Winter, this muteness

Hold on, a friend says, light will return. Oh, these December days of long dark and little light. In this season — when the heart is heavy, the body chilled — I cling to her refrain.


December

Too long alone again and words clutter,

hover behind my clenched teeth, my mouth

no longer sure what slight adjustments equal speech.

 

My tongue is the petal of a tulip touched by front.

My throat, in the next year, will belong to the hawk

or the fat, black garden snake lying dormant

now in the crawlspace beneath the house.

 

Winter is made of this muteness and these windows

and the long view of white fields through icy glass

where nothing moves and nothing raises its voice.

 

— Sandy Longhorn
from Blood Almanac

 

5 Great Novels of 2012

After a rough patch in which every book I read left me with an underwhelming sense of "eh," I'm happy to announce the literary lethargy has passed. In this last month I have enjoyed a joyous rush of really good books. Mind if I share my favorites?

5 Great Novels of 2012  

The Orchardist
by Amanda Coplin
A spare and moving story set at the turn of the century in the Pacific Northwest. A masterful debut in both character and pace.

 

Beautiful Ruins
by Jess Walter
An Italian history and a modern Hollywood combine for an engaging love story.

 

Rules of Civility
by Amor Towles
Set in 1930s New York, this fictionalized tale of money, opportunity and social circles is both energetic and touching — and a loving tribute to a glorious city.

 

The Shore Girl
by Fran Kimmel
Glass Castle meets Ghostbread in this story of lives on the edge, written with clarity and perception by an author who smartly skips the cloying sentimentality that often infuses this topic.

 

All the Dancing Birds
by Auburn McCanta
In this hand-me-the-hanky fiction, the narrator — a woman with Alzheimer's — shares the story of her eroding mind.

 

How's your reading life? What's on your shelf, or your mind? What book grabbed you and won't let go?


I've had this meal

Anthony's Diner

Yes, to the fresh
blueberry cobbler
even though I'm not
hungry and it will
double my bill,
because I'm on the verge
of tears and can't finish
my egg salad sandwich,
because this waitress
who never smiles,
whose eyes are hard
from seeing,
has somehow noticed
my sadness
and when she offers the cobbler
there is that other thing in it—
she and I, part of that small
black tepee of crows
I saw on the road this morning,
all business, sharing this beautiful violent day.

— Diane Swan
from the 2012 Women Artists Datebook

 

Thankful Thursday: Hang On Lil' Tomato

It's time again for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause for gratitude. Go ahead, take a moment to appreciate the big things (life, love) and small things (books, breakfast) and the assortment of people, places & things inbetween.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for Pink Martini, a quirky but elegantly cool band from Portland, Oregon that mixes, mashes and dishes up delightful tunes such as the one above. 

Hang On Little Tomato

The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark, I cannot see
Why does this rain pour down
I'm gonna drown
In a sea
Of deep confusion

Somebody told me, I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feelin' all alone and left behind
Just take a look inside and you will find

You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hang on, things will be all right
Even when it's dark
And not a bit of sparkling
Sing-song sunshine from above
Spreading rays of sunny love

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you'll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead

And so I hold on to his advice
When change is hard and not so nice
You listen to your heart the whole night through
Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you

— Pink Martini


Join me, won't you? Gratitude, like people, gains strength with a bit of appreciation. Please share your Thankful Thursday thoughts in the comment section below, or on your very own blog, facebook page, twitter account, school locker, cubicle wall, bathroom mirror . . .

 

Do you know what this is?

In this digital age, I'm an antique — and not in that retro, vintage, hipster-chick-cool kind of way. Case in point: I don't text, don't like cell phones, and prefer to write with that old-fashioned apparatus called a hand.

The image you see here is a datebook, also known as a day planner. Remember those? It's a portable calendar, on paper, with spaces to write your appointments, deadlines and important events (my birthday, for instance). This datebook is especially nice because it features art and poems by over 30 women, and includes a poem by me.

