poet Judyth Hill, in Taos, New Mexico — cracked me open, and changed my life. Writing needs air, she said, needs to be shared. From that week I grew less afraid and more willing — even eager — to make writing friends.

Writing friends are not like other friends. We don't borrow sugar or share Facebook banter. We don't talk kids or jobs or everyday worries. Our focus is rather narrow. We meet to write, read, and share the writing life. We take part in "acts of literature" — things that feed creativity.  

This morning, I enjoyed a weekly coffee and conversation with a poet-friend. We are 40 years apart in age but close together in our love of words. Today we shared works-in-progress, discussed possible revisions, and played a round of Bananagrams, a word game she introduced me to.

Next week, I'm having happy hour with another writing friend. When I moved to Oregon and was devoid of writer friends, she was the first to respond to my call for a writing group. For seven years, we've been faithful in our creative dates. Sometimes we write together. Sometimes we talk. A few months ago we spent a Saturday creating art postcards (and wrote poems on them, too).

Another friend and I have never met — but we share emails. Each week, we agree to a weekly writing prompt, then share the results. Just as with "normal" friends, life sometimes gets full, and so we share our struggles. And that's helpful, too. 

Whether it's 40 years apart, or 4,000 miles away, I am grateful for these writer friends. They pull me out of the dark. And in the light, we help each other shine. 

Do you have writer friends?
If you don't have any writer friends, what's holding you back?

 

In the thick of books

In the thick of books, I linger.

Something about summer allows me to slip easily in and out of new authors and ideas. Sure, I’ve slogged through a few duds but I've also found some wonderfully absorbing reads this season. Here’s a few of my latest, favorite books:

I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl
by Kelle Groom

Just when I think I can’t stomach another memoir, along comes this engrossing, sad, and ultimately, beautifully poetic story.

 

 

 

 

The Adults
by Alice Espach

A wry, perceptive, funny novel told in the voice of a smart and snarky teenage girl as she observes life and death and adulthood fall apart around her.

 

 

 

 

Room
by Emma Donoghue

This is the ultimate I can’t-put-it-down book. Told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy held captive with his mother. A brutal story beautifully told, and original, too.

Have you slipped into any good books lately? What are you reading?

 


Thankful Thursday: Again, already

I am giddy with gratitude (and alliteration) this week.

A few reasons why:

- A good run, thanks to a free podcast.

- Cake Pops. My new favorite indulgence.

- The first (ever!) Denver County Fair was a great success, and serving as Director of Poetry was a kick. Congratulations to the winning poets: Meghan Howes, Carol Samson and Kathryn T.S. Bass.

- Time with family in sunny Colorado. Highlights: Playing Scrabble with my niece and nephew, a jog with my sister, seeing a bad movie in the good company of my parents, and great Mexican food at every turn. Oh Mile High City, you have your charms.

- Returning home to a pile of mail that included two -- yes two! -- handwritten and heart-full letters.

- It’s Happiness Happens Month!  That's cause for celebration, and song. Sing along with Macy and me, won’t you?

Stop and smell the flowers
And lose it, the sweet music, and dance with me
There is beauty in the world
So much beauty in the world
Always beauty in the world
There is beauty in the world
Shake your booty boys and girls for the beauty in the world
Pick your diamond, pick your pearl, there is beauty in the world

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places and things. What are you thankful for today? 

 

Thankful Thursday: Rabbits don't fly

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.

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

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for things found:

A Quote (just when needed)
"Cultivate your own capabilities, your own style. Rabbits don't fly. Eagles don't swim. Ducks look funny trying to climb. Squirrels don't have feathers. Stop comparing. There's plenty of room in the forest."
— Chuck Swindoll

A Literary Project (that's meaningful and unique)
StreetBooks, the work of artist and writer Laura Moulton, is a bicycle-powered mobile library offering books to the homeless. No questions, no money, no pressure. Read the news story here.

A Blog (that makes sense, and has fun)
Blurb is a Verb, by author Sarah Pinneo, explores adventures in book publicity.

Fresh Food (and not just zukes)
This week I am munching through strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes and beans, courtesy of Gathering Together Farm. The system of CSA — Community Supported Agriculture — was pioneered in the 1970s, and re-energized in the 1990s (by Denver Urban Gardens' DeLaney Community Farm and others). After so many years, thank goodness, fresh, organic, community-driven food distribution is now mainstream.

