Love this passage!

Now I think the world is full of tiny, invisible strings we're scarcely aware of, of threaded gossamer so delicate it binds us to people and to places and the nethermost of gestures, to the tiny warblings of living beings, to the musty smell of other rooms. The strings tying us to each other are everywhere. We are connected to others in a spanning web: it is our job not to tear it, to keep it in good repair, even if we cannot see it. 

 - Robert Vivian, from The Diginity of Crumbs,
an essay in Cold Snap as Yearning

 

Thankful Thursday: Play (and Write)

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for sunny skies and sunny children.

I'm still in the glow of last week's Summer Writing Adventure Camp. Now in its sixth year, the free camp is offered by Seashore Family Literacy and offers a week of high-energy explorations designed to fuel creative expression.

To inspire writing, our motley group of 12 youngsters (ages 10 to 14), and a sprinkling of intrepid adults, hiked Cape Perpetua, walked the historic Alsea Bay Bridge, traveled by city bus to explore Newport’s working bayfront, and kayaked Alsea Bay and Lint Slough. The video above captures the flavorful mix of exploration, introspection, and just plain fun.

Each year as the Summer Camp begins I feel a mix of worry that turns to wonder that turns to awe. At the end of the week, I always say, "best year ever!"  And I (almost) always mean it. 

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

What are you thankful for today?


Things Writers Do

We're not writing.

We're not writing enough.

We're writing but it's all junk.

The internal critic never stops!
No wonder we're miserable.

To counter this destructive loop, writer Molly Spencer has created Things Poets Do. It serves as a reminder of all she is accomplishing, rather than focusing on the things she has not yet achieved. It's a great mind shift, an excellent list, and I've adapted and expanded it for my own use:

Things Writers Do

1. Read and study a variety of good writing, especially contemporary work.

2. Keep up with the news of the literary world.

3. Draft poems, stories, essays.

4. Do research, legwork, word-work, and notebook-work to nourish the drafting process.

5. Revise work.

6. Connect with other readers, writers and artists.

7. Swap work for critiques.

8. Read Poets & Writers magazine.

9. Attend readings.

10. Give readings.

11. Spread the poems (stories, etc).

12. Read a variety of literary journals.

13. Research places to submit work.

14. Submit work.

15. Attend arts events to support local creativity, and for cross-pollination purposes.

16. Read essays to learn more about specific craft elements; generally, study elements of craft.

17. Attend classes, workshops, retreats, etc.

18. Get enough sleep, healthy food, exercise, and recreation (good self-care).

19. Apply for mentorships, fellowships and grants.

20. Do errands in support of writing (office supplies, post office, etc.)

21. Get editorial experience, if possible.

22. Set goals and track progress toward goals.

23. Celebrate victories, large and small.

24. Get outside myself and give to others (books, time, encouragement).

 

What's on your list? Do any of these things resonate with you? What would you add?

 

Thankful Thursday (on Friday)

Eating Sweets in a Bathroom Stall

The stranger has wet herself. She tips her head close to yours.

You just want to shop, buy vegetables for dinner, some sort of meat. You don’t have time. It’s late, or early, your list is long. You’re wearing the good skirt, the one that skims the waist, slims your legs. But there’s her dress, now sopping. She’s bunching the fabric, trying to hide the accident, and this small dank space smells like a pen of untrained puppies.

You must be an angel, she says.

You’re no angel. You’re removed, mysteriously lifted from the stench of spreading urine. You banter, a light voice over her heavy motorized cart as you hoist her hips and raise the dress from fleshy legs. You’re talking over the shame you both feel.

Will you open this diaper, she asks. You rip the package, and help her in. Her ankles are thick, her socks wet. Where pity, shock or sorrow should be, you feel absence. You wipe her legs, the seat of her cart.

She’s not crying, not yet. But she’s breathing hard as she palms an inhaler, the same kind you carry in your purse. When I get upset, she says, dragging long on a small puff. It's then you crumble. She is you. This will be you. This may already be you.

Everything moves slow in this confessional. It takes four turns to maneuver the cart out of the stall. At the sink, you wash away secrets. At the door, she stops, reaches in her basket, says, Let’s have a snack. You don’t want to eat sweets in a dirty grocery store bathroom.