The 2013 Women Artists Datebook is published by the Syracuse Cultural Workers, a progressive publisher committed to peace, sustainability, social justice, feminism and multiculturalism (or, more simply, they dig peace, love & understanding), and can be purchased here.

And because I am perhaps one of the few people left hoarding paper, the Women Artists Datebook may now be a rare (and collectible?) gem. Due to declining sales, the publisher has reduced the print run, and is reconsidering future versions.

This seems an excellent time to celebrate the old ways with a new datebook. Support the arts, write by hand!

 

Thankful Thursday: Late November Light

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

After food, feasting and family, I study light. The way sun dodges and glows, the way the season calls for new illumination. Days shorten, light hangs at a heavy tilt. Just a bit more, I plead. Praise what little there's left, writes Barbara Crooker. And I do.


Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,

the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.

Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;

though they are clothed in night, they do not

despair. Praise what little there's left:

the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,

shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow

of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,

the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky

that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down

behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves

that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,

Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy

fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.


— Barbara Crooker
from Radiance

 

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


Feast of Words: Dessert!

The Feast of Words continues. Today we move into dessert, and the fullness of reflection. Like a good meal, gratitude fills and slows to show us all we have, hold, love.

Today's poem is from Allyson Whipple.

"I wrote this poem," she explains, "after a friend brought me some mangoes and taught me how to remove the pits in a way that would not damage them, so that they could be planted. I spent much of 2012 dealing with the loss of a good friend, and the simple act of paring a mango and then preparing the seed for planting was a sort of lightbulb moment, realizing the way good things endured. From the destruction of a piece of fruit came nourishment for myself, as well as the potential for a new mango tree. . . the poem comes from a grateful spirit — grateful for a friend, for fruit, for the reminder of what endures."

You bring me mangoes

and you bring me mango pits

you never make promises,
but in your smooth hands,
there is potential for sustenance,
nourishment,
for roots –

there is a reminder
that life goes on after
skin is cut
flesh is eaten,

that a future exists;
that something beautiful
endures after loss

— Allyson Whipple

 

Our annual Feast of Words celebrates the power of gratitude through words. Thank you — friends, family, readers & writers, for offering your heart, your words. Thank you for taking the time to savor and share.

With gratitude,

Drew

 

 

 

Let's Eat!


Yowza! It's a Thanks Giving Feast of Words.

When I called for thankful-themed writing, I had no idea the response would be so rich. I'm delighted with the offerings, and happy to be surrounded by friends old and new, near and far. Let's feast!

We'll start with a piece by singer-songwriter Jo Jo Russell Krajick, who explains that Ryan Road "is a private dirt lane traversing a farm near Rhinebeck, NY."

Walking Private Ryan

I never walk alone down this quiet road lined with ivy choked oaks,
Some hollowed out apartment houses for squirrelly creatures
Who dart and peak and stare and hide and live
And remind me whose neighborhood this road traverses.  

I never walk alone as the road is crowded with other friends and acquaintances
Who fly overhead and swoop thru branches or creep thru the grasses
Or cluster for warmth in the rolling fields with their tagged ears,
Some thousand pounds of stately flesh and hooves posing blankly in the breeze.  

I never walk alone for I am kept company by my ever-present thoughts
Though moments before confounded, disturbed and annoyed,
Now tagging along serenely and full of youth and vitality
Like an innocent child of the world skipping along clueless, happy.  

I never walk alone over the intimately familiar winding pathway,
A thread whose length is long enough to mend the small tears in my daily fabric,
Whose width and breadth and panorama open my eyes to the skies,
The landscape, the earth and the endless possibilities of my life before me.    

 — Jo Jo Russell Krajick


Let's continue, with a poem by Senitila McKinley, director of Seashore Family Literacy, and an artist whose latest work is creating colorful paper mache bowls.

making common bowls

delivered flowers today
to the living and the dead
food as well to the hungry
there is no place for me to eat
the table heaps of my own creations
you would call it messy
I am lonely, mess is now my best friend 
I am grateful that I can find joy
in turning old papers into bowls.

