Fast Five with Susan Blackaby

“Writing . . . is like a magic trick, and it never gets old.”

— Susan Blackaby

Welcome to Fast Five, an occasional series in which I ask my favorite writers five questions as a way to open the door to know more.

It’s difficult to visualize the vast number of books Susan Blackaby has authored. Even she’s lost count. “Hundreds,” she says with a quick wave of the hand. An Amazon search yields more than 90 titles, representing only a portion of her portfolio.

In a career spanning 40 years, Susan has written hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books for early and struggling elementary and middle school readers, along with numerous textbooks, workbooks, and school curriculum.

Her books have sparked enthusiasm among both young readers and literacy leaders. School Library Journal has called her work “endearing and delightful.”  In 2002, the Washington Post named Rembrandt's Hat one of the top ten picture books of the year.

A prolific author, some of Susan's notables include, Where’s My Cow, Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox, G.O.A.T: Simone Biles, Cleopatra: Egypt’s Last and Greatest Queen; and an award-winning collection of poetry, Nest, Nook & Cranny. 

Susan lives in Oregon, on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. When not writing for work, Susan (Suz to friends) writes for fun. She’s a published poet, and is currently working on a young adult novel.

1.
In a previous interview you’ve said: “I’m always writing for the little kid in the back row who is afraid to raise his hand. I feel for the fourth-grade kids who can’t read at all — these are the kids who feel defeated by school and are about to slip out of the system.” Was school difficult for you, and how can we (as writers, readers, caring adults) encourage struggling students?

I struggled with numbers and met my Waterloo in 8th grade algebra, a disaster matched only by high school chemistry. I made up for my shortcomings with a knack for words, which eventually landed me a job in educational publishing.

When my daughter had trouble learning to read, I picked up a stack of trade books ostensibly designed to support early literacy and assumed that cracking the code was within easy reach. It wasn’t. For days we tested each other’s limits sentence by sentence, working along until one of us completely lost it. After a particularly brutal afternoon, I finally took the time to analyze the materials. The book she was trying to get through had a turtle on the cover, the demoralizing slowpoke indicating Pre-K, but the readability score on the text came in at a fifth grade reading level. One sentence on a page in oversized type was apparently the extent of the criteria used to arrive at an arbitrary and misleading standard, guaranteeing frustration and failure for kids who really require conscientious support. (This infuriating book is still in print, by the way.) I circled back to get my daughter resources she could use and switched professional gears at the same time.

These days, books bundled with basal reading programs, online resources developed by educational publishers, and books developed by school-library crossover publishers adhere to strict guidelines based on sound pedagogy, and many classroom teachers have handy access to these resources—you just have to ask for help. Understanding that brain development, maturity, physical health, experience, and exposure to storytelling are all factors in the learning process can help provide a critical foundation for a fledgling reader—and equal parts patience and chocolate milk won’t go amiss.

2.
What books, movies, songs, or people have influenced your professional life — and how? 

In addition to having some really special, gifted teachers along the way, I have been lucky enough to stumble into one snug after another populated by generous mentors—patient and exacting, kind and encouraging. Many of them have stuck with me long enough to transition from coach to colleague to cohort and are now among my closest, oldest, and dearest friends. Given that a deep appreciation for and understanding of talking rabbits is part of the job description, it is no surprise that the people who create books for children comprise an inherently merry band.

Even luckier, I came from a family of clever, silly, funny, sweet people who provided a firm foundation of mirth and curiosity, whimsy and joy. I owe them everything.

3. 
Your writing life is so rich and varied, from textbooks to children's books to poetry and more. What has been your highpoint, and why?

Everything about getting a book published is a pretty heady experience, and there have been some unforgettable moments. But the very best part is sitting down with your picture book and a bunch of little people, knowing that in a single page turn you can make all of them fall over laughing at the exact same time. It is like a magic trick, and it never gets old.

4. 
What’s the best writing advice you’ve received?

Dump a toxic friend.

A number of years ago, having been to dozens of writing conferences, I was not really paying close attention to the charming if predictable keynote speech when this surprising and transformative phrase rang out. The speaker went on to explain that these people crowd your creative energy and take up tons of time, two things that you can actually put to excellent and immediate use if you are carving out a writing life. Of all the million bits of wisdom I’ve collected and tried, this one actually works.