You feel sick. You hesitate. But it’s all she has to give, so you say, Please let me help you open that. This gesture, this simple fix,
it’s all you have, too.

- Drew Myron

 

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

What are you thankful for today?


Fast Five: Mindful Writing in a Busy World


Writing serves a purpose greater

than the product alone; it becomes

a spiritual practice, a way to connect

ourselves to that "presence,"

however it manifests in our lives.

Because direct questions offer endless insight, I'm happy to present Fast Five — short interviews with my favorite writers. Life may be short but who doesn't have time for five questions — and a chance to win a great book?  (To win, simply post your name and contact info in the comments section. See details below).

Holly Hughes and Brenda Miller are writers, friends, and authors of The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World. Both are accomplished: Holly is a poet, professor, and editor of the award-winning anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease; Brenda is editor of the Bellingham Review, and a Pushcart Prize-winning author who teaches at Western Washington University. And both are deeply introspective writers who believe that "writing can be a rich, active form of paying attention to the self and the world."

I'm intrigued by, and appreciative of, the letter writing practice that led to the creation of The Pen and the Bell. What prompted your correspondence?

Holly: That was one of the wonderful serendipities of this collaboration, as we really just fell into it. We’d drafted an outline with chapters then met to discuss our plan. At the end of our session, we decided it looked too formal for the organic process we’d envisioned, so we decided to continue to correspond by letters (via email) instead. Thankfully, we both had a sabbatical that fall, and so the timing was good. Within a few months, we were both loving the correspondence — I was always delighted to find a “Letter from Brenda” in my In Box — and we quickly recognized that our letters were becoming the book we’d envisioned.

Brenda: Yes, serendipity is the right word, because the idea seemed to just arrive — to materialize as a message to which we both said, “of course.” And once we started writing, it was so much fun that it was actually hard to stop. I think I wrote three letters in the first week!

In the introduction you write that it is important to "carve out space for writing in a world crowded with distraction." In a few words, how does one master this seemingly impossible feat?

Holly: It’s hard to answer this in a few words — we share many specific strategies in The Pen & The Bell — but the premise of the book is that by combining mindfulness practice with writing practice, it’s more possible to carve out space and time; the two practices can work synergistically to support each other. For example, by meditating or reading a favorite poem aloud (contemplative reading) before writing, you can more quickly enter a creative state — where the more authentic writing comes from. Other than that, we give suggestions for taking whatever time you have — at a red light or walking to work—to breathe deeply and re-connect with yourself throughout a busy day — and these small mindfulness practices allow us to bring more of our undistracted selves to the page.

Brenda: It’s really about learning to write more quickly — not spending time “thinking” about writing or agonizing about it, but simply writing, even if you have just a few minutes. We give you lots of prompts — in the book and on The Pen and the Bell website — that can give you places to start. It’s also a matter of prioritization: really getting a sense of why writing is important to you, and forming a community (a community can consist of even just one other person) that helps you value this priority.

What did you gain in the process of writing this book, and what do you hope readers will experience? (I cheated, that's two questions!)

Holly: I’ll address the first question. I think we wrote this book for ourselves — we’re both teaching writing full-time, seeing first-hand all the distractions that we and our students face on a daily basis, distractions that sometimes keep us from writing. As the letters evolved, it became clear that we were letting our creative muse help us find strategies that felt in keeping with both the challenges — and the deeper core values — of our own lives.

Brenda: Yes, and we hope our readers will experience the same thing: some support for their creative lives, an excuse or opportunity to slow down and remember what it feels like to focus in a deeper way than our hectic lives (and minds!) sometimes allow.

I like your idea that "contemplation is an active practice." For you, which came first: writing or mindfulness?

Holly: For me, writing came first, as I’ve been writing in a journal since I was a kid. They both came together twenty years ago when I was working as a mariner on the water in Alaska. Looking back, I view that time — what I called “wheelwatch practice” — as a form of mindfulness practice. I began attending meditation retreats and receiving formal instruction about 12 years ago. I became particularly interested in mindfulness practice after reading several books by the Vietnamese monk Thich Naht Hanh and was lucky enough to attend a week-long retreat at Deer Park Monastery in California when he was in residence.

