Poetry is the soul's erosion control

Behind the veil of morning fog Mount Hood - by Margaret Chula

Traffic? Construction? I'm not bothered.

Driving through a mess of construction this week, I was thrilled to spot bright orange poetry lining the highway. Orange Lining is a brilliant public art project created especially for the construction of Portland, Oregon's newest light rail line. Part One of the project places lines of poetry on orange silt fencing used at construction sites to control soil erosion.

Poetry is the soul's erosion control - by J. Graham Murtaugh

In a call for short lines of original text (50 characters or less), Orange Lining received 1,100 submissions and chose 102 for use in the project.

"Orange Lining works on multiple levels – visual, conceptual and poetic," writes Peg Butler, the artist-designer who created this project with Buster Simpson. "It offers a creative, collaborative adventure that enables an ephemeral yet utilitarian process to evolve and transform into a permanent element of transit infrastructure. The process is legible and transparent to allow for the serendipity that creates an authentic, well-loved urban streetscape."

Part Two of the project stamps lines of poetry in the site's freshly laid concrete sidewalks.

What we love will save us - by David Oates

By "setting in stone" evocative lines and text, explains artist Buster Simpson, "we are borrowing this utilitarian process, the act of setting impressions in fresh concrete, to mark the expressions of a specific time in history and acknowledge the civic beauty of this grand infrastructure project."

 

How's your commute? Are you experiencing poetry in public places? Please share!

 

Fevered

All day I've been chewing
on my own acrid gloom,
trying to put away
the things you keep carrying
home from work: the possessions
of children and women
and drunks, stolen or cheated,
the tasteless unhappiness
of others into jars labeled:
Heartbreak, Injustice,
Just-Plain-Bad-Fucking-Luck

 — Olena Kalytiak Davis
from It's Shaped Like a Fork

Not since Naomi Shihab Nye. Not since Julia B. Levine. Not since Anne Sexton.

It's been a long time since I've turned and returned to a book of poems to dissect line after line, holding each piece to light, peering at the shadows to gaze with a mix of adulation and envy.

But now there is Olena Kalytiak Davis with And Her Soul Out of Nothing, and I'm marking pages, writing down and down and down. I want to remember, to share, to shake and shout, say, You won't believe this poem, and this one, and this one, too.

Outside, the thin line left in the sky
is exhausting itself.

- from This Is The Way I Carry Mine

These poems beat with force and beauty. She's the rebel girl you want to know — all long limbs and sharp angles, wearing a cigarette and an indifferent gaze. You're desperate to be her but you know you never will, and you're sort of afraid to try.

Still, I dig under, walking, stalking, circling the words, trying to discover her science. These poems move. I am restless to read more but also eager to settle in. How does she do this, create this tempo, this wonderfully alluring ache?

Please don't misunderstand:
We still suffer, but we are happy.

— from Postcard


Reading good writing stirs my own. This is the beautiful fever.


What's got you burning? What great words are you reading, writing, admiring, envying, savoring?


Thankful Thursday: Told and Untold

The nine-year-old girl stands tall and announces to the room, I am ready for my story to be told. 

We're reading The House on Mango Street, and talking about places we've lived. What do you remember? What do you want to forget?

The memories unwind. I miss this . . . I remember that . . . We write a line, and another. Some minds wander, others fix. Pages rustle with quick turning. Pens fly. Others stutter, stop.

A boy folds his arms. I don't want to write about my life, he mutters. 

How much to push? How much to rest? We are measuring our lives. We stop and start. Even just a line is enough, is enough for now.

Something in me yields, and I am thankful for this time together. For willingness, for reticence, for memory that feels both collective and individual. For children reaching, for children trying. For all of our stories, told and untold.


It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things and more. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?


Are you a good citizen?


What is the secret to getting published?

Learn your craft, yes. But also, work to create a world in which literature can thrive and is valued.

— Cathy Day


Are you a good literary citizen? Just as in "real" life, in your writing life it's not enough to move through the days thinking only of yourself. In a selfless and inspired action, author Cathy Day offers the following six principles of Literary Citizenship:

1.
Write “charming notes” to writers.
Anytime you read something you like, tell the author. Send them an email. Friend them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Not all writers are reachable, so you might have to write an old fashioned letter and send it to the publisher or, if they teach somewhere, to their university address. You don’t have to gush or say something super smart. Just tell them you read something, you liked it. They may not respond, but believe me, they will read it.

