Well Read: Keeping the Mind Fed

Oh winter of our hibernation. Like fields, we go fallow, into deep rest and restoration. I’ve gone deep into books and it’s been a good reading season.

Here are a few of my latest favorites, along with lines and passages that struck a chord.

FICTION

Someone by Alice McDermott

A slim, subtle novel of substantial beauty. The novel, says the author, grew out of the belief that on some level, we more or less all struggle with the same things.

“We turned onto the last landing. Going out with this guy, I thought, would involve a lot of silly laughter, some wit — the buzz of his whispered wisecracks in my ear. But there would be as well his willingness to reveal, or more his inability to conceal, that he had been silently rehearsing my name as he climbed the stairs behind me. There would be his willingness to bestow upon me the power to reassure him. He would trust me with his happiness.”

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade

A tender and redemptive novel spanning one year in a family of five generations.

“What no one appreciates is that it takes courage — and considerable dramatic flair — to show up and insist you belong, to invoke genetic claims and demand food and love and housing.”

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

An easy mystery with a quick page-turning pace.

“This is the thing about good and evil. They aren't so far apart, and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.”

NONFICTION

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle

A practical memoir of radical love from a priest who spent 20 years working with Los Angeles gangs.

“Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it.”

Your Turn: Are you in hibernation, too? What books are feeding your mind & soul?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Thankful Thursday: Bad Advice

Reminder 13: Bad Advice, by Drew Myron

In my early days of poetry, I attended a writing workshop in which the instructor gave a list of don’ts:

Do not write about the moon.

Do not use these words:
muse, moonlight, soul, eternity, thee, thus, lavender

While I agree the world needs less musing, I love lavender. But because I was green and eager-to-please, I did not question authority. It took me years to sneak lavender into a poem. I still shrink from mentions of the moon.

Advice sticks. Good or bad, it tends to hang around in the head.

Growing up my mother warned us to avoid white bread and McDonalds. Good advice that still hounds me today. But she also frequently told me to “Go play in traffic.”

You take the good with the bad, and hope for the best.

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. Why give thanks? Because joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude, and these difficult days call for more peace and joy. On this Thankful Thursday, I’m grateful for advice — good and bad — that got me here, still alive & writing.

What are you thankful for today?

More Reminders:

No. 10

No. 11

No. 12

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Under the Influence

What are you reading, watching, singing?

How are you sleeping? What are you eating?

Who whispers in your ear? What roars?

What’s influencing you?

We know that everything is grist for the mill of the mind. Everything is material. We read, read, read, write, write, write, muddle, miss the mark, toss, turn, and start again.

Who knows how the mind filters and files — what to keep, what to toss, and why?

“Your triggering subjects are those that ignite your need for words,” writes Richard Hugo in the seminal book The Triggering Town. “When you are honest to your feel­ings, that triggering town chooses you. Your words used your way will generate your meanings. Your obsessions lead you to your vocabulary. Your way of writing locates, even creates, your inner life.”

Ten years ago, I was struck by this poem by Olena Kalytiak Davis.

Two years ago, I snapped this photo while driving across eastern Oregon.

Earlier this month, a storm delivered days and days of heavy snow.

Two weeks ago, our writing group was prompted to write about the new year.

Holiday, weather, postcard, pandemic, darkness and light, pressure and pleasure — one influence after another. Experience forms feeling, words stir, a poem takes shape.

I don’t know how the mind sifts and sorts. I’m not trying to write anything; I’m trying to write something, everything. The mystery of writing keeps me trying.

What’s influencing you?

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Switch & List

Hello Writers, Readers, Thinkers & Feelers,

How are you — I mean, really?

These are the spiral days. The pandemic surges on, nerves fray, winter feels chronically gray, and the mood is a long swirling plummet.

Maybe this is not your story. Maybe you’re meeting up, dining out, and thriving. Your creativity is off the charts, your skin is glowing, your hair bouncing, and your body is leaner and cleaner than ever.

Good for you. I’m not there and I envy your ease.