Brenda: I’ve been writing since I was 7 years old, so I guess writing came first! Though children do seem to be naturals at contemplation as well; they can focus a long time on insects, animals, blades of grass. . . I was always kind of a moody child — quiet, introspective — and so perhaps those two modes have always coincided for me.

I'm a collector of words. What are your favorites?

Holly: What a fun question, Drew! I must admit it’s difficult to choose; there so many words I love, both for their meanings and their sounds, their feel as they roll off your tongue. But here are a few of this week’s favorites: waterfall, bumblebee, pomegranate, bladderwrack, stipple.  (The last is from a favorite Hopkins’ poem, Pied Beauty, that has many more great words).    

Brenda: delicious, marble, agile, welcome, pineapple (I don’t know if they’re my favorite words, but they popped around in my mind while I pondered your question. Plus, I’ve been on a pineapple-eating kick lately, and the word just makes me feel happy.)

Win this book!

To win The Pen and the Bell, add your name and contact info in the comments section by Sunday, July 1, 2012. Your name will be entered in a drawing, and the winner announced on Monday, July 2, 2012. Feeling shy? Email me, with "Pen and Bell" in subject line:  dcm@drewmyron.com

 

 

The hitch, of course

ubiquitous, adj.

When it's going well, the fact of it is everywhere. It's there in the song that shuffles into your ears. It's there in the book you're reading. It's there on the shelves of the store as you reach for a towel and forget about the towel. It's there as you open the door. As you stare off on the subway, it's what you're looking at. You wear it on the inside of your hat. It lines your pockets. It's the temperature.

The hitch, of course, is that when it's going badly,
it's in all the same places.

- from The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel by David Levithan

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Surprises

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

I like small surprises.
Not big and showy acts (parties, skydiving, sweepstakes and pageants) but quiet gestures (daisies over roses, written notes over loud declarations). This week, I am thankful for quiet surprises.

I found fresh herbs on my doorstep. No name, no note, just carefully bundled sprigs of rosemary and other undetermined edibles (dill? oregano? sage?). Last night I made an herb-infused dinner, seasoned with kindness, surprise, and scent.

An unexpected invitation arrived — to lead a writing workshop next month in Newport, Oregon, for the Willamette Writers Coast Chapter. I am surprised and delighted.

Words returned. For the past month, my writing mind has been barren. I've got nothing, I admit to a friend, My poetry permit has expired. I've been here before, and each time I think the dry spell is terminal. Do you know this place? Even before pen hits page your words feel dull and done, and so you stop trying.

When I'm in this space, I counter the dread by ramping up my reading. But lately my enthusiam for books is tepid, too. Still, I trudged through a few so-so selections. The other night, while reading a novel with beautiful prose (but a mediocre plot) I was moved to copy down a few passages. Within minutes, I was jotting my own words. I was writing! (see: Bill Murray in What About Bob? He's tied to the mast, exuberant, shouting, I'm sailing!)

The next morning I re-read my words, and wrote some more. It's not stellar work, but that's not the point. The surprise is that the tap is flowing. I am writing and thankful.

It's Thankful Thursday. What are you thankful for today?   


Of the earth

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

- John Keats
from On the Grasshopper and Cricket

 

Gardens, farms, things we tend. Someone says make something. I pick up a pen, you a trowel, he a paintbrush, she a spoon.  

We're always tending. Always making.

I'm the Director of Poetry for the Denver County Fair — a modern twist on old-fashioned fun. Speed texting meets Aunt Bee's pickles. I'm excited for Bounty, a poetry contest seeking poems inspired by agriculture, food, gardens and farms. { psst, the contest is open to Colorado writers. Win ribbons and prizes! }

I'm thinking about the earth, how we work it and ourselves. I'm digging for answers in the soil. Hands deep, I want some sort of cleansing, some clarity. Clearing the bramble, I stumble into an answer:

It seems like you could, but
you can’t go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It’s all too deep for that.
You’ve overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you’re given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.
You even thought you abandoned
one or two gardens. But those things
keep growing where we put them—
if we put them at all.
A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.
Even the one vine that tendrils out alone
in time turns on its own impulse,
twisting back down its upward course
a strong and then a stronger rope,
the greenest saddest strongest
kind of hope.