2.
Interview writers.
Take charming notes a step farther and ask the writer if you can do an interview. These days, they’re usually done via email. Approach this professionally, even if you are a fan. Write up questions (I prefer getting one question at a time, but some prefer getting them all at once). Let the writer talk. Writers love to talk. Submit the interview to an appropriate print or online magazine. Spread the word. There are many, many outlets, some paying. I really like the interviews published by Fiction Writer’s Review, like this one.

3.
Talk up (informally) or review (formally) books you like.
Start with your personal network. Then say something on Goodreads. Then Amazon.com or B&N. Then try starting a book review blog. Or a book review radio show, like a former student of mine, Sarah Blake. Submit your reviews to newspapers and magazines, print or online. God knows, the world needs more book reviewers. Robin Becker at Penn State and Irina Reyn at Pitt are just two writer/teacher/reviewers I know of who actively teach their students how to write and publish book reviews. Remember: no matter what happens to traditional publishing, readers will always need trusted filters to help them know what is worth paying attention to and what’s not. Become that trusted filter.

4.
If you want to be published in journals, you must read and support them. Period.
If it’s a print journal, subscribe. If it’s an online journal, talk them up, maybe even volunteer to read. One of my favorite writers, Dan Chaon, had this to say about journals: The writing community is full of lame-o people who want to be published in journals even though they don’t read the magazines that they want to be published in. These people deserve the rejections that they will undoubtedly receive, and no one should feel sorry for them when they cry about how they can’t get anyone to accept their stories. You can read his incredibly practical advice here.  

5.
If you want to publish books, buy books.
I don’t want to fight about big-box stores (evil!) vs. indie bookstores (good!) or about libraries (great!) or how truly broke you are (I know! I’ve been there, too!) or which e-reader is “better” for the writer or the independent book seller (argh!). I just want you to buy books. Period. It makes me angry to see the lengths relatively well-off people will go to avoid buying a book. Especially considering how much they are willing to spend on entertainment, education, or business-related expenses. If you’re a writer, you can file a Schedule C: Profit or Loss from a Business, and books and magazine subscriptions are tax deductible.

6.
Be passionate about books and writing,
because passion is infectious. When I moved back home again to Indiana this past summer, my husband and I set out to buy bookshelves. The first furniture store we entered didn’t even carry bookshelves, the second carried only a single type, and the third (which we bought, because they were on sale) were really intended to be decorative shelves, not book shelves. Mind you, I wasn’t really surprised by this. I grew up here, after all. If you find yourself in a literary desert, rather than fuss and complain about it, create an oasis. Maintain a library in your home. Share books with your friends, co-workers, children, and community. Start a book club. Start a writing group. Volunteer to run a reading series at your local library. Take a picture of your bookshelves and put them on Facebook. Commit to buying 20 books a year for the rest of your life.


This list, by Cathy Day, was originally posted on The Bird Sisters, a blog by author Rebecca Rasmussen (and like a good citizen, I bought their books in a show of appreciation and support).


Are you a good citizen?
Have you anything to add to the list?
I'd love to hear your ideas.

 

Thankful Thursday: And love says . . .

Push Pull Books

Thank you Rumi:

And love says
I will, I will take care of you
To everything that is near


& Emily Dickinson:

It’s all I have to bring today
This, and my heart beside
This, and my heart, and all the fields
And all the meadows wide


& Wendell Berry:

Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade


& e.e. cummings:

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail


& all the many, moony, love-struck hearts who love, long, yearn & write. You make love bearable, wantable, touchable & true.

It's Thankful Thursday and Valentines Day. What's in your heart, your head, your journal, your life? What are you thankful for today?


To Read to Each Other

In this season of love and all its many declarations, I return to a favorite poem:


A Ritual to Read to Each Other


If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.


For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.


And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,

but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park.

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.


And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider—

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.


For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

 
— William Stafford

 

Next Big Thing

Because the world turns with the steady hum of creative effort, I am happy to take part in the Next Big Thing.

Writers Molly Spencer and Hannah Stephenson asked me to join in this blog-tag-o-rama in which I share my latest literary act — and I invite you to share yours, too.

What is your next 'big thing' ?

Off the Page, an annual reading event featuring Oregon writers of all ages and experience. The gathering pulses with a party vibe — with wine, music, mingling, laughter and, sometimes, tears.


