Somebody said something, but who?

 

Isn't this a beautiful passage? It was written by Louise Erdrich.

Yes, she really wrote this. Not Abraham Lincoln, Maya Angelou, Robin Williams or your second cousin who just found you on Facebook.

You know what I'm talking about. The only thing worse than no attribution is misatrribution.

That bird don't sing
"A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."

Maya Angelou did not say or write these words and yet the postage stamp released April 2015 in tribute to the late poet, bears these words, her name, and face.

After the stamps were printed, distributed, and launched in a celebration featuring First Lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, the truth was out: The line was penned by Joan Walsh Anglund, in A Cup of Sun, a poetry collection published in 1967.

More than 80 million stamps were produced, and the United States Postal Service has no plans to retract them, according to a story by Ian Crouch in the New Yorker.

"It seemed to many that the folks at the Postal Service had simply believed too readily what they read on the Internet," he writes. "They had gone looking for a suitable quotation, and finding this one attributed to Angelou in all kinds of places online — quotation-aggregation sites, Pinterest boards, Facebook pages, Etsy ink prints — they had slapped it onto a postage stamp, forever."

Somebody said something but was it
that someone or another someone?
We're lazy, and confused. Our enthusiasm for inspiring words is so vigorous that we don't care, or question, the validity of what we read. We just embrace, then share, then perpetuate the incorrection.

In my writer-for-hire world, I've been researching inspirational quotes about aging.

[Sidenote: This area is ripe for reformation; Over many hours, I found just a handful of quotes that weren't saccharine, sentimental or insulting.]

One I liked:  "It's not the years in your life but the life in your years."

Who said it? This pithy aphorism blazes across the internet landscape — in jpegs and flowered cheer — and is usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln. But, wait, really? He doesn't strike me as a boosterish sort of speaker.

A bit more digging revealed other sources: Adlai Stevenson, Edward J. Stieglitz, and that old standby, Anonymous.

And then, praise the heavens, I found the Quote Investigator.

A solo fact-finder, Garson O’Toole has a doctorate from Yale University and he, "diligently seeks the truth about quotations."

Why so bothered?
Because words matter. And writers work to choose their words. And it's right, good and kind to give credit where credit is due.

Can I get an Amen? (And all the writers said uh-huh!)

Yes, it's okay to borrow. Austin Kleon, who re-energized the erasure poem, wrote Steal Like An Artist, the book on creative borrowing. And I do, for writing prompts and crafting collage or cento poems. But I do not lift whole lines or passages as my own. I rework and reword. And I give a nod, a hat-tip, an attribution.

Here's a tip
Before you share that next inspiring bit of quote-gold, do this:

Read, review, consider, confirm, and give correct credit.

Then share with abandon. Fuel the blaze of authenticity.

 

It's not the years in your life but the life in your years.

— Edward J. Stieglitz

 

Thankful Thursday: List It

Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation — big, small, puny, profound— for people, places, things and more.  

I make lists. Every day, a new list. Every day, a fresh start.   

My gratitudes this week are many:

1. Signs, like this bottlecap, that reset my perspective.

2. Summer skirts

3. Wedge sandals

4. Watermelon

5. A visit to a dermatologist who finds no reason to cut away my skin.

6. Rosé — Not long ago (okay, last year) I thought this supersweet blush was a wannabe wine for cheap teens trying to appear sophisticated (okay, that was me guzzling drecky wine coolers). But I recently discovered dry, crisp and refreshing rose. So summer, so good.

7. Feeling appreciated, if even by strangers (see #8).

8. A woman I don't know called me "sweetheart."  Isn't that a warm endearment?

9. A friend has been hurt, low, and not himself. Yesterday we talked, and it was the best 20 minutes of the day.

10. This one-line poem:

Something My
Mother Told Me This
Morning on the Phone

If you don't see the light, don't stay.

— Nahshon Cook, from The Killing Fields and Other Poems

 

 Please join me. What are you thankful for today?


