Dragon's Meow: Reflections on Poetry & Creativity

My Body, My Choice

2012-01-21T10:35:00.007-05:00

In honor of Trust Women Week and Blog for Choice Day, I've gathered these thoughts, reflections and facts.

Bumper Sticker—Feminism: the Radical Notion that Women Are People

“If a fertilized egg has constitutional rights, women cannot have equal rights with men.”
– Jill Lepore, “Birthright”

“Abortion, for many women, is … an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.”
– Alice Walker, “Right to Life: What Can the White Man Say to the Black Woman?”

“If women do not have the ability to decide what goes on in their bodies, then they are second-class citizens.”
– Trust Women

“… this debate, which rages at a time when there is no consensus about what makes a person a person, began before an American electorate of white men was able to agree that a woman’s status as a citizen is any different from that of a child.”
– Jill Lepore

Abortion has been performed for thousands of years. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived until 1821 when Connecticut was the first state to outlaw abortions after "quickening." Soon after the Supreme Court restored the right to an abortion in 1973, the Hyde Amendment was passed, making abortions essentially unavailable to poor women.
– National Abortion Federation, “History of Abortion”

“Behind every debate on contraception and abortion is the sexist belief that women are incapable of making the decision whether or not to become mothers for ourselves. Anti-abortionists don’t want us to use birth control, emergency contraception, have abortions, or even have sex! We need to remind them that this is the 21st century, not the 19th, and we will not be silenced by their cynical political decisions and thinly-disguised contempt for women.”
– SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

Resolutions 2012

2012-01-02T15:57:00.007-05:00

Grub Street has a nice post about making realistic resolutions. Here are mine - a bit ambitious and I'm feeling excited about them! 2011 was a drag for me in many ways and I'm determined that 2012 will be better both in terms of writing and overall well-being. May all our intentions do good for ourselves, our neighbors, and for the planet.

Regarding self-care:
to meditate every* morning for 10 minutes.

Regarding exercise:
to train for and complete a half marathon in September, and to continue running afterwards.

Regarding writing:
to write regularly (go to the Writing Room every* Saturday morning unless I’m out of town), and to write every day in April (in observance of National Poetry Month).

Regarding work:
to continue working my stated hours and to take a lunch break every day.

* where noted, every=most

My sources of inspiration: my dad for running and meditation, my favorite writers for their regular creative experiments, my partner for perseverance and self-care, and my mom for thriving despite challenges.

My image for the hard work needed to achieve these goals: the Gaian Tarot 9 of Earth. Step by step, incremental, dedicated work toward mastery.

What are your goals, intentions, or resolutions? Who or what inspires you?

Microreview: The Hunger Games

2011-12-28T13:22:00.004-05:00

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dystopian, surprising, and compelling. I was occasionally annoyed at the smooth, made-for-Hollywood pacing and cliffhanger chapter endings, yet I was equally hooked by them. The main character is likable and strong yet fallible, the story is plenty suspenseful, and the allegory of a world after war and ecological devastation, where state-sanctioned violence is staged and televised and all relationships are monitored, is chilling.

View all my reviews

Embodied Poetry: Lessons from Typesetting

2011-12-03T22:27:00.008-05:00

The writing process, like many things, has its seasons. When I’m in a dry season in which no new ideas or images spontaneously generate within me, I often take time to go through the ever-accumulating pile of notebooks in my study and type up first drafts that have not yet made it out of those spiral bound pages. Here is an essay I found on one of those discovery missions, which speaks to another potential dry-season activity.

For a time, before I found a full-time job and Gian moved to Connecticut, I worked one day per week as an editorial and production assistant at Quale Press. I spent Fridays in Gian’s small basement office while his experimental music droned or plunked in the background. The majority of my work involved typesetting; not setting physical type in a printing press, but using design software to format our books and the texts of our clients: contemporary literary journals and publishers of poetry.

A perk of this gig was that I got to read poems, stories, and essays more deeply than usual since I was literally, as well as mentally, interacting with them. I got as close as digitally possible to manipulating letters with my hands. This work complemented what I did during the four workdays at my other job, which involved either writing articles someone else would format or proofreading text someone else had written.

After flowing the text into the template (a fancy term for copy & paste), I’d review the piece and make decisions about how the words would best be read, perhaps changing the spacing of a line to avoid awkward hyphenation, or choosing which style of section break to employ. Then I would send a proof to the editor, and make subsequent changes based on the editor’s notes.

Throughout this process, I might read a story or poem five times, as I initially laid it out and then returned to it with the author’s and editor’s corrections. I often read the stories in a nonlinear, fragmentary way, since the prose formatting took place at the level of paragraph, not sentence. Once, months into the process, I was surprised and distraught to learn that a story's main character had died.

But the poems I read in their entirety, because the formatting happened at the level of the line, sometimes of the word. I worked with each poem until I had shaped it into the form the author intended (and with certain poems, this took several rounds of email exchanges between editor and author). Any poetry lover will tell you that a poem needs to be read more than once, but I do not always make time for this. There are so many poems in the world.