- Kay Ryan
A Certain Kind of Eden


Have you a garden of poems? What's growing? Do you have a favorite poem of the earth ?

 

Searching for sunny skies, good books


Is it summer in your world?

Here, on the Oregon Coast, we're in June-uary. It's 50 degrees and I'm still in sweaters and winter shoes. Despite gray skies and rain, the calendar has somehow turned to June. And because I crave lazy days with good books under sunny skies, I'm going out on a limb and calling it summer. 

Here's the start of my Summer Reading stack: 

The Lover's Dictionary, by David Levithan

Everything Beautiful Began After: A Novel by Simon Van Booy

The Beginner's Goodbye, by Ann Tyler

I'd like to expand my list. Novels, non-fiction, poems, short stories, I'm game for any and all. Any suggestions?

(Sheepish confession: I've read Fifty Shades of Grey. My no-brainer, all-hype, page-turner book quota has been fulfilled).

But enough about me, What are you reading this summer?

 

ps - I appreciate this Melancholy Summer Reading List by author Matt de la Pena.

And thanks to author Amber Keyser for introducing me to de la Pena's thoughtful New York Times essay. 


Thankful Thursday: Rain Angel

Soft rain smells like apples. It tastes like pine trees. In class, against the windows, it sounds like somebody shushing a child. The subject today is existentialism. Existence is not a necessity, Sartre wrote. What is, might not have been. Your life, all lives, are facts without explanation. "When you realize that, it turns your heart upside down and everything begins to float."

In the quad, a student lies on her back in soft rain, licking moisture off her face. When she stands up, there is an outline of her body, light against dark pavement — a rain angel.

                              - Kathleen Dean Moore
from Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature


It is Thankful Thursday.
I'm thinking of gray skies, lifting sun, the way dark and light pull in painfully beautiful tension. I am searching for angels, and the scent of apples.

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

What are you thankful for today?  


Say Goodbye - Win This Book

That's how we live,

                  always

     saying goodbye.

— Rilke, 8th Duino Elegy


For months, I've been dipping in and out of Ten Poems to Say Goodbye, by Roger Housden.

It's a thoughtful offering, a slim but deep book. And it's the last in Housden's Ten Poems series — Ten Poems to Change Your Life; Ten Poems to Set You Free; Ten Poems to Open Your Heart; Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime — in which he highlights the beauty and magic of poetry.

In Ten Poems to Say Goodbye, he examines and honors work from some my favorite poets: Ellen Bass, Pablo Neruda, Dorianne Laux, Jack Gilbert, Gerald Stern, Robert Hayden, e.e. cummings, Leonard Cohen, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Jane Hirshfield.

And though the topic is heavy, the exploration is touching, conversational, valuable, and real.

I'd like to share this book with you. No strings. No complicated entry requirements. Simply leave your name and contact info in the "Post a Comment" area below by Sunday, June 3rd. I'll randomly draw one name, and announce the winner on Monday, June 4th, 2012.

 

Thankful Thursday: Near Miss

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

Sometimes I am thankful for the near miss — the check that doesn't bounce, the tree that falls inches from the house, the benign tumor, the car door ding instead of the side-sweeping crash. Crisis, big and small, averted.

This week a friend (for whom I am thankful) sent me a poem, with this perceptive note: I like the poem for many things, among them its reminder of the hair's breadth we always are from not-being.

Thanks

Thanks for the tree

between me & a sniper's bullet.
I don't know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
against that anarchy of dusk.
I was back in San Francisco
wrapped up in a woman's wild colors,
causing some dark bird's love call
to be shattered by daylight
when my hands reached up
& pulled a branch away
from my face. Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken
like mist over the grass,
as we played some deadly
game for blind gods.
What made me spot the monarch
writing on a single thread
tied to the farmer's gate,
holding the day together
like an unfingered guitar string,
is beyond me. Maybe the hills
grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.
Again, thanks for the dud
hand grenade tossed at my feet
outside Chu Lai. I'm still
falling through its silence.
I don't know why the intrepid
sun touched the bayonet,
but I know that something
stood among those lost trees
and moved only when I moved.