How did the idea originate?

The event began eight years ago with a writing group that met at my house. I’d serve soup, we’d chat, and then we’d write together. After a time we wanted to share our efforts so we staged our first reading. Some had never shared their work publicly, while others were accomplished writers.

In that first reading, I realized the power of making yourself vulnerable. To share your words — those things directly connected to your head and your heart — is terrifying, but also completely exhilarating.

Off the Page is held every April (during National Poetry Month) and is now in its seventh year. The first year drew 25 people, and recent years have seen audiences of 60 to 80 people.

The event spotlights local writers — from first-timers to well published, from 8 year-olds to 80 year olds — which creates a great mix of creative energy. Often the room is pin-drop still with a hushed reverence, and then the next writer will have the crowd doubled in laughter.

Who or what inspired you to create this event?

Over the years, writing has allowed me to wear many professional hats: reporter, editor, publicist, and more. But for years, I kept my poems covered and close. When I began to take poetry seriously, I discovered that writing needs air. It needs to come off the page and into the world.

One of the best things about orchestrating this event is when I discover people in my everyday life  — my neighbor, the pharmacist, the waitress — is a writer. I love encouraging others, and sharing these secret selves with the community.

Each year features a fresh selection of writers, and the changing mix always produces some surprises.

What genre does your event fall under?

Creative expression in all word forms — poetry, prose, song, fact, fiction . . . 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your event?

Write, share, thrive.

What else should we know?

You can do this, too! Don't wait for an invitation. Create your own reading event, or writing group, or workshop. The writing life starts now, with you.


Off the Page - No. 7 is on Saturday, April 13, 2013, from 7 to 8:30pm at the Overleaf Event Center in Yachats, Oregon. Admission is free, and open to all ages.

____


Now it's your turn! Are you writing a novel, publishing poems, or teaching a class? Now's your chance to share. To take part in the Next Big Thing simply borrow the questions above and interview yourself — then be sure to leave us a link to your blog post so we can learn more about you and your creative endeavor.

 

Thankful Thursday: Phlegmy but Fine

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.

On this Thankful Thursday I am proclaiming truth in advertising. Turns out that catchy old jingle really delivers. After days of achy limbs, hacking cough and a gravel throat, I am nearly healed (or on the way to that golden vista). Power to the plop!

Also, it makes me a bit loopy.

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things and more. What's got you loopy (and grateful) today?

 

Love that line: The past soaks into you

“In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow* crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to your psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.”

- Charles Baxter
The Feast of Love

*also applies to rain


How's the weather — real, imagined, or on the page — in your world?

 

Thankful Thursday: By hand and dots

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things, and more. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?

No sweeping statements, no big ideas, no declarations or decisions. On this Thankful Thursday, I offer three simple joys: 

On National Handwriting Day, I received this envelope in the old-fashioned mail from the young editor of The Yachats Gazette. 

 



A new polka dot blouse is a perfect pick-me-up.




 

I'm a planner. I like to look forward. Preparing for this writing workshop makes me happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 Enough about me. What are you thankful for today?


Thankful Thursday: Road Trip!

We've stayed at two KOAs, stopped at three Stuckey's,

bought one kachina doll, and sang the same Norwegian

song for sixty miles. We ate ham sandwiches on

Grandma's rye bread, and though I don't like the

taste I love the grandma effort, and even at ten

I know this matters.

 

Sometimes you need a little nudge. The gates of memory swing open, and the pen rolls on its own. Thank you, Lynda Barry, writer/cartoonist, for the road trip flashback. Thank you, Hannah Stephenson, for sending me to Lynda.

Now it's your turn: Write here!

 

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?

 

 

The writer you're supposed to be

 I think that when you

break out of the idea

that you have to be

a certain kind of writer,

you can actually be

the writer you're

supposed to be.

 

For weeks I've been mulling these words from a friend. 

Writing came naturally, and at an early age. I churned out the neighborhood newspaper from my own mimeograph (a Christmas gift, age 10). The high school paper saved my life. The college paper honed my skills. An internship expanded my vision.

All along, I imagined a future as a journalist, covering hard news and uncovering injustice.

But while my friends were starting careers at the hard-hitting dailies — the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News — my first job took me to a small town far from anything I knew. Instead of breaking news and fighting for truth, I was writing obituaries, attending city council meetings, and taking photos of the latest Eagle Scout.