The poems that fought back—and consequently got my attention—were the more unwieldy or unusual ones. They would come to me in a Word document typed in Times New Roman 12 pt font, but when copied into the journal’s template, the new font’s characteristics would reformat the text so that I needed to go in line by line to recreate the author’s word arrangements.

Sometimes a poem had very long lines that did not fit on a narrower page and I had to decide where to break the line. Or a poem had staggered lines. I learned that tabs & spaces come in different sizes. Or they had some other way of occupying space that I'm unable to recreate here.

Impatient person that I am, I tended to get aggravated by the unwieldy poems, but in that aggravation there was attention. There was, “why is this necessary?” and then I might come up with an answer, or at least an interpretation. Typesetting, or simply retyping (the easier approach you can take in the comfort of your own home), is a great way to read. Impractical in everyday practice, but a great way to learn about writing.

Some skills, like plumbing or sewing, can be learned by taking things apart. With a poem, the putting it together again is also key: the arranging is part of the creating. So, if you’re bored with your own work or you’re at a loss for what to do next, I suggest retyping and formatting a few contemporary poems from current literary journals. See what happens in your experience of embodied poetry.

Come to the Greenfield Annual Word Festival

2011-10-13T06:41:00.002-05:00

Please join me, and lots of friends and favorites,
at the 2nd GREENFIELD ANNUAL WORD FESTIVAL!
Saturday, October 15

Poetry everywhere!

Diana Gordon emcees at 6:30 at The Ten Miles Collaborative, with Lori Derosiers, Kat Good-Shiff, Mary Clare Powell, Laura Rodley, Kim Rogers, and Maria Williams at 10 Miles Street (Just off of Federal).

Lots of readers in many different locations in downtown Greenfield: some of your local favorites and some surprise out-of-towners.

Enjoy the word! Spread the word! GAWF is a benefit for the literacy project.

Here’s the facebook page for those of you on Facebook to invite your friends.

Updates are also available here.

A full program and schedule will be available at the Greenfield Grille on Saturday.

Microreview: American Gods

2011-09-16T07:08:00.001-05:00

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book starts slowly and is initially confusing until you accept the logic of the world Gaiman has created. It is an epic journey through the spiritual history of America's various ethnic groups as seen by an ex-con who gets caught up in a scheme of which he's completely unaware. As he gradually begins to understand, and we along with him, the story grows more complicated and satisfying. There are plenty of surprises, including gods who can die and dead people who can come back to life.

View all my reviews

Microreview: The Manual of Detection

2011-08-26T10:55:00.002-05:00

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A unique, fascinating, and surprising detective novel. Berry has created a very plausible world of clerks, detective, and criminals in which the powers of order and disorder (embodied by a detective agency and a carnival, respectively) vie for control of a city's inhabitants. The prose has a very carefully written feel and the author seems to take great pleasure, as does his main character the clerk, in precise narrative details so that the story manages to be simultaneously logical and dreamlike. My only complaint is that the story is a bit slow at first - but once it picked up, I couldn't put it down.

View all my reviews

Microreview: Monologue of a Dog

2011-07-16T08:54:00.003-05:00

Monologue of a Dog by Wisława Szymborska

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Optimistic, unblinking poems with clear language and unexpected perspectives. History, war, and tragedy coexist mysteriously with wonder and delight.

View all my reviews

Oh the Chickens

2011-06-27T14:06:00.007-05:00

Thinking about work and sunshine and dirt and databases. Today's non-required reading included this essay by Michael Mauri, in which he muses, "Someday, maybe, our insignificant micro-decision to raise laying-hens in the backyard will prove provident. Maybe it won’t seem so odd in this American neighborhood setting where maintaining mow-able lawns is a top priority, where status is measured in lack of productivity."

Here are my friend's chickens, photographed last summer. I don't have my own yet, but maybe someday.

Review of "The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway"

2011-05-27T06:30:00.001-05:00

As should be expected, much is strange and unnatural in The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway, the third book of poems by Jennifer L. Knox. Murderers, opera singers, and coyotes rub shoulders across the varied, yet equally wild, psychic terrains of desert, suburbia, and silent movies... Read full review on Tarpaulin Sky.

Immersed in Poetry

2011-05-17T21:34:00.006-05:00

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival was a great success this year. Poets and poetry-lovers filled the waterfront town of Salem, MA last weekend (including Friday the 13th). I co-led Becoming the Other: Writing the Dramatic Monologue, and the poems that were begun there were great. They included a cautionary tale narrated by a well-known doll and a few surprise visits from unsavory murderers. The workshop took place in the Hooper House at the House of Seven Gables, complete with old fireplace, ironware, and pottery crocks.

I also took a workshop in Erasure and Found Poems with Angela Voras-Hills (in that same funky room), and got some good ideas for process poems and exercises. Patricia Smith, Mark Doty, and emerging poet Elisa Gabbert gave engaging, inspiring, thought-provoking readings at the headline event. The organizers and volunteers did a fabulous job. I came home with many ideas and the perennial wish for more time to write...

There was even a "poetry train" going to the festival. The 10:15 commuter rail from Boston featured volunteers who walked through one of the cars and sat down with small groups of people for intimate poetry readings, before moving on to the next cluster of folks. My group was treated to a selection of Rilke, Cummings, and ancient Persian love poetry as the marshes and shopping centers slid by the windows.