Yusef Komunyakaa

 

What are you thankful for today? 

 

A Poem Each Day: What I Learned

I didn't want to write a poem every day.

When good, disciplined (read: over-achieving) writers gear up for the annual rite of writerhood — the Poem-A-Day challenge to celebrate National Poetry Month —  I steer clear. I dread adding another thing to my "didn't live up to it" list. But this year, as April rolled around, something shifted. A friend — not a poet, but a novelist — asked if I would write a Poem A Day with her. I set my resistance aside and said yes. I'm glad I did because I learned so much:

1.
Write drivel, dreck, and dregs.

I was a reluctant participant. I agreed to join the Poem A Day bandwagon with one critical caveat: I can write junk. I can write sloppy drafts and then, later, consider revision. For now, this month, I will simply write.

All month my partner and I exchanged what we called, "drivel, dreck and dregs." It's our minds that hold us back, of course, and starting each day with permission to write junk allowed us dive in and play, and cast the internal (and eternal) critic aside.

2.
Structure is good.

In writing, as in life, structure is my friend. In my professional life, I compose a daily To Do list. I rarely accomplish everything on my list, but the process helps me filter and focus, and provides a frame for the day.

My writing life benefits from the same routine. Every day for a month, I jotted my list, leading with Write poem. This is the magic of hand and mind. Structure, agendas, lists — these are my best writing tools.

3.
Writing is exercise.

I don't like to run, but I always feel better after a run.

Alas, the same holds for writing. Many times I don't want to write; I'm not "feeling" it. I'm too tired, cranky, or busy. Much to my surprise, in the practice of daily writing I found the strongest work resulted from the days I had little time and/or desire to write.

Like a run, I know now that I've gotta push through. With a jog, the first 10 minutes are the most difficult; my body is sluggish and my mind resistant. In writing, the same holds true. If I can get past the 10 minute mark, if I can carve out a slice of time to write, I can usually unrattle my mind and body and get to the good stuff.

4.
A writing partner makes all the difference.

I would not have taken part in this project without a friend urging and encouraging me on. It's critical to choose your writing partner wisely, establish "rules," and cross your fingers for a good fit.

Before we began, we agreed on some ground rules:

1) Show up daily

2) We are allowed to write junk

3) Offer only encouragement

This was not the time to critique work; these were poems too fresh for the scalpel. At the same time, we agreed not to cheerlead. We could comment, or not comment, without pressure or obligation. Some days we applauded and others we simply said, Thanks for showing up.

The trust of a kindred spirit deepened my appreciation for poetry, and for my friend. In my month of writing, there may be one or two poems worth reworking, but it's the exchange — the sharing of poems and process — I value most.

Did you take part in the Poem-A-Day Challenge? How’d it go?

 

Thankful Thursday: Why I Write

 It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.


On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for the way one thing leads to another. Of course, and always.

A chance meeting leads to a conversation, leads to introspection, leads to examination. Hours later, rushed and heavy-hearted, I am in a writing workshop with nature essayist Kathleen Dean Moore. She's speaking softly but fiercely, and I am gathered on the edge of every word.

The world is invested in renewal, she says. Everything blooms, grows, dies, and tries again. What is the role of the writer?

She shares this manifesto. We read it aloud, line by line, in a circle, our voices rising and falling — grasping, getting, giving. On days when the world spins with questions, it's comforting to examine and then hold, if even briefly, a slice of certainty.

Why I Write

by Terry Tempest Williams
from Writing Creative Nonfiction

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.

I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change. I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends. I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure. I write against power and for democracy. I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams. I write in a solitude born out of community. I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that keep me complacent.

I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain. I write to migrating birds with the hubris of language. I write as a form of translation. I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know. I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness. I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating-always anticipating.