 

Please pull up a chair and join in the feast. Share your poems, paragraphs, prayers and praises in the comments section below, or send by email to dcm@drewmyron.com.

In this feast of words, more is the merry. We could be feasting all week!


Feast of Words!

In the spirit of thanks giving, please join me for the second annual Feast of Words!

I've set the table and I'm ready to eat. Please share with me your poems, prayers, paragraphs & praise.

Send me your words — small starts, lines of hope, your stories, your flash, your fiction, your long list or one true thing.

I'll collect and gather, and post your works here. Got a blog or a book? Send a link, and pass the potatoes.

To take part, simply post your thankful-themed word-works in the comment section below, or email me at dcm@drewmyron.com.

It's the season of gratitude. Let us savor and share.

 

On Sunday: Bandaging the Words

A page from Melody: The Story of A Child, an erasure poem by Mary Ruefle.

"I use white-out, buff-out, blue-out, paper, ink pencil, gouache, carbon, and marker," Ruefle explained in Gulf Coast journal. "Sometimes I press postage stamps onto the page and pull them off–that literally takes the text right off the page! Once, while working on an all-white erasure, I had the sense I was somehow blinding the words–blindfolding the ones I whited-out, and those that were left had to become, I don’t know, extra-sensory or something. Then I thought no, I am bandaging the words, and the one left were those that seeped out."

To see more of Melody, go here (provided by Gwarlingo).

To learn more about Ruefle, and her erasures, go here.

 

Thankful Thursday: From the Shallow End

I've got the giggles.

During this month of official thanks giving, many people are posting daily gratitudes on Facebook. But instead of joining in their earnest efforts I feel like the kid in church, doubled over and snorting with inappropriate laughter.

I just wanna have fun.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am splashing in the shallow end. I'll be back to laps and diligence shortly but for now, please join me in gratitude for the light side. It's a large pool, there's room for all sorts of thankful.

Shallow, Light Delights

1.
Poems inspired by the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
This show is a screeching wreck. I can't stand these people, and I can't turn away. Poet Leigh Stein is making art of the camp — or is it camp of the "art" ?

2.
Lipstick
My new favorite is Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain
(yes, the name is ridiculous).

3.
Magazine Binge
Vogue, Elle, More, Vanity Fair, O  . . .
About twice a year, I indulge in a magazine marathon. I've got more, ummm, literary choices stacked up around the house, but like overloading on junk food, returning to good-for-me reading is so much better after all that easy, nutrition-less munching. 

And speaking of munching . . .

4.
Mixed Nuts —  my everymeal!
It's a salt fix, a party mix, a salad topping, and when you add a few raisins, it's a sweet.

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express gratitude for the people, places and things that bring joy. What are you thankful for today?

 

 

What ignited you?

Recognize this book? This 1966 gem — written by Joan and Roger Bradfield, and illustrated by Winnie Fitch — set my career path. From the first page I knew where I was headed:

Who are you? What's your name?
Would you like to play a game?
Let's pretend we haven't met.
I'll ask you questions, now get set.

As a child this book urged and encouraged my natural curiosity. I peppered everyone with questions, and years later, became a newspaper reporter (and later, writer / editor / poet, etc). I'm still asking questions. Intrigued by path, process and personality, always I wonder: Who are you? What shaped your life?

I like this response, from Frederick Buechner in Listening to Your Life:

By the time I was sixteen, I knew as surely as I knew anything that the work I wanted to spend my life doing was the work of words. I did not yet know what I wanted to say with them. I did not yet know in what form I wanted to say it or to what purpose. But if a vocation is as much the work that chooses you as the work you choose, then I knew from that time on that my vocation was, for better or worse, to involve that searching for, and treasuring, and telling of secrets which is what the real business of words is all about.