We’re in fractured worlds, and I’m among those living with health conditions. We tread lightly and with trepidation, while the rest of the world feels healthy and strong, sure they’ll recover from a health bump in an otherwise smooth road.

Because nearly every topic now divides, I no longer share my worries, details or opinions. I’m trying not to sneer at the unmasked and unconcerned. But it’s hard to hold back the fear and frustration. And really, aren’t we all exhausted?

Among writer-friends, I’m seeing a new sort of writer’s block — a creative numb. Externally, the world swirls in a succession of bad events and information while internally the creative world plods along weary and worn.

I feel like I’m living this poem:

The Well

It's not that the well's run dry.
The walk feels too far. It's uphill
in the snow both ways, and
who has the strength to carry
those dangling buckets balanced
on their shoulders now? I'll stay
on this secondhand chair, wrapped
in my mother's holey shawl.
Make another cup of tea, stay quiet.
Grief sits with me by the fire.
Out the window, tiny birds track 
hieroglyphics across the icy ground.

 — Rachel Barenblat

This week our writing group-by-email was prompted to write a list poem. The work trickled in slowly and, well, listless. This poem seemed to capture our collective mood:

Nothing Today

No juncos.

No kudos.

No innuendoes.

No Spaghettios.

No crows.

No jokes.

No hope.

No hoboes. 

No heroes. 

No romance.

No spotted thrushes.

No applesauce. 

No asparagus.

No appurtenances.  

No tennis shoes.

No aphorisms.

No witticisms. 

No chickadees.

No maladies.

No vitamins. 

No robins.

No ravens.

No eagles.

No sea gulls. 

No guile.

No homilies.

No similes.

No turns.

No terns.

No adverbs.

No apologies.

No advertisements.

No boots.

No coots.

No comment.

No point.

— Penelope Scambly Schott

Tell me: How do you keep the pen moving along the page? (Yes, I still prefer pen and paper). How’s your writing, your head, your heart?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

What’s In Your Book Stack?

Is there anything better than a stack of books and a comfy couch (except for maybe a stack of books and a warm beach)?

I’m in deep winter mode — snow, ice, cold — and starting the new year burrowed in fiction, poetry, memoir, self-help, and more. Some of the books were gifted to me and many were gifts to myself. Have a book lingering on your want-to-read list? Go ahead, treat yourself.

Here are a few of my latest favorites:

All the Words by Magda Kapa
Poet and photographer Magda Kapa has created a beautifully designed and stunning “poetic dictionary” comprised of aphorisms, epigrams and short “naked verse.”

Mistake: mostly done again and again until it has a name.

Night: sight to the inside.

Sanity: one bank of the river

Whereas: Poems by Layli Long Soldier
This poetry collection has earned a long list of awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award — and for good reason. Through a variety of poetic forms and styles, Layli Long Solider confronts government responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes. With astounding restraint and emotional power, this poet offers song and scream with bolts of essential light.

While we’re just over a week into the new year, this book (published in 2017) is now my favorite poetry collection of 2022.

Small Beauties: Poems by Ann Staley
With six books in just ten years, Oregon poet and teacher Ann Staley is a prolific writer, and a master of small moments. She’s an inspiration, a light, and a friend to all.

What saves us is our love for each other
and the moments we recall
at the end of any ordinary day.
What went well? Maybe this poem.

Your turn: What are you reading in this new year?

The World in a Word

New year, new page, new start.

Sure, right, whatever.

Even in a good year — and 2021 was a soul crusher — I’m not a fan of resolutions. The performance of commitment seems, well, a bit much. All that dogged determination wears me out. I don’t ring in the new year as much as let it creep across the floor and hope the draft is warm and the light is soft.

Sometimes I choose a word to guide the way. Remember when everyone was doing that choose-a-word exercise (everyone = poets, writers, bloggers)? One year useful called to me; I mean, really, I was adrift and feeling useless. The more I looked for ways to be of use, the more useful I became (that was a good year). But lately, aside from read, rest and wine, there is no resounding word. Nothing calls me.

Remember when we were urging each other to fail better? That too felt like overreach.