In short, I wasn't the hard news reporter I thought I should be.

Instead I was immersed in the mundane, and drawn to the offbeat and ordinary: the 100-year old fiddle player, the woman who saved a historical church from wreckage, a young family rebuilding from a fire. As natural as breathing, I was drawn to people, to their simple stories. But it took me years to feel good about it, to feel that what came naturally held any value. 

Later, when I left newspapers for nonprofits — promoting good grassroots organizations — I liked the work but still worried it wasn't "substantial." I wasn't a journalist.

Ten years ago, when poems bubbled, it was all over. I could barely look my news colleagues in the eye. What kind of journalist writes poems, for god's sake?

In an essay about faith, Andrew Cooper writes, "My failure to accomplish or attain any of what I had hoped I would, I think, is the thing that has most enriched my practice."

For years I struggled to be a "real journalist," and discounted my writing and reporting as not serious enough. But now, I see that I've explored and enjoyed more terrain that I ever imagined I would in my original, and very narrow, definition of a "real writer."

After all these years, I think now I was always the writer I was supposed to be. 

 

Are you the writer you were supposed to be? What did you imagine, and what have you learned along the way?


Thankful Thursday: Name it, claim it

Thomas Hawk photo


Never wear white shoes.

Never arrive at a party without flowers, wine, a token gift.

Never say, you look great for your age.

Never get to Thursday without a bit of thanks.


But here I am, empty-handed.

It's not that I've had a bad week. Or that I'm a self-absorbed ingrate (admittedly, I'm working on this) badgering the waiter: what, only one dessert? I want more!

It's that today my gratitude feels both too small (the brilliance of chopsticks) and too large (to love and be loved). I don't want to share my insipid observations (sun shines after many damp days), or accomplishments that made my head and heart swell, if just for a bit.

This week, I'm looking to you. Make this space yours. Name it, claim it, big or small, tender or tacky, tell me, what are you thankful for today?

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things (and poems). Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?


Write Now! 10 Online Classes

We take stock. We look ahead. We make plans. In this new year, have you a thirst to improve your writing? Start now!

The selection of online writing courses seems to expand daily. Now dozens of respected organizations offer quality classes.

Here are 10 to Consider*:

The Writers Studio
Offering beginner to advanced workshops in fiction and poetry. Classes are 10 weeks, with an emphasis on "encouraging students to try on voices and attempt a variety of narrative techniques as a way of discovering their own material and personal voices."  Now offering free Craft Class podcast.

WoodSprings Institute
University-level literary instruction, offering workshops in poetry, short story, novel, creative non-fiction, and memoir. Also: manuscript mentoring and MFA prep courses.

UCLA Extension Writers' Program
A pioneer in online offerings, UCLA has 175 beginning to advanced-level online courses in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, writing for the youth market, feature film writing and television writing. Classes are typically 10-weeks, though some 6-week and 12-week options are available.

Stanford Continuing Studies
The Writer's Studio offers approximately 20 courses every quarter in the principal genres of creative writing— novel, short story, poetry, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting. All writing levels welcome.

MOOC - Massive Open Online Course
It's the Year of the MOOC, according to the New York Times.  The world of free, online, university-level courses is growing, from Coursera to Udacity and dozens more. Classes skew to science and technology with writing classes in short supply but that may change, and quickly. In fact, the number of MOOCs has become so unwieldy that outside websites have popped up to sort and rate courses and providers, see knollop and coursetalk.

The Loft Literary Center
Classes for adult and youth, online and on-site, all writing genres. Serves beginning, intermediate and advanced writers. Scholarships available.

Lisa Romeo's I Should Be Writing! Boot Camp
Led by no-nonsense nonfiction writer Lisa Romeo, this popular tough-love class helps turn the stuck, blocked, and rutted into happily producing writers. The six-week course is open to both new and seasoned writers.

Gotham Writers' Workshop
With more than 7,000 students annually, this New York-based organization is one of the most popular writing resources. Their interactive classes have been named Best of the Web by Forbes magazine. Six and 10 week workshops available in seemingly every genre.

Chicago School of Poetics
Offering online classes fostering innovative poetics. Students use visual web conferencing, desktop sharing, and collaborative whiteboards. The school offers "an alternative to, and a community beyond, the Creative Writing MFA."