And in this excerpt from the poem, When I Am Asked, Lisel Mueller poignantly reveals what led her to write:

It was soon after my mother died . . .

I sat on a gray stone bench
ringed with the ingenue faces
of pink and white impatiens
and placed my grief
in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.


Now it's your turn:  

Who are you? Tell me, please, what ignited your writing life?


Thankful Thursday: No Crescendo


When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

- Cynthia Ozick


I expect crescendo. I don't want to be struck on the skull, but I have grown accustom to big gestures that alert body and mind to big events. A vote that will change everything. Battering winds that sever trees. Champagne bottles popping. Every hour something big, pressing, important. It's fix after fix after fix. Everything matters because nothing matters.

Isn't this why we love sunsets? The slow easing, our rapt attention to quiet change. Even while we want to be grabbed by the collar and made acutely aware — feel blood moving, heart beating, skin flushing — we crave calm. We want to hear the smallest bird call, feel the chill of dawn, taste a singular satisfaction.

I don't really want big voices and urgent attention. Draw me, please, to the quiet corner where gratitude lives, and makes room for me.


It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause for appreciation.
What are you thankful for today?


Get Smart: 8 Essential Writing Guides

Money is short, time precious. You like to write and want to get better, but how? Reach for the bookshelf and lead your own course!

There's no shortage of how-to-write guides. To help navigate the plethora, I've culled a list of suggestions that combine my own favorites with those of respected writing colleagues — novelists, essayists, poets, and more. With detailed instructions and concrete examples, the following books serve as valuable guides to improve your writing.

Story Engineering
by Larry Brooks
see also www.storyfix.com

 

MFA in a Box: A Why to Write Book
by John Rember

 

Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay
by Adair Lara

 

In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop
by Steve Kowit

 

The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets
by Ted Kooser

 

Tangible tools are important, but be sure to also ponder and reflect:

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing
by Richard Hugo

 

Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces
by David Biespel

 

The Writing Life
by Annie Dillard

 

Have I included your favorites? What have I missed?  


Try This: Book Spine Poetry


Listening to your life,

torch the simple truth.

Risking everything,

love always

the imperfect paradise

of gravity & angels.

 

Love a cut-up, a collage, a literary re-mix? Me, too!

Inspired by artist Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project [via Brain Pickings] I searched my shelves and assembled titles for the spine scramble above. And in the process I rediscovered several loved-but-forgotten books:

Listening to Your Life
daily meditations by Frederick Buechner

Torch
novel by Cheryl Strayed

The Simple Truth
poems by Philip Levine

Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation
edited by Roger Housden

Love Always
novel by Ann Beattie

The Imperfect Paradise
poems by Linda Pastan

Of Gravity & Angels
poems by Jane Hirshfield


Book spine poems are fun — and addictive. I bet you can't try just one!

 

Thankful Thursday: Hunting Season

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?


This land is lush. In August, blackberries. In September, tuna. And now, it's mushroom season.

I live in mushroom country — 70 inches of rain each year makes rich, damp, mushroom earth — and I've turned forager. And like most things in life, it's not the goal but the process that satisfies.

Here, where the forest meets the sea, the woods are thick, immediate. The other evening, at the end of a long day at work, we hike in. For chanterelles — the craggly, coveted fungi with a golden hue.

In just minutes we are surrounded by towering fir and cedar, by old-growth and new moss. Autumn's low-angle sun slices through silhouetted limbs. Hiking up the bank, the air rustles low and slow. My boots crack twigs, thighs brush fern, bird wings flap in the distance. It's this green, this reverent hush, this serene suspension — it is all this I wish to harvest and hold.

I like mushrooms okay, but mostly I like the hunt.

 

Mushrooms

Like silent naked monks huddled
around an old tree stump, having
spun themselves in the night
out of thought and nothingness—


And God so pleased with their silence
He grants them teeth and tongues.

Like us.

How long have you been gone?
A child’s hot tears on my bare arms.

— Laura Kasischke