What happens when we read

 

 

 

Always eager for book suggestions, I started 3 Good Books.

For over a year, I've invited writers & artists to share their favorite books on themes related to their own work. The site now features over 25 creatives — novelists, poets, painters, photographers, dancers and more — sharing nearly 100 books.

When we read, we imagine.
When we imagine, we create.
When we create, our lives expand.

Expand yourself:

Nahshon Cook
Becoming

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
Dance

Shawna Lemay
Calm

Fran Kimmel
Troubled Childhood

January Gill O'Neil
Marriage & Divorce

Erin Block
Wild Places

Currie Silver
The Art of Being

Paulann Petersen
Nature Inside & Out

Scott T. Starbuck
Activist Poetry

Shirley McPhillips
Poetry in the Everyday

Rick Campbell
Industrial Cities & Workers

Sandy Longhorn
Midwestern Rural Life

Sharon Bond Brown
Women's Ordinary Lives

Jeff Düngfelder
Absence & Silence

Valerie Savarie
Art Books

Valerie Wigglesworth & Ralph Swain
Wilderness

Ann Staley
Past & Present

Reb Livingston
Oracles & Dreams

Eduardo Gabrieloff
Latino Writers

Lisa Romeo
Personal Essays by Women

Mari L’Esperance
Mixed Heritage

Lee Lee
(Un)Natural Resources

Henry Hughes
Fishing

Tracy Weil
Play

Penelope Scambly Schott
Strong Women

Allyson Whipple
Roadtrips & Realizations

Hannah Stephenson
Artists

 

Try This: Rev, Write, Return

I haven’t been writing, I admit to a friend.

[ Cue the fears: Am I still a writer? Was I ever a writer? Do I even like to write? ]

I've been writing nearly all my life — half of it as a person who actually gets paid to write — and I've yet to unravel the mysteries of the writing juice. As in: how to rev it, keep it, make it come back.

Yesterday, after a long dormant spell, I felt a rush of words. You know that rush. An astonished levitation, in which you are following the words rather than forcing them. The head moves faster than the hand and you ride the wave of word flow.

Oh, the exhilaration!

This morning the zing returned. For just a few minutes, enough to write several pages and restore belief.

[ Cue the relief: I'm not a one-trick pony after all! ]

I still don't know what turns the writing juice inexplicably off and on, but two things helped in this recent bout:

Write the same starting line for consecutive days.

Find a line that engages, and do a freewrite using it as a starting line. If you get stuck, repeat your line again and again but keep the hand moving. Return the next day using the same line. You may see, as I did, how the line takes you places, shifts your perspective.

I used this line from Transformation by Adam Zagajewski: I haven’t written a single poem in months.

Write in response to art.

Though we live in a hyper-visual world, I can still go weeks without a strong reaction to an image. And then, mysteriously, a painting or photo will stir me.

This morning, I began my day at The Storialist, and was unexpectedly compelled. Suddenly, I was writing with a fever, covering pages and years. Again, I experienced the beautiful floating, in which I was not in control but standing aside allowing the words to tumble.

Is the writing any good? Probably not. But it doesn't matter. The juice is back, along with my belief in expression and myself. Though this feeling may be fleeting, it is enough for today. It is, really, everything.

Transformation

I haven't written a single poem
in months.
I've lived humbly, reading the paper,
pondering the riddle of power
and the reasons for obedience.
I've watched sunsets
(crimson, anxious),
I've heard the birds grow quiet
and night's muteness.
I've seen sunflowers dangling
their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman
had gone strolling through the gardens.
September's sweet dust gathered
on the windowsill and lizards
hid in the bends of walls.
I've taken long walks,
craving one thing only:
lightning,
transformation,
you.

— Adam Zagajewski


*Thanks to Calm Things for introducing me to this poem. 