5.
I’m a word collector. What are your favorite words?

I’m definitely a word collector. Favorites tend to shift and jostle with context, season, and whim but perennial favorites include radiance, grace, clatter, faith, resilience, wander, conjure, thump, wink.

Bonus Question: What do you wish I would have asked?

What are your musts and favorites?

Strong, milky tea; narrow-ruled yellow tablets; extra-firm Blackwing pencils; Lamy Safari fine-tipped fountain pen; snail mail; stargazer lilies; corduroy pants; the perfect raincoat (ongoing quest); cool boots; road trips; Cheezits.

* * *

The world turns on words, please read & write. 

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Messengers

Some words are messengers . . .

1.
I send words into the world. In letters and poems, in rush and ramble, in a long steady sigh. With no expectation of reply, I send words hoping they land with goodwill and grace.*

2.
A letter returns to me: Undeliverable. The faraway friend has died.

3.
A poem comes to me in the mail. A friend has sent a poem to carry in my pocket.

4.
At the end of a writing workshop, we gather around a fire. The instructor asks us to tear pages from our notebooks and burn our work. Some writers resist. Others grimace and sigh.

I rip my pages, eager for the rush of release.

5.
Words are flying and dying, settling and soaring. On this last day of National Poetry Month, I am reminded of the many ways we tend our words — chasing, feeding, teaching, releasing.

Words are birds, writes Francisco, and whether they are accepted, rejected or rejoiced, they always leave prints that mark our way.

The world turns on words, thank you for reading & writing.

* * *

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* [ though, of course, I love responses & replies ]

Odds, Ends, Delights

In the Columbia Gorge, balsamroot and lupine are spring’s best collaboration. Photo by Drew Myron.

Ask the world to reveal its quietude —

not the silence of machines when they are still,

but the true quiet by which birdsongs,

trees, bellworts, snails, clouds, storms

become what they are, and are nothing else.

— Wendell Berry, excerpt from Sabbaths 2001

I would add balsamroot to that list of quiets, but maybe Wendell, a Kentucky fellow, doesn’t know the joy of Oregon’s unofficial sunflower.

The spring is rich with abundance: everything blooming. My mind is full of flowers and other delightful odds, ends, and unexpecteds.

May I share a few?

Good Views:
In the cracks and creeks, in the breaking asphalt and the wide-sky fields, every place has its bit of beauty. Where I live, the slopes are now jeweled with robust clusters of balsamroot and lupine, a glorious combination of sunny yellow and vibrant purple. Their season is short and every year I say, “this is the most beautiful turnout ever.” And it always is. Nature reminds us of the power of paying attention.

Good Reading:
I was browsing Bart’s Books — my favorite outdoor bookshop — and found a book I’ve always wanted but have never managed to acquire: Given: Poems by Wendell Berry. I wasn’t on the hunt for anything in particular but simply enjoying my favorite things: sunshine and books, when there it was, just waiting for me! Given is a beautiful collection of quietude and reverence.

You’ve heard me sing the praises of Alejandro Jimenez, an award-winning performance poet from Colima, Mexico who grew up in Oregon’s Hood River Valley. His first full-length collection just came out, and it is powerful. There will be days, Brown boy is protest and song, celebration and sorrow, hero and heart. You can support grassroots poetry — and get a signed book — from Alejandro’s website.

Twenty years ago, Central Avenue, a small literary journal based in New Mexico, was the first publication to give my poems a home. Over time, the journal featured 180 poets and published more than 1,000 poems. In commemoration, editor Dale Harris with Merimee Moffitt, have published Central Avenue: Then & Now, a retrospective featuring original poems paired with new work from these same poets. I’m delighted to be included in this collection, along with good poet-people I’ve gratefully gotten to know along the way: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Gary Glazner, Judyth Hill, and more.

Good Watching:
Why are so many nail salons run by Vietnamese families? If you get manicures or pedicures, or have seen the proliferation of strip mall salons, you have likely wondered about the genesis of this multi-billion dollar industry.

Nailed It, a documentary that aired in 2019 on PBS’s America Reframed series, answers this question. Filmmaker Adele Free Pham, from Portland, Oregon, digs deep into personal and cultural past and present to explore the inspiring impact of immigrant entrepreneurs. Watch the fascinating one-hour documentary here.

Your Turn:
Are your senses alive this spring? What are you seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, learning? What scenes and sights have stretched your attention? Books and movies, songs and stillness — what feels alive to you today?