In the Hooper House with KL Pereira. Thanks to Rachel for the photo.

"East of North" Now an E-Book

2011-04-20T06:33:00.002-05:00

Just in time for the reading tomorrow at the Collected Poets Series, I'm excited to say that East of North is now widely available and downloadable as an e-book, with a great cover by artist Burns Maxey. Check it out when you have a few minutes to read and go on an adventure.

Open publication - Free publishing - More feminist

MA Poetry Festival

2011-04-15T21:43:00.002-05:00

If you live in or near Massachusetts, consider attending the MA Poetry Festival this spring: May 13-14 in Salem. There are many great events and workshops planned. I'll be co-teaching a workshop with the fabulous KL Pereira called . I'm looking forward to attending a workshop by Patricia Smith, a reading by Mark Doty, the small press fair, and more.

Vita Longa Erat

2011-03-01T17:49:00.015-05:00

"Ars longa, vita brevis," wrote ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, which can be translated as, "The art is long, life is short." Mastery of a craft takes much time and effort, and in the context of our short lives, achievement is unlikely and commendable. Hippocrates was talking about the art and technique of surgery, but the sentiment holds true for the expressive arts as well.

"Take your patience pills," my grandmother told me more than once. Easy for her to say! She had 58 years on me. "With a shorter past there's a greater hurry,"as Alana Davis wrote in her fabulous song Turtle. Thankfully I had my gram to impart such wisdom to me. (My other favorite expression of hers was her eagerness to reassure anyone--particularly children--who broke a glass or stained the large dining room table's cloth, with an "It's ok, it will wash," or "It's ok, it's just a glass.")

Gram, or Sophy Margaret Toppin Koch, died on January 3, 2011 at the age of 90, passing out of the ghost town of my childhood and taking her place at the helm of the guardian-angel-ship in the heaven that all of a sudden I sort of believe in now. She was an organist, choir director, homemaker, mother of three, world traveler, catalog-shopper, thoughtful letter-writer, spitfire, Leo, independent woman, and inspiration. Lion-hearted and with a New York Times crossword puzzle mind, she lavished me with love and correct grammar. She didn't remark when I dyed my hair purple or dressed androgynously, but God forbid I say, "Me and Sarah went to the zoo."

As a pre-teen one year I decided to give Gram a poem of mine as a birthday gift (I don’t think I’ve given anyone else a poem as a birthday gift before or since then). It was a lonely, maudlin poem, but she accepted it with an affirming reverence that I still appreciate. Every young poet should have a reader like her. Though I'm not as young now as I was then, I'm still a young poet in terms of career, and Gram's voice in my head reminds me to take my patience pills and keep working hard at what I love.

I was 30 and Gram had Alzheimer’s before I thought about how she had been an accomplished, lifelong musician, and that this was notable, extraordinary. I had always taken her work for granted, because it was just part of who she always was, in my short-lived experience. But she had not only worked hard to master her craft; she was lucky to have a long life in which to practice and enjoy it.

Gram and Kat in 1995

The View from the Window

2010-12-13T09:50:00.005-05:00

Last weekend was Emily Dickinson's birthday, and the Emily Dickinson Museum hosted a party where visitors were given bright pink and orange-yellow roses, hot cider, and cake and cookies made from Dickinson's recipes. The atmosphere was festive and crowded as guests of all ages wandered through the parlors and sitting rooms to the sound of live fiddle and hammered dulcimer music. Upstairs, volunteers led children and adults in making ornaments out of paper reproductions of Dickinson's manuscripts.

The poet's bedroom maintained a peaceful atmosphere despite the bustle. Yellow winter light washed through the large windows and the white walls and bedding gave it all back. In a corner near the front windows stood Dickinson's writing table and lamp. Although the poet would have seen fields instead of buildings across the street, the street itself has been there for centuries and she watched everything and everyone that passed there. "Twice she saw the circus pass by," a volunteer told me. "The Barnum circus with all the elephants and everything. They got off the train and came up Main Street on their way to the Amherst Common."

In contrast, the house across town (no longer standing) where Dickinson spent a portion of her childhood faced a cemetery, which must have brought different musings than her view of Main Street. I've been lucky in my house and in my last apartment to have a writing room of my own, and my last one looked down Pleasant Street, one of the main streets in Easthampton, and across at a funeral home. I valued seeing people gather in mourning or celebration of life. It was a reminder of what is often ignored in daily life, the edge and moment that are always hovering invisibly nearby all of us.

Now my writing window shows me a tiny sliver of Mount Tom visible between houses and trees. More prominent is the plain white siding of the neighbor's house and the inside of our 6-foot wooden fence. The fence is old enough that most of it is patched, tied, or staked in some way, waiting for spring to allow us to replace it. The post in front of my window is ingloriously wrapped with a large amount of white rope, holding the fence pickets haphazardly in place. It reminds me of all that is imperfect in life, the jerry-rigging and the compromises, that I have to accept, at least on some level, in order to keep moving forward.

What do you see out of your window?