 

Want more?
Try This: Scratch Out
Try This: Steal
Try This: Poetry Poker
Try This: Postcard Poems
Try This: Alphabet Poem
Try This: Morning Read & Write
Try This: Book Spine Poetry

 

On Sunday: Stillness


My education had taught me quite well to talk,
but I don't think it had taught me to listen.
And my schools had taught me quite well
 to sort of push myself forward in the world,
 but it never taught me to erase myself.

 

— Pico Iyer
The Art of Stillness

via On Being


 

 

Thankful Thursday: Happify

Hope, by Mary Baker Eddy

Favorite new phrase: Hope happifies life.

My friends are cleaning out their past.

They gave me two old books. Beautiful books with ornate typography and thin, delicate pages that rustle with the quiet preservation of poems.

Their trash is now my treasure.

Thank you.


Please join me for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for the people, places, things & more. What are you thankful for today?

 

Summer of Insatiable Hunger

It's summertime and I'm racing through reading material.

Novels, poetry, memoir, magazines, newspapers, manuals, cereal boxes, candy wrappers . . . The good, bad, monumental and mundane, I'm word-hungry. 

After a (long, dark, dismal) run of ehh, I've recently lucked into some good books. Let's credit the solstice. Long light, long days, open mind. As always, timing is everything.

These books hit me at the right place, right time. And isn't that how it goes?

The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty
by Vendela Vida

An absorbing new novel, best enjoyed in one full sweep. Vida employs a risky approach: an entire novel written in second person narrative (You are growing increasingly panicked — you are in Morocco and don't have your backpack . . .). While initially off-putting, the style creates a tension of intimacy and distance for an ultimately engaging story.

 

The Edge of Sadness
by Edwin O’Connor

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1962 , this is a quiet novel gently tendering themes of forgiveness, redemption and the value of revising perceptions. I didn’t love it, but I appreciated it, and weeks after completing the book, I’m still thinking of it. That means something, I’m just not sure what.

 

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
by Mindy Kaling

You know Mindy Kaling from “The Office,” the television show that furthered the mock-documentary style of serial storytelling. A stronger writer than actor, in this memoir-essay collection, she’s sharp and funny, offering masterful self-deprecation without the usual cloying aftertaste. Easy, breezy, fun.

 

What are you reading? What's snagged you at just the right time and place?


Thankful Thursday: Everywhere a sign

From pebble to peak, from profound to profane, it's time again for Thankful Thursday.

Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time to slice through the ugly and get to the good:

In my ongoing attraction to signs (as in: horoscopes, billboards, messages), this week I drove past this doozy.

Rushed and full-throttled, this reminder is just what I needed to slow the frazzle in my head.

Odd, eye-catching and true. 

On this Thankful Thursday, I'm grateful for signs.

 

What are you thankful for today?

 

You talking to me?

Those who have anxiety, those who are shy, or nervous, seem to be the most persistent seekers of calm,” says Shawna Lemay.

“We are those who know how to sit alone, trying to regain our sense of equilibrium. We are drawn to the poetic, the contemplative, to reading, to the rituals of the everyday. We need a certain amount of time alone, we attempt to make appointments with ourselves that we can keep.”

 

Feeling anxious? Head over to 3 Good Books to get your literary prescription. I asked Lemay to share her favorite books on the theme of calm — something she knows quite a lot about, having written a book of essays and a blog on the topic.

 

To blather is easy, to edit divine


I have to tell you,

there are times when

the sun strikes me

like a gong,

and I remember everything,

even your ears.

             — Dorothea Grossman

 

This year, brevity meet clarity.

The Denver County Fair Poetry Contest is seeking Summer Shorts — poems of 10 lines or less. *


Even after all this time

the sun never says to the earth,

"You owe me."

Look what happens

with a love like that,

It lights the whole sky.

                          — Hafiz

 

Writing short is a challenge. Shorts require the potent blend of profound and precise. Or funny and tight. Or clever and clear. That can be tough stuff. To blather is easy, to edit divine.


a bee

staggers out

of the peony

        — Basho


Do you write short? Have you a short poem to share? And tell me, what's the key to making a short poem sing?