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Thankful Thursday: Poem In Your Pocket

Oh, what delight! The convergence of my favorite days: Thankful Thursday and Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Created by the Academy of American Poets as part of National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day encourages you to carry a poem and share it with others. This year, Poem in Your Pocket Day is on Thursday, April 18, 2024. 

Call me a sap but I enjoy a designated opportunity to share poetry. I sing the praises of poems carried, clutched, swapped, and shared.

And I am reminded that writing is free. No license, permit, or permission required. Everyone — you & you & you & me — can write a line, read a poem, imagine a scene. No rules or regulations, no excuses or explanations.

Start now.

Make something.

Need a poem to share on Poem In Your Pocket Day?
Here’s one of my recent favorites: Small Kindnesses

Let’s take a break for gratitude & appreciation. Please join me for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to give thanks for people, places, and things in our lives.  What are you thankful for today?

* * *

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Blessings

In celebration of National Poetry Month, an excerpt from blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton. Illustration by Jack Wong.

blessing the boats

(at St. Mary's)

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back     may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

— Lucille Clifton

1.
The blueberry bushes are beginning to bud, reaching for sun and straining for restoration. The cherry and pear trees, too. And the dogwood, with blooms big as saucers, turns skyward. Winter’s long slog has reached its end. Rejuvenation begins. Inside and out.

All this renewal, each small faith.

2.
What new can we say to welcome spring? All our hoorays and hallelujahs are not new praise but instead, like hope, a familiar welling within. We simply cannot believe — and yet want to desperately believe — in fresh starts.

3.
And so, Lucille. She arrives for National Poetry Month to carry us from winter’s long ache to the fresh sea of spring.

Maybe you’ve heard this poem before. It’s a poetry staple. And yet, this year I read it with awakening.

The poem is quiet and lean, and small (in words, in form, in type). But now the demure poem enlarges my heart. The smallness welcomes my fumble and shuffle, my doubt and despair. It is benediction. Come close, it says, let me love you back to life.

may you sail through this to that

Like a prayer. Like an answer.

* * *

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Thank you for reading & writing.

Thankful Thursday: Good Books, lately

The world spins. And I turn to books.

Turn to the imaginary world, calm, steady, quiet.

On this Thankful Thursday, I’m grateful for these recently read good books; I want to press them into every hand.

And I’m thankful for libraries and bookstores — used and new — that open the path to pages, allowing us to wander, wonder, breathe.

NOVELS

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

What took me so long to find this 2022 gem? Sure, the title put me off, but this is now my favorite novel.

Set in Appalachia, this is the story of a boy who survives foster care, disregard, addiction, and crushing losses. Thanks to fantastic characters, plot, pacing, and tone, this 500-page novel is a fast and fevered treasure. The start, however, is a bit slow with a voice that takes some time to catch the cadence. But quite soon, this character is in my skin and I couldn’t put this book down.  

Also good:  The Poisonwood Bible. One of Kingsolver's best-known novels, this 1998 hit tells the story of a family of evangelicals who go on a mission to Africa. It, too, is a riveting read.

Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen

In this novel about a loss, grief, and growing older, a 50-something journalist reluctantly returns home after the death of her mother. 

Because so much of a good reading experience is based on timing, this novel was the right book at the right time.

Also good: The Great Man by Kate Christensen. A moving novel mixing art and literature, this book earned the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.

ESSAYS

Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron
Fifty years after its debut, this essay collection still shines. Sure, some of the 70s-era topics show signs of age, but Ephron — a journalist turned writer and filmmaker — remains forever quick, sharp, smart, and funny.

Also good: I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts On Being A Woman by Nora Ephron. A quick, easy, humorous collection of short essays on aging, published in 2006. Ephron died in 2012 at the age of 71.

NON-FICTION

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain

While not as powerful as her 2012 bestseller, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, this book is a compelling affirmation for the value of sadness and longing.

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation — big and small — for people, places, things and more.

What are you thankful for today?

* * *

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Thankful Thursday: Wrestle

I am busy with the business of ends.

Sorting, sifting, moving. Checklists and phone calls, pleads and waits.

I am packing a life, not for storage but forever.

 * * *

It's Thankful Thursday, and I am not thankful for death.

And yet, this grief, so plunging and primal, feels essential. Against death, grief is strangely writhing and alive. As if to wrestle. My restless mind darts between past and present and I am wrangling death to some obscure and necessary end.