The NaNoWriMo Finish Line

2010-11-28T22:17:00.002-05:00

I successfully concluded my first National Novel Writing Month with 50,000-plus words of Greek goddesses frolicking in Northampton (and copulating with mortals), lovers dealing with memory loss, and other adventures. Thanks to friends and family members, I also raised $182 for the Office of Letters and Light. A huge thank-you to everyone who cheered me on! My first novel is now well underway.

Boston Business Litigation Haiku

2010-11-16T20:59:00.004-05:00

That's right, you just read the words "litigation" and "haiku" in the same headline. A friend of my mine who is a lawyer forwarded me a weekly email that summarizes newly filed business law complaints in the Boston area. This week the summaries were written as haiku. Those clever lawyers!

Judge Woodlock orders
Patent case filed as new action.
Facebook, Inc. complies.

Shareholders complain
One billion from Oracle
Not nearly enough.

Inappropriate
Sexual comments from boss.
One-Fifty-One B.

Bank's money flies off
Because of check kiting scheme.
Suit on policy.

Busted bottle caps
Customer cancels contract
Is Hood's claim covered?

Fast food franchisee
Defaults and leaves guarantors
Liable for rent.

Corporate raiders
Who cause contract terminus
Must the piper pay.

Junk facsimiles
So Twentieth Century
And illegal too.

Welch loses big trial
Ads for juice found misleading.
Coverage denied.

Planet Fitness gyms
Owe millions to their lender.
Repossession sought.

In the actual email (meant for actual lawyers) there was additional information (useful to lawyers) such as the attorney's name and a link to the complaint. But we're just concerned with the words here at Dragon's Meow. Thanks to the folks at Yurko, Salvesen & Remz, PC for writing these.

Calculus Notebooks and Baby Clothes

2010-11-06T22:04:00.000-05:00

My grandmother's house has an attic full of memories: boxes of innumerable letters, notebooks, photographs, and baby clothes from three generations. Watching my mother go through these items over the past few months has been an education in memory and attachment. With each box, she relives a moment or a year or a decade. Everything that gets thrown away must first be exclaimed over and/or mourned. Some things, like the letters Gram wrote to my parents before I was born, Mom has passed on to me, so now I've started my own memory collection in my attic.

Going through old things has weird effects on the space/time continuum. It's hard for me to imagine my mother as a teenager struggling through chemistry and calculus, yet there are the notebooks to prove it. Actually, it's not that I can't imagine her as a teenager--I can't really believe she was once a teenager.

It's different for her--she can't imagine not being that teenager anymore, alive in the pages of those old notebooks. As she tears the pages from their spiral bindings and adds them to the recycling bin, she says, "I feel like I'm tearing apart my life." And yet it needs to be done.

My baby clothes--most of which are musty and stained and not worth giving to a thrift store--are still vivid and colorful in her mind as she holds them up, saying, "I loved you in this dress ... you looked so beautiful in this color." Me? She can't be talking about me, 5'10" tall and 31 years old. I was never small enough to fit into that. And how could I have lain on that embroidered blanket or worn that handmade flannel nightgown if I don't remember it? How was that me?

In the boxes of the baby clothes--most of which were either bought at Sears or sewn by my grandmother (who was quite talented, although her designs were essentially practical, and usually made of flannel since as a baby I lived in Maine)--were a few items from an earlier era: finely worked crocheted bibs with colorful decorations, and dresses with lace collars and hems. These, according to my mother, must have been made by my great-grandmother. A professional dressmaker, she took the concept of handmade to an entirely different level.

My idea of a thoughtful baby gift is taking the time to go to Target and pick out something in a color the kid (or parent) likes. Handmade dresses or clothes like the ones my great-grandmother made would probably cost a hundred dollars--more than I'd spend on a dress for myself! So much has shifted in how we spend our time, money, and labors--individually and globally as well. My idea of green or budget conscious involves shopping at a thrift store, recycling someone else's best guess at a good buy from Target.

There were many more baby-girl pink items in the baby clothes boxes than I've worn in the 30 years since then. By the time I was old enough to verbalize my desires, I tended more toward red and blue. We also found among the baby clothes my first-ever pair of shoes (these resulted in many exclamations). For some reason I was relieved that they were cute and maroon. I'd wear them now, if only they were the right size.

National Novel Writing Month

2010-11-01T09:24:00.001-05:00

This November, the nonprofit Office of Letters and Light will host National Novel Writing Month. It's a global writing challenge for which I'll spend November (and portions of my sanity!) writing a 50,000-word book in just 30 days.

In addition to my writerly duties, I'm raising money to help the Office of Letters and Light continue to put on free creative writing programs for kids and adults in classrooms, communities, and libraries around the world.

Every dollar I raise will keep my spirits high as I write my way towards the realization of my creative dreams. More importantly, contributions will help National Novel Writing Month and its Young Writers Program build a more engaged and inspiring world.

Thank you so much for your support of my writing! Support in spirit from my fellow low-income writers is much appreciated as well.

