Thankful Thursday: Just One Line

Some days she writes just one line:

I like chocolate.

Last time she told me what she could say but couldn't write:

I've lived in four places. It was hard when I had to leave all my toys.

Maybe she's 8 or 10 or 15. Maybe her story is every story of nearly every child I now can't shake.

It's Thankful Thursday and here in this dark nook is gratitude for the young girl softly sounding out words like a prayer. When we come together I am "teacher" but mostly I listen and wait. We talk, and read, and write, and she is eager and willing. With the pencil in a fierce grip, her hand labors across the page. It's not easy but slow and deliberate she inches out letter after letter. Today she has something to say:

I am the old bike asleep in the rain.

 

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

 

Let words rise Off the Page

Join us for Off the Page — an evening of fiction, poetry, memoir & song — on Saturday, April 13 at 7pm on the central coast of Oregon, in the village of Yachats.

Festivities take place at the Overleaf Lodge Event Center. Doors open and music starts at 6:30pm. The reading begins at 7pm. Admission is free and open to all ages.

Enjoy the 7th annual celebration of fiction, poetry, memoir & song. An ensemble of Oregon writers — hailing from Siletz, Newport, South Beach, Waldport and Yachats  — will share their work.

Featured writers include: Scott T. Starbuck, Khloella Brateng, Theresa Wisner, Hallie Price, Drew Myron & youth from Seashore Family Literacy — with music by Richard Sharpless.

Free words, free expression, free admission.

 

Celebrate, and How!

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

— T.S. Eliot
from The Burial of the Dead


April may be a rough month but it's also National Poetry Month. Coincidence? Given how poets make art of their misery, it seems quite fitting.

Launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month began with just a few hundred people taking part. Today, it is the largest literary celebration in the world with special events taking place in thousands of schools, libraries, bookstores, and communities nationwide.

Here's how you'll find me spreading poetry cheer:

Poem in Your Pocket Day
The idea is simple: select a poem you love, carry it with you, then share it with co-workers, family, and friends. Poem in Your Pocket Day is on April 18, 2013.

Memorize a Poem
Copying or reciting a poem — my own or someone else's — helps me experience a poem more deeply. With the concentration repetition requires, I more fully "wear" the poem and feel the way its cadence and language bends and moves.

Put Poems in Unexpected Places
Some of my favorite spots: The bathroom stall. The coffeeshop table. Beneath a car's windshield wipers. Slipped between pages of library books. More ideas here.

Write a Letter to a Poet
Have a favorite poet? Or a book of poems you love? Write a letter to the author expressing your appreciation. Or, just write a poetic letter to . . . anyone. 

Chalk a Poem
Write a poem on the pavement — in chalk. It's cheap, easy and a fun surprise for passers-by.

Find (unexpected) Poems
Found poetry is waiting for you to discover its beauty. Write a Newspaper Blackout Poem, a Headline Poem, or patch together a Collage Poem. Up for a challenge? Check out Pulitzer Remix, in which poets take on the classics to "find" poems within the texts.

There's no shortage of ways to celebrate: attend a reading, join a writing group (or start one), buy (or borrow) a book of poems, subscribe to a poetry journal, and . . . write a poem (or 30)!


How are you celebrating?

 

Thankful Thursday: Happiness is . . .

from the stanza, a blog by Molly Spencer

It's Thankful Thursday.

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to express appreciation for the people, places & things that bring joy.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am swooning over spring, spotting "wild" daffodils at every turn — in vacant fields, along highway edges, in ditches, and at dead ends. Just who planted these bright yellow beauties? Thank you, thank you, thank you.

While contemplating botanic mysteries, I'm equally thankful for these kind surprises:

1.
Happiness is a shelf of unread books, writes Molly Spencer — and there's my book!

2.
A note from a friend:

My sisters and I read your poems out loud. We didn't understand everything, but after a few martinis we understood some things.

Family, cocktails & poetry aloud. Now, that's how to enjoy poems! With friends like these it is a very Thankful Thursday indeed.

 

What are you thankful for today?  

 

A Thin Skin Giveaway

Shazam!

My book is fresh from the press — and I'm giving it away.

It's spring, it's sunny & it's National Poetry Month. Hotdiggety, let's dive in!

Enter now to win Thin Skin, a collection of photos and poems by Drew Myron.

Here's how: Leave your name and contact info in the Comment Section below. On April 30, 2013 — at the end of National Poetry Month — I'll close my eyes and randomly pick a name from the entries. Winner will be notified on May 1, 2013. 

That's it. Simple.

Want a challenge? Write your own poem using Thin Skin as a theme, and share your work in the comment section. I may be bowled over and send you a book, too.

To get you in the mood, here's the poem that prompted the Thin Skin title:

Unless you

visit the dark places, you’ll never
feel the sea pull you in and under,
swallowing words before they form.
Until you visit places within you
cloistered and constant, you will travel
in a tourist daze, wrought with too much
of what endures, depletes.

If you never turn from light, close
your eyes, feel the life inside, you’ll leave
the church, the beach, your self,
knowing nothing more.  

Unless you are silent, you will not
know your urgent heart, how it beats
between the thin skin of yes and no.