Is this what it means to mourn?

* * *

What I really want to say is that I'm afraid to stop for sadness.

It hangs in the corners of a quiet room. It elbows into doorways and songs, into glasses half-empty. Sidles into the laundry hamper and stirs in my tea, says remember this and what about me?

Now everything means something — this cup, that photo, a slip of paper tucked in a book — and yet everything means less. How do you know what to toss, what to keep? And what is life but forget and repeat?

But I do not tarry, do not rest. I fold and wash, push and heave. The check has cleared. The door is locked. The mailbox empty. Every thing has its place but my mind hops and darts back, back, back. Past is present, is now, is never more.

Nothing is final if the mind still moves.

 * * *

Grief is tough to write and tougher still to read. It is also impossible to escape and imperative to tackle.

— Onyi Nwabineli

* * *

I was seasoned. I had spent years preparing. And yet, I was not prepared.

“If your parent passed after a long illness, you may have had more time to prepare, but no amount of preparation makes your grief any less significant when it hits,” grief experts say. “You may still feel stunned and disbelieving.”

Anticipatory grief is another term that rings true. But no one talks about death’s long and exhausting path. Let us acknowledge the aching frustration, not of death, but of the wearing march to the end.  

Days after my father’s death, grief groups and therapy were offered. For free. What I needed — and hope for others — was (free) professional counseling in the agonizing years before death. In that grueling span in which we pressed against the challenges of a chronic, terminal illness.

* * *

It’s true that grief comes in waves, knocks you down and pulls you under, then leaves you on a silent shore, contained but shaken.

Each day the wave is less. Storm turns to mist. I count the hours, then days, between tears.

I write this now as if resolved. As if sadness has left the building. But really it’s just my mind shuffling memory, making and remaking each recollection, turning truth to want, memory to maybe.

* * *

I have forgotten the sound of my grandfather’s voice and my grandmother’s laugh is growing faint. I try to remember my mother’s hug.

Not long ago, I started a list: The Dead I Have Known.

It’s too long.

Maybe it’s a creepy thing to do. Or maybe you, too, keep a tally of names you study with love and longing, with memories you stretch to keep them fresh.

* * *  

The question for me is how to live well inside our short, breakable lives.

— Sam Guglani, oncologist 

* * *

For so long I’ve seen only endings, so I am encouraged with this suggestion:

“It isn’t wrong to grieve. In order to move forward, it’s necessary. But, finally, it will again be possible to look toward to the future with hope and excitement. Life has been difficult, almost unbearably so, but you can sense something beautiful on the horizon.”

Yes, it’s a sappy vision. But, I’ll take it, and hold tight to gratitude, too.

* * *

It's Thankful Thursday.

Because joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude, let’s pause to appreciate the good.

What are you thankful for today?

On Sunday: Unknowing

photo by Rizwan Patel, courtesy of Creative Commons

If I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly

I don't know the name of this

flower, last night's moon, the cloud

formations and what they mean.  

I don't know the bird balancing

the wire with an urgent demand for

something I can't understand, but

I know the words bearing few

letters and too much weight:

hurry and wait, hold and grace

On these long days

I circle the room for answers

to questions not yet formed.

I don't know what to ask

of god, self, love, the world.

If this were someone else's story

an answer would arrive

in a piano that plays a single

long note, or in a small bird with

an insistent voice, calling

as I tuck myself into a

nest of unknowing where I

find a comfort that was

here and hidden all along.

— Drew Myron

Note: Title is a line borrowed from the Book of Common Prayer:

Make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be.

If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. 

If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly.

If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. 

And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Thankful Thursday: Pen Pal

Dear You,

I can’t remember when I last wrote.

It’s been raining for weeks, day after oppressive day — gray.

My head is saturated, a sponge of moss, leaves and debris.

Walking from door to car seems a great effort. The days

run together, each punctuated with dinner, drink, dessert.

Sleep, really, is a form of dessert, except that the dreams

are mean and vivid. Mornings are coffee sweet, a swirl

of hope and cream.

What’s new? The world keeps dying, and reviving.

My eyes have swollen shut, in what may be a

symbol of “seeing” too much and not enough.

Some days — in light rain moments — I walk along

the river and see its end. When I blink, somewhere

to my left and in the distance, the river bends and

the water rolls on. Isn’t everything in some

anonymous distance?

Even the ducks, paired off and paddling,

look soaked and done in.