~

Some things I'll be keeping in mind this month:

"Every word on your blog is a word not in your book." - Sherman Alexie

"You do, or you do not. There is no 'try'." - Yoda

"Our ability to achieve is proportionate to our inner will, and we never know what is possible until we experience the impossible!" - Heidi Thomson

Joyce Carol Oates Kicks Interview Butt

2010-10-25T22:23:00.005-05:00

From the pulpit of a downtown church during the recent Boston Book Festival, keynote presenter Joyce Carol Oates read a soft, complex story of loneliness and violence. In contrast, the interview that followed was comedic and farcical. The audience gasped and laughed and nearly booed as the interviewer asked one ridiculous question after another. Oates gracefully sidestepped the too-personal ones and boldly confronted the too-simple ones.

Even though she wasn’t the greatest reader, the piece Oates read from her recent book, Sourland, was gorgeous and chilling in its emotional subtlety. Especially compared to her interviewer, who seemed to have been selected as a foil to Oates’ intelligent and nuanced speech, she presented compassionate, transcendent perceptions of the human condition. What follows are selected quotes and summaries based on notes.

Your stories have a lot of violence in them. Why do you write so much about violence?

“Writers don’t write about violence. Writers write about people.” A work of art has its own trajectory, Oates said, its own inevitable ending. She added that writers don’t think in terms of happy endings but in terms of the integrity of the piece of writing.

Have you experienced violence in your own life?

“Why is there this tendency to ask women writers this question? … It’s not like I invented violence.”

Do you believe in God?

“Do you?”

Are you a Catholic? An atheist?

“I don’t call myself anything … Calling oneself an atheist would be too aggressive … Most people have a sense of religion that honors their family and community, and they just follow that … It’s not fruitful to discuss whether I believe in God.”

Do you know when you sit down to write if you’re working on a short story or a novel?

“Of course! I wouldn’t be a good writer if I didn’t.”

Sign Language: Maine, Part 1

2010-10-17T16:41:00.005-05:00

"Tread Carefully"

"Lilliputian Landscape"

"No, It Didn't Say That"

"Neighborhood Effort"

Author's Books and Author's Jobs

2010-09-26T14:25:00.008-05:00

I had a "driveway moment" yesterday while listening to a story on NPR about a new book in which authors reminisce about various jobs they've held and how those experiences inform their writing. "Don't quit your day job" is both the title of the book and the facetious advice that the experienced novelist gave to the interviewer, an aspiring novelist. An aspiring novelist myself, I always appreciate hearing from those who have "been there, done that," and the reference to Truman Capote's maxim Write something true (and then start lying) was a good reminder.

While searching for the link to that story on NPR's website, I found another interesting book-related story about a reader discovering an author's personal library for sale in a used bookstore. How could she tell the book belonged to a writer? Because the book's previous owner had filled it with margin notes, conversing with the printed text in a close and thoughtful interaction.

Last night I was at a party and someone asked me how, as a writer, I decide what books to buy. My criteria for buying a new book is whether I might want to read it more than once. If I'm not sure that's the case, I will borrow it from a friend or the library. Used books, however, are not always held to the same standard, which is why I have a revolving-door relationship with Cherry Picked Books and Raven. I do love the idea of an author's library going out into the world, posthumously and diffusely, through the venue of a used bookstore. The books and their conversations could stay alive that way.

Sign Language: Desire

2010-09-25T15:31:00.010-05:00

Continuing with my collection of sign photographs inspired by Signs of Our Times, this month's theme is Desire.

"New Heart Attack" outside Hartford, CT

"Desperate to Sell" Miller Place, NY

"It Really Was" Seattle, WA

"Saving Space" Skinner State Park, South Hadley, MA

Playground Pastoral

2010-09-19T10:40:00.011-05:00

merry-go-round circles
under the trees

swing set, push, smile,
grasping hand

merrily tossed
gentle shadows

Reading List

2010-09-06T11:26:00.002-05:00

Arthur Schopenhauer said, "Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents." How true this is! So many times I have bought books (usually nonfiction books) because they "looked good" (or better yet, like something I "should read") only to have them sit primly on my bookshelves for years unopened. Every so often I gather these books and sell them to a used bookstore, where I get a credit with which to buy books I have a slightly higher chance of reading (usually novels).

Now that I have committed to buying a book a month (ideally from a small publisher), I want to follow that up by actually reading said books. So far I am halfway through July's book (Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord) and have not opened August's (Granta's sex issue: not a book per se, but book-like enough in shape and heft), although I did get a head start when I heard its opening essay at a reading. September's book, which I just ordered, is Dear Al-Qaeda by Scott Creney (Black Ocean).

As if I didn't already have enough to read, I just subscribed to Writer's Digest (I also read Poets & Writers). The latest issue included many "top 10" lists including advice from bestselling authors. One of Sherman Alexie's tips was to "subscribe to as many literary journals as you can afford." I noted that he did not say, subscribe to as many literary journals as you can possibly read in your lifetime, because that would be a much smaller number for most of us.

Sign Language: Humor

2010-08-10T10:49:00.013-05:00

Signs of Our Times is "an online study of signs, especially as means of language or miscommunication." It is an amusing and thought-provoking collection of accidental profundity, laughable bloopers, and odd juxtapositions. (Find mine at #55.)