Cambridge Writers' Workshop
Offering creative writing courses and literary salons in a variety of genres, including translation and manuscript prep. Classes run six to 10 weeks.


Have you taken a class from any of these organizations? Did you love it? hate it? Would you take another? I'd love to hear your experience!


*This is NOT a sponsored list. No compensation has been offered, considered or received.


Thankful Thursday: Plenty

In a post-holiday haze, I'm bumping into books and magazines, stumbling over journals and papers, and sinking into stories and poems. I am surrounded by plenty, sated and grateful.

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


I Did It!

Jessica Hagy

The jig is up. In the waning light of 2012, and before I walk into the fog of New Year promise, I'm taking stock and admitting that: 

1. I'm not going to write every day.

2. I'm not going to lose 10 pounds.

3. I won't run daily, give up sugar, or grow nicer, kinder, and more patient.

As the new year nears I dread those well intentioned, high-octaned, and, ultimately, short-lived resolutions to live more! do more! be more! Can we just jump ahead to March when all those commitments are distant (and, admit it, painful) memories?

This year, instead of resolutions, I'm doing the I Did It list. This brilliant idea is the work of writer Lisa Romeo, who says: "It's my small act of defiance against all the emotionally upsetting lists we humans tend to mentally make as the year draws to a close: the one that ticks off the things we failed to do all year. . . As writers we tend to see our writing year as a finite lot of things not yet achieved instead of a valuable step along an infinitely curvy road. Give yourself a break. Please."

I like her style. I'm starting my Did It list now.

How about you? Did you take a class? teach a class? write a poem? start a novel? join a writing group? Write it down! You might be surprised and heartened by all you've accomplished.

 

Thankful Thursday: All Your Nothings


and may all your nothings, too, hold something up and sing.

— Michael Blumenthal
from And the Cantilevered Inference Shall Hold the Day


In this last week of the year. In this season of illumination, when everything lights and shines against deep winter, dark night. In this time of reflection, hope and, yes, hints of sorrow and sometimes regret, this poem arrives. And gratitude swells for words that fit just right.

Read the full poem here.

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


White-Out, Black-Out, Erase


A brief affair


Light on details

we’re obliged to ask

questions, talk about

nothing much.

 

Against this fictional utopia,

hope is a slow burn.

In the dark, tales

are engineered.

 

- Drew Myron

 

Every writer has a special trick to get the mind stirrin' and words flowin'. My go-to is the erasure poem. Out of words and inspiration? Just pick up any print material and start scratching. By mining words that are not my own, new combinations appear and fresh ideas follow. For me, the erasure poem is a way to kick my head and hands into the writing groove. Some are keepers, most are not. But the process is always fun.

For great erasure inspiration, see:

Mary Ruefle (white-out erasure books)

Austin Kleon (newspaper black-out poems)

Lawrence Sutin (text and collage erasure books)


What's your trick? Have you tried an erasure poem? How do you kickstart your writing mind?

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Moved to Good Cheer

It's been a grim week. Hearts are heavy with the mass shooting of children, with the sudden death of poet Jake Adam York, and with a strain of flu that has hit unusually hard this winter. In all this, the thread of thankfulness that stitches the season with hope and joy feels rather thin and tenuous.

And still, it is Christmas. We have our symbols, our traditions, our touchstones. For me, it's Silent Night. I'm not sentimental but that song tears me up. Usually, it hits me while I'm driving alone at night along a quiet road. A distant radio station plays a static version of Silent Night, and I am overcome with a melancholy ache.

Sometimes I am among others, in a crowd, when the song flattens me — while mumble-singing at church, or while buying milk at the market.

It's a lonely sort of lump-in-the-throat.

Once, I broke down at the Dollar Store. I was ambling down the aisles of cheap plastic baubles when Silent Night played over the din of harried shoppers. Overwhelmed with the season, I rushed from the store holding back a sob.

The other night, at Seashore Family Literacy, a small group of youngsters offered an impromptu concert to a mix of proud parents and restless siblings. Beaming and happy, the children belted out their favorites and valiantly mumbled through tougher terrain. All the while, their joy, their effort, was contagious. When the earnest young ones sang Silent Night, I was lifted from my state of ache and moved to good cheer.

Thank you Seashore singers for allowing Christmas spirit to trump a string of dark days.

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things and more. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand? What are you thankful for today?