Last night I watched what I thought would be an annoyingly sappy movie — It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Netflix) — and much to my surprise I cried all the way through. I suspect the tears were stirred not just by the movie but by a wave of emotion that pulled me under because for so long now the world feels both sharp and fragile. My tears were cathartic catch and release. (Today I found the magazine story by Tom Junod that formed the seed of the movie, and I was awed by the writing, and now the movie has moved me even more).

In these endings, and these beginnings, in these days of uncertainty, of sickness and struggle, of unexpected laughter followed by rushing tears, I often feel about to topple. It can be a stinging tone or a car too close. It’s the frozen pipe, the broken furnace, the sour milk, the icy step. All is glass and slick and I’m losing my feet, my head, my heart. This feeling won’t last, I’m sure, but good lord we’ve all been on this road for so damn long.

This year, not a word. Not a list of self-improvements. This poem calls me. The Work of Christmas by Howard Thurman is the work of every day. I’d like to live this poem. Maybe that’s my word — live — and my resolution, too.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

What You Give

Be radiant light. Shine on.

- Drew Myron

1.
When we most need light, which is to say hope, the holidays arrive. Is it chance? It can’t be coincidence that the giving season takes place during the darkest, coldest time of the year.

2.
I keep thinking of the poem When Giving Is All We Have by Alberto Rios.

We give because someone gave to us.

3.
Life is a bustle of lists, gifts, food. We light candles and trees, and wrap ourselves into folly. The days are short, nights long, and we’re clinging to any slant of light. When our need is most pressing, we get the nudge that urges us to step out of ourselves, think of others.

We give because giving has changed us.

4.
For months I’ve been trying to write about Pearl and Doris and Walt and Addie and the many others I meet while delivering Meals on Wheels.

Like small stones worried smooth, each person is now lodged in my heart. I think of the man who waits at his door each week to greet me with full-smile and small talk; the woman too sick to chat; the man with a nurse who thanks me for the hot meal; the woman who invites me inside to admire the glow of her Christmas tree.

We give because giving could have changed us.

5.
Maybe I read too much into a moment. Maybe I want to feel something other than the dread and sadness I often carry. Maybe this is nothing more than a weekly task and I’m turning a small scrap into a warm quilt.

6.
But I keep thinking of the woman who can hardly hear and barely see, whose house smells of too many cats.

Each week I’m a new mystery to solve. Still, she often gives a smile and her eyes turn a dazzling blue. She comes to life, and we laugh about nothing, and I like to think we’re both happy — even briefly.

Then she roots around the pocket of the tattered cardigan that hangs from her frail shoulders and offers me a wad of bills.

“Oh thank you,” I say, suddenly flustered and grateful and sad. “You keep that. Spend that on yourself.”

She nods and smiles, and we wave our goodbyes.

You gave me what you did not have.

* For privacy, names have been changed.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

I Was Moved: Books of 2021

Read any good books lately?

I’m always reading something, and get nervous when my reading stack runs low. And though I read every day, I’m not often moved. I’m occupied, engaged, and sometimes engrossed, but it takes a lot to move me. The most wonderful reading experience is when I don’t want to do anything that will take me off the page. The writing is so good, the characters so real, the feelings so vivid that I want to binge on the pleasure but also don’t want the story to end. It’s a rare book that can deliver this delightful mix.

In 2021, these books moved me:

What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

The memories of their parents were like that, sometimes filled with fury, sometimes love, sometimes sorrow. Unforgivable things mixing with dumbfounding things and tender things, the same event in equal parts hilarious and enraging. There was no one way to think of their childhoods.

Set in 1972, this suspenseful literary mystery is a masterfully woven tale of family, siblings, secrets and hope. Stellar writing both comforts and transports.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng 

Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.

In this profound portrait of family, culture, and belonging a story of beautifully aching characters is built. This is Ng’s debut novel, published a few years before Little Fires Everywhere, the bestselling novel that was turned into a television series.

Monogamy by Sue Miller

She’d thought she was memorable. How clear it was that she was not. It wasn’t a quality you possessed, she thought now. It was a quality other people endowed you with.