Sunshine (hooray!)
While the rest of the nation swelters in triple-digit heat, the central Oregon Coast has endured another unseasonably cool, gray, damp summer. Now, at the end-of-July, I'm wearing summer skirts in a 70-degree heat wave.

It's Thankful Thursday! What's on your list?


 

Immersed

Laundromat

Waiting for me to finish folding, she
read Southern Living, spun her cane.

If she wanted help she would ask, I supposed,
but I told her anyway out of the goodness

of my guilt,
                         Ma’am these dryers are empty,
pointing to the top row. She looked up from her

magazine. I could see the starburst of blue
spider-webbed across her forehead.

She stopped spinning and spoke, I can’t reach
those, she said, I’ve got a problem
                                                                       with my equilibrium.

What I might have said was Don’t we all,
but instead I nodded, looked at the floor, helped

haul her wet sweat-suits to the dryers, apologizing
for not doing so earlier, whole time thinking

how lucky I was
                                   that I never saw my mother reach
that age, how she would do laundry downstairs

in the room with the window that looked out
onto my childhood,
                                          the lake that would freeze

past the docks during winter, and I’d walk
to the brink, lie down on the ice and dip

my hand in the water, feel the cold
on my stomach, flat and solid, but shifting.


— Luke Johnson
from After the Ark


Photo by Cathy Love MurphyI'm still a bit tipsy, climbing out of the Fishtrap fog. While I've been to several writing workshops, I've never spent a week with so many good people producing so much good work.

It wasn't just the headliners — such as Pico Iyer and Gary Ferguson — sharing strong, inspired work. It wasn't just the faculty — poets Henry Hughes and Myrlin Hepworth, novelists Karen Fisher and Rosanne Parry, for example. Or the Fellows, Patricia Bailey, Nicole Cullen, Angela Penaredondo and Luke Johnson (the poem above is from his just-published book).

Strangely and wonderfully, a large portion of the Fishtrap "students" were accomplished, published authors, too — Bette Lynch Husted, Roberta Ulrich, M.e. Hope, to name a few.

The beauty of the Fishtrap experience, the magic it's often called (yes, I too, once rolled my eyes at this blissed-out description), was that for one absorbed, saturated week all of us generated fresh work together.

Immersion in reading, writing and words, without distraction or interruption, is a rare thing. And though the experience can be a bit exhausting, as I re-enter the "real world" of laundry, bills and everyday obligations, I increasingly value the people, words, ideas, books — and yes, magic —  that was enjoyed, gathered, and carried home.

Do you attend writing workshops?
What workshops have you enjoyed, and why?

 

Fishtrapped

I’ve just returned from Fishtrap, a writing workshop held in the far reaches of eastern Oregon.

The Fishtrap mission is to “promote clear thinking and good writing in and about the West” and for one full week an accomplished (yet approachable) faculty of poets, essayists, novelists, historians and publishers led and encouraged a group of more than 100 writers through an exploration of Migrations & Passages. I had the good fortune to attend as a Fishtrap Fellow.

What does it mean to move, to travel, to grow up, to be displaced?

Situated at the base of the dramatic Wallowa mountains, getting to Fishtrap is a migration itself. From my western home on the Oregon Coast to the state’s eastern edge town of Joseph, Oregon is a nine-hour drive. Passage, indeed, as I drove through temperate rainforest, past idyllic farms, along carved river gorge, across dry ranch land, and into remote small towns. Remote is understatement, and I say this as one who lives in a town of 650 people and no stoplights.

The displacement was refreshing. I gently pulled from routine and leaned into a roadtrip hum that allowed my mind to wander and wonder.  

How do our journeys — of body and soul and pen — awaken us to the new, the foreign, the familiar?

Through writing classes, planned and spontaneous readings, and lively mealtime conversations, Fishtrap provided time, space and opportunity to make creative leaps. Situated at 4,000 feet in forested wilderness, and stripped of cell phone service and internet connection, quietude prevailed as new poems brewed.

And how can staying in a place also change who we are?

Writer Pico Iyer served as guest speaker and visiting thinker. Born in England, to parents from India, Iyer lives in both Japan and California and works as a travel writer (in the sense that outward travel stirs inward introspection). He is the author of two novels and seven nonfiction books exploring globalism, migration, crossing cultures and literature, including The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home.

Iyer crystallized the week’s theme by sharing his amusing but profound perspective on what it means to be at home in the world. Always an outsider, he spoke of “the dance between the need to belong and the need to stand apart.”

It’s a dance, like migrations and passages, that may take me a lifetime to learn, to fully live.