— Drew Myron

 

Let the fun begin! Enter now. Write now.

Can't wait to win this book? Buy now, here or here.



Thankful Thursday: Despite Yourself

You choose one little thing, and everything that follows — maybe for the rest of your life — chooses you. So you pray for mercy, for whatever it takes to bear it gracefully. And give thanks for all the good things that come along, despite yourself, despite all the stupid, awful things you believe and say and do.

- from In the Deep Midwinter
a novel by Robert Clark

I am thinking of choice and consequence, of path and circumstance. What does it mean? It is Easter Week. Orchids and lillies, prayer and surprise, jellybeans and bunnies. This means something, and yet, what really? To everything I ask: What does this mean to me, to you, to the world at large — and is there distinction?

I am thankful on this Thursday, for all the good things despite myself.

Now it's your turn: What are you thankful for today?


 

Thankful Thursday: Spring-ish

Rick Hamell photo

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

This week marks the official change of season, and I am thankful for spring. Here on the western edge, seasonal shifts are not immediately apparent. It's been raining for days, the sky is a static grey, and I'm still swathed in sweaters and boots. But even in the endless damp, daffodils are bursting, a bright yellow sign of spring.

How simple, how sweet, this dash of color. Some days the smallest things mean the most.

How about you — What are you thankful for today?

 

On Sunday: Compassion, Expansion

Writing is an act that generates and expands attention. . . Your suffering is not discontinuous from the suffering of the world. Attentiveness, when freed from the intentions of self-promotion, is a practice that inevitably leads to compassion. And compassion initiates the ability to do anything useful, to think anything original and ungrasping, to work with the actualities of a situation with some breadth of being and some hope."

- Jane Hirshfield
from A God In The House: Poets Talk About Faith

 

 

Thankful Thursday: boyfriend & more

Thursday is no solo gig. It's now a prompt, a share, a circle, a pause. I wake to an email: It's Thankful Thursday, a friend writes, and I'm thankful for you.

What a great way to start the day.

Funny thing about thankfulness, the more you seek, the more you find. I've been gathering gratitude — the silly, the profound, the vast inbetween. Here, a few highlights:

1. Boyfriend jeans. Soft, comfy and cool, this worn-out, worn-in style has been called "the thinking girl's sexy." I've tossed the skinnies for this low-slung waist and relaxed rear.

2. A friend gives me a book of poems (Bewilderment by David Ferry). My friend is not a poet; she simply enjoyed the book and wanted to share her enthusiasm. I'm delighted. Think about it, how often do non-poets give the gift of poetry?

3. A candy bar wrapped in poem! Chocolove prints a poem on the inside of every wrapper. With 32 unique wrappers, they've printed an estimated 500 different poems. I recently enjoyed dark chocolate with Meeting at Night by Robert Browning.

4. Speaking of fashion (and we were, see no. 1):   

When in doubt, choose the plainer dress, the simpler word.

from A Poem Should Not Be Mean But Behave: Good Breeding for Poems by Jill Alexander Essbaum.

Go here for the full poem (and really, isn't the title alone worth the effort?)

 

What's got you delighted, dappled, simple and clear? It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to give thanks for people, places, things & more. What are you thankful for today?

 

Let's Come to Our Senses

Let's write together — in the lush green forest, where river meets sea, meets sky, meets creative exploration. 

Come to Your Senses
A Writing Workshop with Drew Myron

Sitka Center for Art and Ecology
in Neskowin, Oregon
Saturday, June 15, 2013
10am - 4pm
Cost: $70


About the Workshop
:
Writing comes alive with the detail our senses provide. Exploring the senses of touch, taste and smell, we'll focus on fresh writing with prompts and practices designed to energize and inspire. From poetry to prose, fact to fiction, this interactive workshop will serve as a creative springboard from which you'll generate new work, meet other writers, and share experiences that will help shape, shift and sharpen your writing. This workshop is open to adult writers of all levels, experience and genres.

About the Instructor:
Drew Myron is the author of "Thin Skin," a collection of photos and poems. She frequently collaborates with artists and her work has appeared in galleries, books and literary journals. As a journalist, Drew has covered news, arts, entertainment and travel for AOL’s “CityGuide,” “Northwest Best Places” and other publications. She heads DCM, a marketing communications company. She is writing instructor at Seashore Family Literacy, and the creator and host of "Off the Page," an annual reading event featuring Oregon writers.

Register now, here.


How to Write


Want to write lean and concise? Try writing ad copy — it's excellent training in the skill of combining persuasion with pith, muscle with mood. It's the haiku of commerce, and it's not easy.

No one likes advertising but everyone recalls a catchy jingle, a funny line, or a moving moment. Haven't you chuckled over an ad, or shyly wiped a tear after a 30-second spot?

David Ogilvy, the original Mad Man, was an ad exec known as the Father of Advertising. In 1982 he sent to all of his employees this memo:

How to Write

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well. Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.

Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

1.
Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.

2.
Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3.
Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4.
Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5.
Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6.
Check your quotations.

7.
Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.

8.
If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9.
Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10.
If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

— memo via Brain Pickings

 

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?