In this deep and heart-full novel about the complexities of love, marriage, and grief, Sue Miller is master of the details of daily life.

The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh

Neither happiness nor sadness are ever done with us. They are always passing by.

A powerful and aching love story of mother and daughter, told in letters. A beautifully written memoir rendered with a poetic detachment that provides space to hold the pain.

Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane

Others get to midlife, look around — sort of the way you might reexamine your living room when you need a new sofa — and say, What do I have here? What is this room I’ve made? Halfway through life, I wasn’t sure what I’d made.

Don’t let this cutesy cover fool you. What seems a lightweight tale is a wonderfully quiet and charming novel of friendship and self-examination.

The Second O of Sorrow by Sean Thomas Dougherty

Why Bother

Because right now, there is someone
out there with
a wound in the exact shape
of your words.

This poetry collection gathers together a striking blend of short powerful poems and lyrical prose pieces from a poet described as “a blue-collar, Rust Belt romantic to his generous, enthusiastic core.”

Your Turn: Read any good books lately? What books moved you?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Who Are You?

Six Word Memoir by Drew Myron

Can you tell your life story in six words? 

Six Word Memoirs are the potato chips of poetry. You don't think you're hungry so you eat just one, but the salt is so delicious you just can't stop. Go on, make a mess, eat the whole bag. 

No really, give it a go. Once you write one, you’ll find yourself thinking of everything in six-word summations.

Six Word Memoirs were introduced in 2006 by Larry Smith, a writer and editor who went on to create a massive series of bestselling Six-Word Memoirs. 

I love this form! Years ago, the first six words I wrote turned out to be the theme of this blog (and my life):

Push words, pull light, carry balm.

Recently, my writing group — a hardworking and hardwriting collection of writers from all over the map (literally and literarily) who ‘meet’ weekly by email — played with six word arrangements. The gems they created are simple, striking, surprising . . . and fun to write & read.

Here, with permission, are a few:

Loving, being loved.
Work.
Books.
Noticing.

— Vicki Hellmer 

tried to become

someone I'd miss

— Shawnte Orion

Triptych 

 1) 
hide, seek,
lost, found,
repeat, repeat

2)
 moon song,
swoon song,
swan song

3)
 ruby slippers for sale,
well-worn

— Audrey Mlakar

Four Attempts by Sarah Cook

Sarah Cook enlarged the idea to create four linked nuggets, combined with her photos. See the series on Instagram @ freelance.feminist

Your Turn: Write a Six Word Memoir (or two, or ten . . . ). And if you’re feeling communal, share with me.

Write on!

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Thankful Thursday: Gather Gladness

I can’t stop scribbling these pages.

On this Thankful Thursday, I’m thankful for worn old books.

Day after day, these thin yellowed pages call me awake. The erasure poem — or in my case, one or two ‘found’ lines — is just the low-stakes, high-yield sense of accomplishment I need right now. When my thoughts are dull and mind is stalled, finding an unexpected nugget is a small and lovely yes.

Do you know Mary Ruefle, master of wry and beautiful erasure poems? She spends every morning in old books erasing text. She’s made over 100 books and her mind works in mysterious, wonderful ways. I’m thankful for her, too.

It’s the season of gratitude (and platitude). I work hard to avoid the sappy praise of rainbows and kittens. But some days there is a rainbow, and I feel the jolting swerve of gratitude, platitude, joy. And really, I’m grateful for the swerve.

Gather gladness

and spread delight.

Love the gales that

sweep the dream.

Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? What makes your world, your heart, expand?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

On Sunday: Tumult

The Tumult

In this fever

we wonder

what

links

us.

tu·​mult | \ ˈtü-ˌməlt
noun
1 : noise and excitement, or a state of confusion, change, or uncertainty

There’s so much noise now.

Even in the quiet spaces, especially in the quiet places.

In mind and heart, I feel the tumult of the times. I’m trying to turn down the volume, turn up the good, trying to make something in the rumble. For now, I’m erasing to find my way.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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On Sunday: Autumn Rain

Rain, rain, and rain.