When I saw the call for works inviting people to submit pictures of signs, I realized that I have been photographing signs for a while now and have amassed quite a collection of them. It was tough to choose just three to send in, so I figured I'd gradually post more of them here. I decided to go the humorous route for this week's selection.

"Troll Ave." Seattle, WA

"Warning Sign" Adventure Aquarium, Camden, NJ

"Dry Cleaning" St. James, NY

"Through the Window" Seattle, WA

Portraits of Donuts

2010-08-02T18:37:00.004-05:00

Written after visiting "Luscious," paintings by Emily Eveleth, at the Smith College Art Museum.

Why donuts? Well, they're donuts. They're also flesh and blood, shape and color, and whatever else you need them to be.

The canvases are huge, rendering the donuts surreal and completely out of context. Given their size, the paintings are simultaneously representational and abstract.

Sometimes, it's the mess inside that's most interesting. When the donuts appear broken, they're as dramatic as torn flesh. Yet, when intact, they are curvy and sweet as a Classical nude. Dark backgrounds make the donuts glow. One is painted bright white as if the painting is a photograph taken with too much flash by donut paparazzi.

Are these paintings poking fun at traditional figure painting? Some seem to be. Some, with their round, red holes are pretty damn sexual, with donuts pressing on and draping over one another. Other are simply playful. In all, this exhibit feels serious and lighthearted simultaneously. It is fun but not pointless, thoughtful but not heavy.

Library as Lifeline

2010-07-23T16:24:00.003-05:00

Continuing the spirit of celebrating books and bookstores and small presses, one should not neglect the equally important need to support libraries. So in that spirit, Dragon's Meow is reprinting this post by KL Pereira from her blog Dead Disciples. (This is the first in an occasional series of posts by guests.)

Reading is Sexy. Yeah, You Heard Me.

So I was on my dear friend Sue Williams' blog a few days ago, catching up on her fabulous posts when another friend commented that financial constraints make them an avid library user and I thought: Damn straight. Libraries are sexy.

What do I mean by "sexy"? Well, not only are public libraries economical, they are revolutionary (two of my favorite things). The idea on which they are based posits this: that reading is crucial to our human growth and that everyone should be able to read (and have access to knowledge) FOR FREE.

I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, reading was my saving grace, keeping me sane in a world that was more about survival than about enjoyment.

Not interested in the Clueless age of the early 90s (and being without MTV and extra money for the local Waldenbooks), the library opened up a universe of possibility for me; reading Anais Nin's diaries, Stephen King's tales of grey matter and the macabre, Neil Gaiman's dreamy and dark worlds, and Sylvia Plath's and Anne Sexton's verse kept me sane when I couldn't make sense of what was around me, showed me that there was more to EVERYTHING than what I could see on the surface.

Reading made me question, contemplate, challenge, and DREAM: important skills that have made me the person I am today. I owe all these skills (at least in part) to my library (and the kick-ass librarians who showed me the way).

So yeah. My point: Reading is a revolutionary, sexy act, one that is made possible by libraries. Go support your local library and the awesome people who work to bring you the books.

Also: if you know a young person, give them books. Take them to get their library card. Show them how cool it is to be in control of what knowledge they receive and to be contemplative of how they respond.

Comment on this and let me know which books changed your life and you're reading this summer!

Spending Money

2010-07-07T12:09:00.009-05:00

I don't like to spend money. Both the environmentalist and the cheapskate in me like to buy used whenever possible. Many of the books I read are from the library. But I also know that as a writer who cherishes books as objects, not just as text, I should support the book industry (and small, independent booksellers and small presses) as much as possible.

Someone once said it's worth thinking about how much one spends on clothing versus books, if you want to think about how spending reflects personal values. I haven't spend money on clothing in several months, so I guess it's ok that I also hadn't bought any books recently, either, until last week. (Side note: Tin House Books has a new submission policy, where authors submitting manuscripts must also include a copy of a receipt of a book purchase. Now that's doing something for the community.)

So in the spirit of supporting what I believe in, I've resolved to buy one book a month (more if possible, but at least one). I know this is not a radical idea to many of you (and probably would be like a crash diet for certain people), but there you have it. I pledge to buy one book a month for the rest of 2010. I'm excited about the possibilities this will open up.

By the way, this month's book is Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord.

The Truest Affair

2010-06-24T09:36:00.012-05:00

I got lost on the way to the reading, wandered the deserted UMass campus, staring at cement walls in sunset light. Finally I found a security guard who walked me to the auditorium door, whistling. I found a seat, said "Is anybody sitting here?" before I realized I was surrounded by teenage boys and wondered what kind of audience they'd be. Anyway. I was there in time for the introductions.

Noy Holland read first: an unpublished story both meandering and hurtling, with beautifully wrought details and horrifying events. It was a quiet story, in which much of the violence happened offstage, or was told with a child's matter-of-factness. I wondered what the teenage boys got out of it. They doodled. I tried to read their scribbles before reminding myself again to pay adult attention to the unassuming figure on stage. Because her particular reading on this particular night would pass my ears just this once, and it was worth following.