 

* Lucky me, I'm the Director of Poetry for this fun occasion.

 

Thankful Thursday: Falling Off

Art by Shirley McPhillips

At first, I collected gratitudes easily:

Thank you for coffee made by someone who loves me.
Thank you for the thrift shop score (two skirts!)
Thank you for a good sleep.
Thank you for warm sun.

As the week wore on, my gratitude weakened:

Thanks for getting me to the gas station before I ran out of gas.
Thanks that I didn't break my arm while rollerblading (yes, I'm living in 1995).
Thank god these jeans still fit (but barely).

By yesterday, my gratitude devolved to grumbles:

Why is this line so long?
How hard is it to return a phone call?
Do I have to do everything?

Like exercise and good health, it's easy to take the high road when you're already walking in the light. One stumble and you fall away, gratitude and cheer clattering along with you. Gray skies, scuffed knees and sour spirit.

I don't have a cure.

But this morning I gazed upon this card, made just for me by a poet-friend correspondent, and thought, "Well, isn't that nice?" 

Nice makes the world turn. One nice leads to another nice. Nice keeps me on the path.

Thank you.

 

Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time for Thankful Thursday. Please join me.
What are you thankful for today?

  

Things I Didn't Tell Her

The other day I sent a graduation gift to a girl I've never met.

It's that time of the year — commencement season.

Along with the gift (a book, of course), I wrote a short note. Days later, in my mind, that note expanded. Turns out I was writing to her, and myself, and to many others making their way:

Dear Graduate,

Congratulations! We've never met, but I know your mother has worked hard to give you everything she never had, most notably a loving push to higher education.

That's big. Please step bravely, kindly & with appreciation into this new stage of your life.

Sound preachy? Maybe, but just indulge me for a bit. I'm tendering a few nuggets of advice that may ease the sometimes rocky road ahead:

1.
You don't know everything (and who would want to?)

In the scheme of the universe, you've been around for a split second. The world is wide open, and so is your mind. Try to keep it wide awake and willing. Listen, absorb, ask questions, and listen more. Veer away from hard and fast opinions. Give yourself time. Consider many sides. Know that not knowing is the best knowing of all. 

2.
Keep a secret (in fashion and in life)

Secrets are good. Not the I-have-a-second-family kind of secret, or stashing-whiskey-in-the-garage sort of thing, but more like this: The Secret Life by Stephen Dunn.

The world is burdened with overshare. In fashion, the stylish are those who choose their emphasis (don't show leg and cleavage; choose one, and then choose carefully), and so you, too, must keep something close, covered. Mystery wins.

Fashion tip No. 2: Showing shoulder is classy; showing breast is not.

3.
Say I'm sorry

You're gonna mess up. We all do. The key is to apologize — without defensiveness or excuses. Don't worm your way through a faux apology ("I'm sorry you feel that way"). No, no, no! Own up and express genuine remorse.  

And while you're at it, learn empathy. This is where compassion and kindness take root. Empathy informs and heightens our sense of responsibility. 

4.
You're not special

Well, yes, of course you are special in that one-of-a-kind snowflake way. But let's not get bigheaded. David McCullough Jr, a high school teacher, explains it best.

5.
Give thanks

I'm not alone in my love of the thank you note. Jimmy Fallon writes one every week. Leah Dieterich writes one every day.

"In the process of opening a note, feeling the paper, seeing the imperfection of the writing, reading the message in another person’s voice, you actually feel like you have a piece of that person in your hand,” says a 20-something thank-you-note-writer in "The Found Art of Thank You Notes."

We all like to feel appreciated, and the act of expressing gratitude increases your connection to others — and makes the recipient feel good too. Bonus points for handwritten notes.

6.
You're never as fat as you think you are.
(But more exercise won't kill you).

I've spent my life feeling hefty. And when I look back at photos, I wasn't fat. The mind can be so cruel.  