It’s a good day for old books. For small thoughts. For space to fill the gaps, for words to fill the space. For erasing one thing to make room for anything. For making meaning from absence. For marking your days, your page, your life.

Join me, please. Make something.

Let
the sound
of autumn
rain secret
tears.

— Drew Myron

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Thankful Thursday: Hold the Light

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation. Remember that?

Ummm, yeah, it’s been awhile. Life is hard, still, again. I’m trudging. Are you, too?

“I’m trying to look on the bright side,” a friend tells me, “but everything is so heavy.”

Another friend feels constantly tired. It’s not about sleep. It’s the mental and emotional energy required to just keep on.

Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude — especially in the heavy days. On this Thankful Thursday, I’m reaching for the light, trying to make the small things shine (without feeling like an annoying "life coach”).

I found a gem at the library today. Just when I think I’ve read every William Stafford poem available, I walk into the library, turn to a shelf and find a poem that speaks to the walk I just made from here to there. My head had been full of longing and my steps slow with a vague rootlessness. I scuffed through wet leaves papering the street, thinking how brilliant this last step to decay. But I also thought, with a clarity only autumn’s letting go can bring, that the end is rarely so pretty. This golden brilliance of trees, this crunch beneath my feet, I know death’s slow ugly ebb and this is not it.

But of course it is, in its way.

And then I found a worn slim book, Braided Apart, and turned randomly to this poem. And then, because the poem felt like an ushering in, I wrote it out. Copied by hand, again and again, until I could feel the words, the pace, the core. Until a poem made me feel more clear, more light, more me.

The Saint of Thought by William Stafford, from Braided Apart by Kim & William Stafford.

What are you thankful for today? From the puny to profound, what makes your world, your heart, expand?

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

The landscape in you

1.
Where are you?

Not place, but yes, place. I mean: within you, where are you? No need to respond. No obligation to wonder, to wander.

But, please, do try.

2.
I thought the ocean would redeem me. Sprawled flat-back against warm September sand, palms open and lifted, I once declared a new start.

But winter came and came and came and flattened me into something less. Granular. Between wave, wind, and saturating storm, the dull pressure of gray soaked and rearranged. Through rain and tears, I curled into my self.

I traveled for miles, for years, then stumbled back where I began, on dry land where suede hills roll across a landscape scraggled and wide. Canyon, mountain, meadow and swale, in all directions the earth does not erode or ebb, does not shift or sink, does not wear me away.

Here, the horizon is an unbroken line of nothing. This is the long gestation, a slow appreciation for absence. When you think there is nothing, the smallest life blooms. Sage in spring, bunchgrass summers, rabbitbrush in fall, and winters of scrubby strays that tumble through lonely stretches.

A single meadowlark calls, another answers from far away. Everything here is away, and yet this distance draws you near. Just as silence fills a noisy gap, absence is a virtue. The something of nothing. I hunger for it now, these vast saddle soft edges, a place to put my quiet.

3.
If only we could keep going, out of harm's way, writes Robert Vivian in Hereafter in Fields, and take with us only the best parts of ourselves.   

4.
There are hundreds of routes to the same place. Sometimes I imagine how this geography can make me better, or that one kinder. Sometimes gauzy appreciation is truth steeped in love. Mostly, though, it's hope for better around the bend, a few more miles, the very next stop. 

5.
Why do I need these landscapes, Anna Kamienska asks. The roots of my astonishment at the world cling tight to my inner life, in a tangle of memories, experiences.

6.
I have learned this land slowly, mulling as I usually do. Resistant then relenting, hiking through gravel and shale, basalt ridges and sun-bleached plateau, doubting the way, doubling back. This is the shape of my days, which is to say, my life. 

In this terrain, a tether is tendered. It's a filament so slight that trust must fill what the hand can't grip, what the heart is desperate to hold. 

7.
But sometimes, says John Ashberry, standing still is also life.

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The world turns on words, please read & write. 

Back to School: Writing Books

In this September glow I get that back-to-school feeling that makes me want to grow.

I’m hungry to write and stretch. And I’m reaching for my favorite books, those dog-eared, post-it noted classics that always get me revved up & writing.

Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words
by Susan Wooldridge

Full of joy and encouragement, this lovable book reminds me that good writing is rooted in fun.

“It’s impossible to teach anyone to write a poem. But we can set up circumstances in which poems are likely to happen. We can create a field in and around us that’s fertile territory for poem. Playing with words, we can get to the place where poems come from.”

The Writer’s Portable Mentor
by Priscilla Long

I’ve had this book for 10 years and still haven’t reached the end. It’s a dense manual for advanced writers dedicated to improving their craft. While geared primarily to fiction writers, I’m a firm believer that exercising the writing muscle is a good workout for writers of all forms. This book’s guidance is valuable across genres, and I enjoy dipping in and out.

Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures
by Mary Ruefle

Wise and wry, Mary Ruefle is poet, guide, and smart-sharp professor in the din of a cocktail party lobbing sly observations:

“There is a world that poets cannot seem to enter. It is the world everyone else lives in. And the only thing poets seem to have in common is their yearning to enter this world.”

and this:

“The greatest lesson in writing I ever had was given to me in an art class. The drawing instructor took a sheet of paper and held up a pencil. She very lightly put the pencil on the piece of paper and applied a little pressure; by bringing her hand a little in one direction, she left a mark upon the paper. ‘That’s all there is to it,’ she said, ‘but it’s a miracle. Once there was nothing, and now there’s a mark.’ ”

Tell me: What gets you revved up to write?

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The world turns on words, please read, write & share.

Dear,

1.
It took just one letter to hook me on a lifelong appreciation of correspondence.

At six years old, I wrote my first letter. My grandparents had given a gift and my mother insisted I write a thank you note. Her method was simple: I told her what I wanted to write, she wrote the words, then I copied her words to compose my own letter.

With each letter received, I eagerly wrote back. Back and forth. Soon, I was writing on my own. For over 30 years, my grandma and I exchanged letters.

Do other mothers do this? It seems a brilliant way to bring personal expression to life, while also instilling a love of writing. Decades letter, writing and receiving letters is among my favorite things (thanks Mom).

2.
Letter

Today I did almost nothing.
Read a little, tried to write a sentence
to make another sentence seem necessary.

I wasn't unhappy. Everything
I could will myself to do I'd done,
so I said I'd done enough.

Now I'm looking out my window:
white pine, ash, a single birch,
the leanings and crossings

of branches. And then the sky:
pale, undecided. Years ago
you wrote to me about a matter

that worried you, and you said
at the end, "That's probably the best,
and most true, way to think about it."

I kept your sentence in my notebook.
I liked its shape. I admired the way,
young as you were, you could feel

one kind of thinking
adjusting into another, one truth
becoming a better truth.

Now you're far off, and alone, and I
have no advice you haven't already
given yourself. What can I tell you?

That I'm here? That today, when I saw
how tenderly the light was moving
among those trees, I thought of you?

—Lawrence Raab

3.
Does anyone write letters anymore?

I get a few, on occasion. I savor the delivery. How a letter arrives unexpectedly, with a messy scrawl or loopy letters. How a hand on paper can make a mark on the heart, even before the envelope is broken. How the greeting sets a tone, ushers me in or holds me back.

“To say what letters contain is impossible,” writes Anne Carson in The Beauty of the Husband. “In a letter both reader and writer discover an ideal image of themselves, short blinding passages are all it takes.”

I have written letters laying bare all I am or am not, all I wish to be. And I have felt an exhilarated exhaustion.

4.
In a letter we are hungry for connection, for compassion. Are you, too, restless, reaching for a clarity, seeking to both know another and understand yourself? And really, is it not the same quest?

5.
“We’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for,” said David Foster Wallace in This Is Water, a commencement speech. “How else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we’ve never even met?”

Yes, yes, more than just a form of communication, a letter is bridge.

A letter is a call across miles, a plea for presence.

6.
Elegy for the Personal Letter

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and crossouts that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationary, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges
ragged as their scribbled messages—
can't much write now—thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at—
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far—
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.