Mark Doty read a few new poems, including "Pescadero," which had not wowed me when I read it in The New Yorker, but in the poet's voice, the words came alive with smile-inducing wonder. I was reminded of Mary Oliver's prayerful celebrations.

Then he read an essay from Granta's Spring 2010 Issue. This was the "you must change your life" (as Rilke wrote) portion of the evening. Not that one should live in a particular way but that one should write with such brutal and beautiful honesty. Doty did say that he was able to publish this essay only because its main characters are now dead-- but dead people or no, few could write of romantic misfortune and sexual awakening with more candor, pathos, and gratitude.

The essay's narrative was punctuated with reflective pauses. As good as he is at saying something, Doty is aware that some things cannot be said, and his story made room for that unknowing, admitted its own incompleteness.

The teenage boys were clearly amazed by Doty's frank, anatomically correct sex scenes. What lucky, summer-program-going kids. They'll never read something like that in high school, but now they know what's possible. It was the good kind of shocking.

Both Holland's story and Doty's memoir portrayed affairs. While it was hard to tell the role of the lover in the first, in the second, the lover was clearly a liberator. "His body was one of the doors through which I entered my actual life," were Doty's final words from behind the podium.

My Time With The Poets

2010-06-12T16:30:00.013-05:00

I am blessed with a great group of fellow poets that meets every Thursday night to critique each other's work. This spring we decided to take it a step further and go on a three-nights-four-days retreat in nearby Vermont. We rented a cabin, ate, drank, wrote, and were merry - despite an afternoon of plumbing problems (not our fault). Here's a photo essay of my reflections. (Now that I've found a way to get photos off my cell phone without individually emailing them to myself, we'll see if more photo essays appear on this blog.)

Lessons for Poets

When you're a poet, it's important to eat well. Feed the muse and all that.

Write alone, but don't drink alone.

It's important to find a nice place to work.

We're creating order (or something) from life's chaos.

In order to draft a poem, you have to let go and let things flow. Save your love of order for the editing process.

Sometimes, things flow too much ... then you must reach for a mop.

Writing poetry can be tough ... but really, if you're eating well and drinking among friends, it's not that bad.

When all else fails, quote yourself. "In the end is the beginning." When all else fails, burn your poem and start again.

"Think small." - Richard Hugo

A poet's job is to go to dark places and bring back light.

Can you spot the poet in this picture? No - she's behind the camera. So step away from your work and let it speak for itself.

With Apologies to Keats

2010-06-03T09:48:00.009-05:00

Keats' poem "To Autumn" has always been one of my favorites. I've never found a more evocative description of a September morning than his "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness." While walking to work last month, passing apple and cherry trees laden with blossoms, I tried to think of a spring equivalent to Keats' ode. Here's what I came up with.

To Spring

Season of buds and mellow ruddiness
Close BFF of the awakening earth
Contriving with her how to gild and drape
With noisy color all the plants in town;
To grace with red wings the maple trees
And smother the lawn with violets small and bright;
To trumpet the daffodil, and raise the pansy’s face
To meet the sun; to set budding more,
And still more, purple azaleas for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease—
For you've whispered sweet nothings to them all.

Who hasn't seen you wearing your petals,
throwing hues about, carelessly trying
them all to see which part of a rainbow
suits you best? They all do, beautiful girl.
You've painted the town with weightless colors,
the air itself held between branches, caught
by sunlight, refracted sumptuously.
And your odors—sweet blanket of cherries,
sharp fume of white pear, lilac's silken scent—
lure all who breathe into the spell of your
department store collection of perfumes.

Who hasn't heard you barking from behind
the glass, or on the street as you promote
you wares? Enough for everyone to buy!
You've so much richness, but its twin, loss, lurks
within each colorful piece of jewelry.
Wind plucks petals by handfuls, tosses them
in torrents on the ground, snows white and pink.
Spring, you vixen, you’re too harsh to last long.
Summer will smooth your rough edges with green,
closing in the view of mountain and cloud
with sheltering shade, the soothe of leaf.

From Now to the Far Away

2010-05-22T13:47:00.005-05:00

Our interaction didn't last long. He wasn't someone I'd imagined getting to know. I remember his first name and I have two letters from him without dates, without envelopes (no return address). The only thing I have from him is our one creation, and whenever I look at it, I wonder where he is.

I'm not talking about a missing father or a lost lover. I'm remembering my one-time collaborator, known only as Chris, who was a counselor the same summer as me at an arts camp in Connecticut. I worked in publications, he worked in book arts. He made all kinds of wonderful books and book-like objects: book with drawers, fold-out books, collaged picture books. The last I heard from him, he was going to teach somewhere in Central America.

Despite the wonders of the Internet, it's still pretty hard to find someone when all you have to go on is a commonly used first name. If I knew how to contact him, I'd say, "Hey Chris, I had so much fun working on that book with you. Want to do another one?" And he'd say yes, and we'd collaborate on a whole series of books that would tour art galleries and museums across the country, ending up in both public and private collections, inspiring the next generation of artists and writers.

Until that happens, though, I'll just share the one book we did make, which is titled (appropriately enough, if Chris is still in Central America) From Now, to the Faraway.