Yesterday at the grocery store, I ran into a woman

I know just a bit. We chatted briefly, easily, in that small

way that says nothing in words and everything in tone.

Her name is Joy and that sounds like an opening for

an easy life. But this time I saw in her eyes a wound

of some sort, and liked her more because of it. 

I’ve never been one of those ‘girls weekend’ kind of

women who gather in packs, boozy and cackling.

While I might like that kind of easy banter I

was never asked or found a way to want it.

Instead, I am the woman in a clutch of quiet and

many pauses. I’m looking for that wound, for proof

of a deeper hurt. But I’ve missed out, haven’t I?

In searching for shadow I’ve lost the chance for light.

Oh, maybe it’s just January.

The rain won’t stop. Gutters are rushing, and damp

seeps into every pore. Wet has worn my finish to expose

all the ugly gray sadness inside. It’s too much, this letter

that says things not yet fully formed.

You, faraway friend, are a dear pen pal

and a source of quiet, endearing joy.

Love,

Drew

* * *

It's Thankful Thursday.

I’ve been thinking of friendship and my gratitude for penpals, those trusty confidants with whom I share dreads and desires, longings and leaps. A faraway friend indulges and encourages, listens, nods, and responds. I am grateful for the steady presence, the willingness to open the envelope again and again.

And You, Dear Reader: What are you thankful for today?

* * *

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Try This: Distilled

I’ve been feeling spare.

Maybe it’s winter’s long gray, the bare trees against a steady sky, or the static line of stillness.

Life is full, of course, humming along with errands, appointments, deadlines, and chores. But there is a quietude to winter that distills the days. The season demands we get to the essence. Less blather, more basics.

“Unremarkable lives should go unremarked upon,” Neil Genzlinger wrote years ago in The New York Times Book Review in a rail against memoir.

I, too, am sapped by oversharing. And yet, daily life is a writer’s essential tool. Our unremarkable lives are the small seeds of routine that grow into a story that softens, a poem that moves, a painting that shouts.

“Poetry is . . . that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does,” explained Allen Ginsberg.

Lately, I’ve been documenting the days by writing in review. One good line, or two. A small gathering. I’m enjoying the low-pressure distillation, the way it clears and cleans. The exercise of language. The thrift of description.

In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard gave us both permission and push to be mindful of our time. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” she wrote. “What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”

Try This: Near the end of the day, loosen your mind and let a highlight roll in. Morning coffee? A good walk? Pressing project? Battle with the boss? Any small thing will do. In fact, the smaller the better. If you experienced a big thing — a heated exchange, an illness, a happy surprise — break it down from chunk, to nugget, to seed. Think it out. Distill it down. Write it out.

Distillation is a great way to exercise the writing muscle. With less words, greater impact. And in brevity, comes levity. A lightness of being. The mind is sorting, the hand is sifting. The days take shape.

today, time lapse

trust
oh dark sky
oh winter moon
on these silent nights
how you shine

resistance
in a basement gym
muscles burn
against time

storm
eat, sleep, read 
snow turns to rain
turns to sliding gloss 

conundrum 
a goodwill find brings 
unexpected pleasure, 
while an act of goodwill 
creates unexpected tension

traveling in the dark
driving east, the wolf moon howls us home

mourning
a long bend stretches the body worn from winter’s ache

listening
a door cracks open 
to let a friend begin

— drew myron

One Good Line

One good line — from The Glass Room, a murder mystery that takes place at a writing retreat.

It’s been a long week in the Pacific Northwest. After weeks of rain and gloom, winter arrived with a powerful storm of snow, sleet, snain and ice.

Yes, snain is a form of weather, as is graupel.

Power, pipes, peace of mind — all weighted with weather.

Life closed up: schools, shops, even postal delivery (the horror!), and the world seemed to shrink.

Maybe you’ve felt this too?

In a storm, life inches along quietly like a slow moving film that turns your focus narrow, intimate. Much like how a fever can clear the body and break open the mind, winter turns life crystalline. Snow gathers knowingly on a ledge. A muffled silence gives every sound meaning so that the furnace ticks, the refrigerator hums, and the turn of a page cracks through the room. Nothing is everything, is cocooned, is a secret sort of holy.

In this quietude, I burned through books. Mysteries, novels, essays, poems . . . tick tick tick. Finishing one, I reached quickly for another. A binge, a feast, I gobbled. Maybe it was the haze of storm that turned me greedy. But it was also a sort of rapture in that every book — even the mediocre ones — were full of delights. One good line after another.

From Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship, by Catherine Raven:

It’s a safe assumption that any plant called ‘weed’ goes through life with low expectations.

From The Hurting Kind, a poem by Ada Limón:

I have always been too sensitive, a weeper
from a long line of weepers.
I am the hurting kind. I keep searching for proof.

From I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, by Nora Ephron:

Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter . . . Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.

Maybe this is the gift of stormy weather: to sit quietly, pleasantly absorbed, thankful for the companion of a good book. One good line is all it takes.

What are you reading? Send me a line!

This, too

This, too, was a gift

In the dream you

came to me as words

scrawled in a book

I read over again.

I see you in the space

between breath. And then

an echo of you arrives:

In thin light, pull

yourself tall.

Saying goodbye

your frail body draws

next to mine and

for a fraction I

feel you lean

to let me in.

— Drew Myron

* title from a line in The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver

* * *

The world turns on words.

Thank you for reading & writing.

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Good Books: Past, Present, Next!

Happy New Year to me! Behold, a fresh stack to start 2024.

Is there a better gift than a book? Santa & Friends were good to me, and I’m starting the new year with a fresh mix of literary delights.

But first, I’m looking back. It was a good year in books.

I don’t track the number of books read, though I typically complete at least one book a week, and two to three when I’m zipping along. Let’s say I read 100 books in 2023. Of those, here are my top picks (these are books read, not necessarily published, in 2023):

FICTION

They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey
Beautiful! Every page, in every way. Best book of 2023!

Trust by Hernan Diaz
With inventive storytelling and tricky maneuvers, this 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is both unexpected and engaging.

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister
A fresh take on my favorite topic: books! How does one action affect another? This weaving of lifelines is touching, tender, true. A feel-good book!

The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher Beha
An absorbing sprawl of a novel. This complex family tale enthralled me.

Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson
A sly, suspenseful novel in which a man slowly unwinds his tale of his success. Intimate and engaging, this book is a slow burn.

NONFICTION

That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour by Sunati Puri
Best nonfiction of 2023! A compassionate and profound book that blends personal story with loving suggestions for end-of-life preparation.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
The true story of a young couple who stole over $2 billion dollars worth of artwork in less than 10 years. This astounding story is meticulously researched and written so smoothly that the true-crime tale reads like riveting fiction.

The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine by Ricardo Nuila
With great empathy, Dr. Nuila reveals the roots of our broken healthcare system and introduces a working model that values people over payment.

Violation: Collected Essays by Sallie Tisdale
Oregon writer Sallie Tisdale is endlessly curious and has trained her insight on everything from nursing homes to elephants to reality television.

POETRY

Love and Other Poems by Alex Dimitrov
Dimitrov’s third book of poetry feels fresh and unfettered with language that is conversational and of-the-moment.

The Lord and the General Din of the World by Jane Mead
A beautiful, complicated, treasure of a book!

Concerning That Prayer I Cannot Make (an excerpt)

I am not equal to my longing.
Somewhere there should be a place
the exact shape of my emptiness—
there should be a place
responsible for taking one back.
The river, of course, has no mercy—
it just lifts the dead fish
toward the sea.

Listen—
all you bare trees
burrs
brambles
piles of twigs
red and green lights flashing
muddy bottle shards
shoe half buried—listen

listen, I am holy.

— Jane Mead

Tell me: What are your best books of 2023? And what’s next on your list?

I always enjoy hearing from you. Send light, write to me.

Just Do It? Did It!

Write more, earn more, do more.
Eat less, spend less, worry less.

Uggh. Years ago I gave up the grind of resolutions.
My inner critic is alive and kicking, why give her more material?

Instead, at the suggestion of writer Lisa Romeo, I practice the annual creation of an I Did It List.

This week — or maybe the next (I’m passively rebellious, after all) — I’ll take time to write a list of things accomplished in the past year. From the puny to the profound, everything is ripe for review.

Did I try something new? Make new friends? Did I stretch myself physically, mentally, emotionally? Did I help others? Was I moved by a poem, stirred by a movie, invigorated by a view?

To me, this process of reflection is more interesting and encouraging than the tired resolutions I used to churn out every year. Those plans and promises were usually short-lived and only set me up for a cycle of failure, disappointment and discouragement.