— Allison Joseph

7.
Today a six-year old writes me a letter, full of loops and curves, butterflies and hearts. Did her mother help her form the words, sound out each spelling? Did she labor and love? In the receiving, I am both excited child and calm adult, both writer and reader. I am hopeful and heartened.

A few words on paper, that’s all it takes.

* * *

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The world turns on words, please read & write.

Thankful Thursday (on Tuesday): You

Sometimes you have to hear it.

The way words soar with sound. The way a poem calls you in, holds you close, moves and shapes before letting you go.

Hearing this poem changed my day (and maybe me).

Listen here.
(No, really, it’s worth the effort).

You Are Who I Love
by Aracelis Girmay

You, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart

You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees

You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats

You protecting the river You are who I love
delivering babies, nursing the sick

You with henna on your feet and a gold star in your nose

You taking your medicine, reading the magazines

You looking into the faces of young people as they pass, smiling and saying, Alright! which, they know it, means I see you, Family. I love you. Keep on.

You dancing in the kitchen, on the sidewalk, in the subway waiting for the train because Stevie Wonder, Héctor Lavoe, La Lupe

You stirring the pot of beans, you, washing your father’s feet

You are who I love, you
reciting Darwish, then June

Feeding your heart, teaching your parents how to do The Dougie, counting to 10, reading your patients’ charts

You are who I love, changing policies, standing in line for water, stocking the food pantries, making a meal

You are who I love, writing letters, calling the senators, you who, with the seconds of your body (with your time here), arrive on buses, on trains, in cars, by foot to stand in the January streets against the cool and brutal offices, saying: YOUR CRUELTY DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME

You are who I love, you struggling to see

You struggling to love or find a question

You better than me, you kinder and so blistering with anger, you are who I love, standing in the wind, salvaging the umbrellas, graduating from school, wearing holes in your shoes

You are who I love
weeping or touching the faces of the weeping

You, Violeta Parra, grateful for the alphabet, for sound, singing toward us in the dream

You carrying your brother home
You noticing the butterflies
Sharing your water, sharing your potatoes and greens

You who did and did not survive
You who cleaned the kitchens
You who built the railroad tracks and roads
You who replanted the trees, listening to the work of squirrels and birds, you are who I love
You whose blood was taken, whose hands and lives were taken, with or without your saying
Yes, I mean to give. You are who I love.

You who the borders crossed
You whose fires
You decent with rage, so in love with the earth
You writing poems alongside children

You cactus, water, sparrow, crow You, my elder
You are who I love,
summoning the courage, making the cobbler,

getting the blood drawn, sharing the difficult news, you always planting the marigolds, learning to walk wherever you are, learning to read wherever you are, you baking the bread, you come to me in dreams, you kissing the faces of your dead wherever you are, speaking to your children in your mother’s languages, tootsing the birds

You are who I love, behind the library desk, leaving who might kill you, crying with the love songs, polishing your shoes, lighting the candles, getting through the first day despite the whisperers sniping fail fail fail

You are who I love, you who beat and did not beat the odds, you who knows that any good thing you have is the result of someone else’s sacrifice, work, you who fights for reparations

You are who I love, you who stands at the courthouse with the sign that reads NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

You are who I love, singing Leonard Cohen to the snow, you with glitter on your face, wearing a kilt and violet lipstick

You are who I love, sighing in your sleep

You, playing drums in the procession, you feeding the chickens and humming as you hem the skirt, you sharpening the pencil, you writing the poem about the loneliness of the astronaut

You wanting to listen, you trying to be so still

You are who I love, mothering the dogs, standing with horses

You in brightness and in darkness, throwing your head back as you laugh, kissing your hand

You carrying the berbere from the mill, and the jug of oil pressed from the olives of the trees you belong to

You studying stars, you are who I love
braiding your child’s hair

You are who I love, crossing the desert and trying to cross the desert

You are who I love, working the shifts to buy books, rice, tomatoes,

bathing your children as you listen to the lecture, heating the kitchen with the oven, up early, up late