I don't know you, but I bet you're not fat. And I hope you've never worried about your weight. But you are female so the chances are good that you've experienced the body image torture that saddles so many.

Let's skip the platitudes and positive thinking. Here's what worked for me: Find a physical activity that you enjoy — swim, ski, bike, yoga, dance, run, paddle — and then have fun doing it. This is a cure for both mind and body. And if, like me, you're always looking for ways to do less and eat more, just do more. Really, it's that simple. And that hard.

And maybe that's the best advice of all: do more.

Don't fret and fritter. Don't delay. Just do more. Love more. Listen more. Feel more. Live more.

That last tip should cover you for life.

With love & hope,

Drew

p.s. This was fun. Let's do it again before graduate school.

 

On Troubled Childhood


I believe we’re held together by fragile connections and too often these are broken in childhood," says Fran Kimmel.

Kimmel's award-winning novel, The Shore Girl, is a smart, sharp story of a young girl growing up amid tough circumstance.

Shore Girl was one of my favorite novels of 2012, and I'm delighted to introduce you to Kimmel at 3 Good Books, a series in which I give writers a topic (related to their work) and ask them to share their favorite books on that theme. 

What's your favorite book about the tough world of growing up?

Join us at 3 Good Books, where Kimmel shares her top picks.

 

Someone has to push the rubble

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

— Wislawa Szymborska



To chirp Happy Memorial Day seems wrong. Where is the happy in war?

And so I say, let's try to imagine and honor what we don't fully know. Let's reach to understand.



Keep it Classy

Superlatives At Work!

Alternate Title:  Oh, the places you'll go!

That's good copy. No, really. The writer: 1) caught my attention, 2) made me stop (to snap a pic), and 3) took a fresh perspective. That's a win!

But before we head over for happy hour, let's explore the definition of "classy" . . .

 

Thankful Thursday: Have a Martini

Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time for Thankful Thursday (on, err, Friday).

I'm easy to please — just write me a letter. Handwritten notes make me giddy. This week I'm thankful for a bounty of kindness: completely unexpected and unsolicited letters and cards in my mailbox. And tucked inside a very nice note was a lovely poem with a touching backstory.

This poem appears in God's Hotel, a book chronicling Dr. Victoria Sweet's work with the poor, homeless and mentally ill at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, California. The author of the following poem is Mr Zed (a pseudonym to protect privacy), who was a member of the hospital's poetry group:

Letter Needing No Stamp

To His Supreme Holiness, the Lord:
I sometimes wonder how you can bear
The dreadful burden of knowing everyone's thoughts.
The anguish, the heartbreak, the agony.
How can you even relax?
Maybe you try not to get too involved.
Or maybe you spend all night, weeping.

Why did you create such a sad world?
Why don't sandwiches grow on trees?
Why do infants die?
Why do honest people get cheated?
Why do the poor get crushed to the wall?
Personally, I would turn down your job in a second.
You can't buy a pie or go to the movies.

And there are always people denouncing you and cursing you.
Some say you had a crazy son who said
I am the Way and the Life.

We must all pray that you never resign or become bitter.
As sad as things seem to be here
Without you they'd be infinitely worse.
Thank God for God
Stay in there buddy
Have a martini once in a while
Create a new universe.

— Mr. Zed

 

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


On Marriage & Divorce


  Today I understand that sometimes couples get what they need from one another and then move on," says January Gill O'Neil. "I wouldn’t be the woman, mother, and writer that I am today without those experiences. And I would not have made it through the divorce without poetry."

She is director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and assistant professor of English at Salem State University.

At 3 Good Books, she shares the books that helped her "get through the most difficult time in my life."

 

We've got Winners!

National Poetry Month is over.

Poem in Your Pocket Day is done.

And now, our last piece of business — announcing the winners of the Big Poetry Giveaway. Congratulations to . . .

Renee Emerson - winner of Thin Skin, by Drew Myron

Lori Cooley - winner of What It Is, by Lynda Barry

A good time was had by all.

Thanks for playing & poeming.