I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around. I write because of the humor of our condition as humans. I write because I believe in words. I write because I do not believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox. I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand. I write because it belongs to the force of the moon: high tide, low tide. I write because it is the way I take long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness. I write because as a child I spoke a different language. I write with a knife carving each word through the generosity of trees. I write as ritual. I write because I am not employable. I write out of my inconsistencies. I write because then I do not have to speak. I write with the colors of memory.

I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as a witness to what I imagine. I write by grace and grit. I write out of indigestion. I write when I am starving. I write when I am full. I write to the dead. I write out of the body. I write to put food on the table. I write on the other side of procrastination. I write for the children we never had. I write for the love of ideas. I write for the surprise of a sentence. I write with the belief of alchemists. I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short. I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by both understanding and misunderstanding. I write out of ignorance.

I write by accident. I write past the embarrassment of exposure. I keep writing and suddenly, I am overcome by the sheer indulgence, (the madness,) the meaninglessness, the ridiculousness of this list. I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds-and then I realize, it doesn't matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass. I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.

I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.

 

What are you thankful for today?


What's on your agenda?

To Do

Start here.

Show up.

Be present.

Be honest.

Work hard.

Work up.

Work out.

Stand tall.

Stand up.

Stand out.

Speak softly.

Seek love.

Seek help.

Help others.

Help yourself.

You are.

You can.

You wish.

You want.

Clear out.

Clear up.

Dry up.

Dry out.

Drive by.

Walk in.

Stroll through.

Get up.

Get lost.

Breathe deep.

Breathe hard.

Breathe in.

Know yourself.

Be yourself.

Begin again.

- In answer to the question, "What's on your agenda?"
  by Drew Myron


Thankful Thursday: Steal

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for permission to steal.

Today's steal sponsored by Poets & Writers, where this week's writing prompt calls for a cento.

Latin for patchwork, a cento is a poem composed entirely of fragments and lines taken from other poems and/or written sources. As a fan of collage, this prompt really perked me up —  and gave me permission to wander through poetry books and borrow great lines. I discovered the process of collecting (or stealing) is as much fun as writing (or, in this case, arranging) the lines.

Here's my cento:

This season won’t last 1

There are times when
the mind knows no wholeness.2
This is the enclosure (flesh,
where innocence is a weapon) 3
where the air has a texture
of drying moss.4

Dearest. — I remember how 5
my mind carried the night, wailing. 6
You’re only as sick as your secrets. 7
There is unexpected sun today, 8
or something like that. 9


Sources:
1. Margot Lavoie - March madness
2. Laurie Sheck - Nocturne: Blue Waves
3.
Amiri Baraka - An Agony. As Now.
4.
Susan Stewart - The Forest
5. Frank Bidart - Ellen West
6. Drew Myron - Lessons, winter
7. Brenda Shaughnessy - Your One Good Dress
8. Elizabeth Alexander - The Venus Hottentot
9. Adrian C. Louis - Looking for Judas

All lines, except 1 and 6, culled from The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry

It's Thankful Thursday! Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places & things that bring joy. What are you thankful for today?


Start Now?

     In this season of fresh starts, what are you creating?

     A book, a poem, a painting, a home?

     Are you jotting lists, stacking stones, making plans?

     Does your head spin, heart race, hand shake? 

     Do you wonder, wander, worry?

     Tell me, I'd really like to know, what stirs

     your imagination, what stretches your mind?

 

 

On Sunday: Try This


Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

              (for Kellie Jones, born 16 May 1959)

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelops me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus . . .

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there . . .
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.

- Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

 

For years, I've carried lines from this poem in my head: Nobody sings anymore . . . Things have come to that . . . I count the holes they leave. I love the title, how it suggests backstory to events deep and complex, and the way the poem offers everyday acts that, in their simplicity, turn reverent and illuminating.

This is the thing about poems: We can carry them in us, and draw our own (and changing) conclusions. We can pluck lines and make our own meaning.

Try this: Pick a line from this poem and use it as your own. Let it launch you into new work. Where will it take you? What words will you follow?  If you like, share your fresh words here, by posting them in the comments sections below.  Or, if you're feeling shy, email me --- dcm@drewmyron.com.