You are who I love, learning English, learning Spanish, drawing flowers on your hand with a ballpoint pen, taking the bus home

You are who I love, speaking plainly about your pain, sucking your teeth at the airport terminal television every time the politicians say something that offends your sense of decency, of thought, which is often

You are who I love, throwing your hands up in agony or disbelief, shaking your head, arguing back, out loud or inside of yourself, holding close your incredulity which, yes, too, I love I love

your working heart, how each of its gestures, tiny or big, stand beside my own agony, building a forest there

How “Fuck you” becomes a love song

You are who I love, carrying the signs, packing the lunches, with the rain on your face

You at the edges and shores, in the rooms of quiet, in the rooms of shouting, in the airport terminal, at the bus depot saying “No!” and each of us looking out from the gorgeous unlikelihood of our lives at all, finding ourselves here, witnesses to each other’s tenderness, which, this moment, is fury, is rage, which, this moment, is another way of saying: You are who I love You are who I love You and you and you are who

* This poem appeared on The Slow Down, offering audio poems read by Tracy K. Smith, who served as U.S. Poet Laureate, 2017 - 2019. Sadly, this thoughtful poetry podcast no longer runs.

It’s Thankful Thursday (on Tuesday, because gratitude holds no schedule), a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for this poem, this poet, and the podcast that lifted the words off the page and into my heart.

What are you thankful for today?

On Sunday: In pain, rage and ravages

The angel lives in pain, an erasure collage by Drew Myron

The angel lives in

pain, rage

and ravages

and by choosing

hope and humanity

we emerge from

crisis.

The world turns on creative expression. Please read, write & make.

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The bad do not win

Dear You,

Everything now takes extra effort.

The hits keep coming: pandemic, heat wave, fires, drought, and so many people struggling to survive illness and death. A pressing fatigue makes it difficult to muster energy for the next chore, the next day, the next crisis.

I wish for languor, to unwind the mind and heart with thought and pause. Praise is what I first typed, on accident — or maybe purpose — because isn't pause a slow sort of praise?

We are sticking close to home. Each step I take is small and cautious. The pandemic, combined with a general increase in vitriol, has turned me inward even more. Maybe what I'm feeling is age and defeat. While I haven't given up, I do at times feel resigned, and, really, that is an awful sort of sadness.

I left my job at the nursing home. It's a good decision, but one I struggled for months to make. I loved the work and the residents but I have spent nearly my entire career as a self-employed self-starter and it was difficult to change a system that is, in essence, an institution. It’s a tough time to work in healthcare. Yes, I'm sad and heavy hearted. But it was an excellent part of life that stretched and filled me beyond expectation, and I'm grateful for the good long run.  

These challenges have offered a new view. All these years, was I hopeful or just naive? I see now that one person may make a difference, but that difference may be small, or short-lived, or too little among the bigger machine of life.

I do wonder if heavyheartedness – surely this is a technical term — is my default setting. I have periods of lifting and short moments of ease, but maybe this is the core of me. I know this street, these turns, I know the route to keep me moving. Even if  I never get home, I'll keep driving. And is that such a bad thing — to know your limits, your self? 

But enough about me.

What I really want to know is, how is your heart? Is it small and clenched, or full and hopeful? Please, tell me where your mind wanders, how your heart stretches. Like a plant reaching for sun, I want to know what light you find. 

With love,
Drew

The Artist in Novels

I love this passage (and the entire novel):

“What I feel is the sense of futility that emerges when the past is laid side by side with the present, like two photographs taken many years apart, when it become clear that there is no more time. . .

I feel something beginning to shift in me, and I am not sure I want it to; it is a reevaluation, a tiny release of the grip I have held on anger and am struggling to maintain against the frail specters I saw tonight.”

 — The Strays, a novel by Emily Bitto

For years I’ve gravitated to novels with art themes. You too? A few favorites come to mind, and I’m always on the hunt for more:

The Great Man by Kate Christensen

The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman

Take Me Apart by Sara Sligar

The Hare by Melanie Finn

The Goldfinch by Donna Tart

I need more art fiction in my life. Tell me, what art-themed novels have you loved?