Some years are tough, though, and writing the list can seem a daunting task. But even in the dark times I almost always find nuggets I had forgotten: big, small, and unexpected, and feel buoyed by the accomplishment. Books read, stories written, friends made, leaps, lessons, victories — I did it!

One caveat, I keep my Did It list private. No one likes a braggart. (As evidence I refer you to the oft-mocked Christmas Letter from Overachieving Parents with Perfect Children).

Still, you may want to shout your list from rooftops or whisper in a phone. I understand. Your List might encourage another to recall their own success. These are difficult days, and a good list — like good news or a fresh poem — lifts with the air of sharing.

Again I resume the long

lesson: how small a thing

can be pleasing, how little

in this hard world it takes

to satisfy the mind

and bring it to rest.

— Wendell Berry
excerpt from Sabbaths, 1999, VII
as it appears in Given: Poems

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The world turns on words.
Thank you for reading & writing.

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In Darkness, In Light

Pearls on the Neckar River by Jakob Montrasio - courtesy of Creative Commons

TILT 

Winter solstice is the exact moment
when a hemisphere is tilted as far
away from the sun as possible.

— Old Farmer's Almanac

Let there be light

in the slats of dawn

in doors opening

on floors warm

Let there be light

on dreams cloaked in sleep

and the slow fogged return

Let there be light

on dark threaded earth

on early frost and graveled path

Let there be light

in the creak of a knee

in the space between ribs

in the lung's hungry cave

in the narrow passage

of breath and life

Let there be light

in our hands gripped

in hope, in cheer

in our tears.

Let the face shine

in love and loss.

Let there be light

in the letting go.

— Drew Myron

This Is Not A Holiday Message

Is this a holiday poem? — by drew myron

For weeks I’ve been trying to write a holiday poem.

Something short, not sweet, not too sappy but not too spare. A small poem tucked in a card. Heartwarming but not Hallmark.

This year I choked. It’s an impossible task.

And yet, I’ve completed this self-appointed “assignment” many times. Poem-on-demand was once my jam.* This year, I can barely produce a grocery list. My mind is dull while my inner critic is living her best life.

As usual, I turn to my “guides” for a spark. I scroll through horoscopes, feel the pull of magnetic poetry, mine my dreams, re-read Christmas classics, and more.

I even tried to think of this elusive poem as a work assignment from my (actual) editor. Every month I send her completed magazine features that are not nearly as difficult as this ridiculous poem assignment.

Give me words, I beg. Give me a message! Lift me, sift me, shower me with light.

I get a bunch of half-lines and thudding starts. So desperate I am that recipe instructions are starting to sound poetic and junk mail a bit inspired. My attempts at Christmas cheer are heavy coal nuggets with no jingle or jolly.

This pursuit for the poetic may be getting a bit obsessive, if not depressing. At this point, I’m running out of time and have surrendered to the seasonal shorthand of wishing everyone the same old blather: Happy Holidays, etc, etc, etc.

Hand me the Hallmark card, I’m happy to sign it.

On this Thankful Thursday, and I am grasping for gratitude. Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, each week I pause to express appreciation for people, places, things & more.

Today, I’m (a little bit) thankful for the struggle to write. I’m exercising the writing muscle, and practice and patience can only strengthen the process, right?

What are you thankful for today?

* * *

* Get the editor! who says jam anymore? I’ve never used the word jam, nor have I said: that’s how we roll. However, I am guilty of saying to my husband in a sarcastically peppy tone: teamwork makes the dream work.

Come to think of it, I’m a little bit thankful for these tired phrases that now give me a smile when used ironically.

* * *

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I always enjoy hearing from you. Send light, write to me.

On Sunday: Make Something

Winter arrived and the blues, too.

This week, I am eating, sleeping, slothing.

Make something is my usual prescription against gloom. In making something — soup, a cup of coffee, a to-do list, any small act — I’m engaging mind and shifting mood.

In my writing life, too.

I can usually find poetry in the everyday. But in my dreary state, creativity plummets. That’s when I know it’s time to turn to my trusty trick: Cut & Shuffle.

Searching for a spark, I hunt through newspapers, magazines, junk mail . . . I sort, shuffle, cut, collage, embellish and erase. Poetry is often the invention of reinvention. Somewhere between found poem and collage poem, I make something new.

Today’s poem is comprised of phrases and lines borrowed from Pheasants Forever, a magazine I found in the local library’s stack of free stuff. I’m not a hunter — except for words — but this publication’s beautiful photographs, coupled with writing by editor Tom Carpenter, could make me appreciate the beauty of the sport (well, aside from the killing). In art, the literal becomes the figurative.

Sometimes it takes just a small spark — and the art of rearrangement — to lift and shift.

How about you: What are you making?

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I’ve recently cut the cord to social media. While the departure has been good for my head it may be poor for readership. Many readers have found this blog on facebook and instagram. If you like what you are reading, please pass it on.

The world turns on words.
Thank you for reading & writing.

I don’t like poetry

I slip them into letters, post them in public, and sprinkle them into everything from congratulations to condolences. I'm always sharing poems.

But my enthusiasm is sometimes dimmed. It happened again last week.

I don't like poetry, a writer-friend told me.

I gathered my indignation and began my poetry pep talk.

And stopped.

She was right. I sometimes don't like poetry, too. I get frustrated by clever phrasing, put off by evasive “meaning,” and annoyed with ponderous puff. All that suffering. All that longing. So much inner gaze. Some days I want nothing to do with poets or poetry.

And then, I find a stellar poem. I climb into the poem like a kid in a tree, reaching higher and higher for the best view and the perfect perch. And then, because I've tasted how words can bend and sing, I clamber down to earth to write my own.

So I say to my friend, Yes, yes, I know. But poems aren't secrets or tests. You don't need to analyze. You just need to feel. 

She listens for a moment that is followed by standoff silence. I stop waving the poetry flag and we turn to fiction instead.

Still, I can’t shake her insistence against poetry and my mighty pull for it.

Everything is poem, I say in an argument I keep to myself.

Every song and psalm, every phrase and page. The world is full of words that tilt and spin, that clarify and calm. All the world is a poem!

Then I stop channeling Walt Whitman and sink back into myself.

The world is full of battles that I’m tired of fighting. Does poetry really warrant (another) dividing line?

* * *

Hello, and thanks for showing up.

I’ve recently cut the cord to social media. While the departure has been good for my head it may be poor for readership. Many readers have found this blog on facebook and instagram.

• If you are here, reading this now — thank you!

• If you know someone who might enjoy this blog post — please share.

• If you want to read more — subscribe for free.

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

Thank Full

Hello Readers & Friends,

Here we are — the biggest Thankful Thursday of the year!

What appreciations gather in your mind?
What gifts do you hold dear?

This isn’t a test. I will not collect your papers. Instead, how about this — sometime between the feast of food and the late hungry heart, let us quiet the mind so our thankfulness may gather and multiply with time.

With appreciation for you,
Drew

small things

the world is full of glass

unpack slowly

shake petals

serve tea

give wide starts

live among psalms

pull thin light

stand tall

give thanks

— Drew Myron

Thankful Thursday: Light & Art

Sometimes it’s the light.

Always, it’s the light.

Outside my office window, the maple tree glows in late autumn sun. And along the riverbank, tall grasses bend to waning light. Even the asphalt street sparkles in the after-rain.

How eager we are to absorb, to shine.

The world is a weight and our hearts cannot bear it all. And so we have art and words, friends and light. This is what carries us on and through.

Yesterday, my writing group — a mix of ages and interests, voice and form — met at the local art center. Surrounded by creativity, the assignment was wide — write about mood — and we dived in, each finding a wave, swimming out far, then making our way back to listen and share.

Like light, writing is a mystery. How it comes quickly, or not at all. How it streams in steady or dims too soon.

“Art is a wound turned into light,” said painter Georges Braque.

In the quietude of powerful paintings, I was moved — sudden as sun. How quickly light can change a mood. How quickly mood can change the light.

Incantation

inspired by the art of Carmen R Sonnes
on display at the Columbia Center for the Arts

Take this cross, this sun, a dawning start.

Take this bread, for life. This water, for heart.

Because patience is a mirror with

paths to places you do not yet know

carry the tangled roots of your dream.  

This is a mark of hope for the lost.

Scatter stones, bead, seed, and sand.

Turn your want to turquoise, your wish to earth.

Whisper to night, bow to dawn,

to all the burials before you,

all the births ahead.

Safe travels, we say.

Safe crossings, we bid.  

In this migration, may you find home.

— Drew Myron

It's Thankful Thursday.

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

What are you thankful for today?

* * *

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I always enjoy hearing from you. Send light, write to me.