Letters Aren’t Dead Yet (Nor Are Books)

2010-04-25T20:54:00.003-05:00

Sunday night, I find myself catching up on things and getting to the final few items on the weekend’s to-do list. This time, the list includes writing cards—two “welcome baby” cards (for a pair of friends who’ve had their second child and for a pair of friends who just had twins) and also a card for a friend whose mammogram turned up positive for early stage breast cancer. I don’t see any of these friends too often anymore, but when you hear about something like this—cancer or babies being born—you send a card. At least, that’s the way I was raised.

My grandmother was a committed card-sender. She bought birthday cards months in advance, wrote dates on the upper right corner of the envelopes (where the stamp would later cover up the numbers), and kept them organized chronologically in a box. She sent cards to all her friend’s children and grandchildren, no matter how physically distant they’d become. I haven’t been nearly as vigilant with birthday cards as she was, but I did get the gist of her example: that, as much as possible, it’s important to keep in touch.

Incidentally, Gram also taught me to send thank-you notes by threatening that if I didn’t send thank-you notes for birthday or Christmas gifts, she’d tell the person not to give me anything the next year. That was a high-stakes lesson for a kid, so if you ever give me anything, you’re sure to get a card in the mail if I have your address or can find it on whitepages.com.

This weekend I stopped by the Independent Journal & Book Fair at UMass, Amherst, which was put on by the MFA program there. It was great to be in a room full of people who believe not only in texts but also in books and literary journals as art objects made with care.

A book is more than the text it contains—it is an object, it has a presence and a body. The space it occupies on a shelf or the weight it adds to your bag gives it significance. Also, books can stimulate 80% of the five senses (100% if you snack on them, but I never have). I’m not saying I wouldn’t use an e-reader if someone gave me one; they have their practicalities and I’m not a purist when it comes to technology. As author and editor Gian Lombardo wrote in his blog, "I guess I’m bi in this case." But even if I needed or chose to go digital with most of my books, I’m sure I’d still keep my favorite books in physical form.

I send plenty of emails for all sorts of occasions and I read lots of things online—but I do like to hold the things I care about. Similarly, life’s major events still call for the time and care of putting pen to paper and stamp to envelope. Thanks for the lesson, Gram. Your Mother’s Day card will be in the mail soon.

Wandering Genius

2010-04-06T17:16:00.009-05:00

Yesterday I went for a walk with a friend at lunchtime. It was a great day for a walk - sunny, warm - but not a great day for getting writing done after work. My friend invited me to a seder, and I declined, saying I had too much to do around the house. This was a lie. I didn't have too much to do around the house, and I love seders, but I planned to spend the evening writing, even though the sunshine and sweet air gave me the sinking feeling that I wouldn't get much done.

So, last night I indeed "wrote." I thought about writing, worried about writing, and felt bad about not physically writing, even though the machinations of writing were grinding away inside my head as I walked my dog, sent a few emails, and watched a video online.

One of my writing teachers at Hampshire College, Michael Lesy, gave fewer assignments than many professors because he said we needed time to think and plan. That was the first time I'd heard reverie acknowledged as being just as essential to creation as the actual creating. Sometimes I'm OK with the reverie, but often I'm impatient. Although I want to see results, I must put up with the inertia and unruliness of my own mind. It just insists on daydreaming and wandering. In that way it's like my dog - trainable, but so much.

As I walked said dog along on a wooded trail, I wasn't consciously thinking about the order of the poems in my chapbook manuscript, but when I got back to the house I'd decided to move one of the poems from the end of the book back to the beginning of the second section, where it had been originally. "Great," I thought sarcastically when my "writing time" was up. "Three hours later and all I have done is shuffle some papers around." I was reminded of the quote from William Wordsworth (is that who it was?) about working on a poem all morning, taking out one comma, and then putting it back in that afternoon.

"You've chosen a vocation in which the rewards come very infrequently," my wife said that night as we watched the NCAA championship game at the local bar, a good venue for me to bemoan my temporary and non-life-threatening misery at not conjuring the willpower to sit down and add copious amounts to my scribbled word collection that night. I thanked her for pointing out the obvious and told her about the video I'd watched.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, was talking about "genius," but not as you might expect. She says that instead of a person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius, which to the ancient Romans was a daemon or spiritual being, kind of like a personal muse. It makes sense when you hear her say it. (Thanks to poet Adam Rubinstein for sharing the link.) My wife, however, immediately thought of my cat, who usually sits on my lap while I write. "Don't ask me to call him your genius now," she said. "I just can't do that."

Poetry Obscura

2010-03-23T14:51:00.009-05:00

Confessions of a bibliophile: sometimes when I shelve or re-shelve my books of poetry, I imagine the authors talking to each other, like they're all shoulder-to-shoulder at a cocktail party. What would Rita Dove say to Carol Ann Duffy? Would Martin Espada and T.S. Eliot have anything to say to each other? It's an event when someone new comes along. All of a sudden, Sylvia Plath is no longer talking to Adrienne Rich, and they're both talking to Claudia Rankine instead.

I also introduce poets to each other by selecting one or two to take to my annual trip to Anne Sexton's grave in Forest Hills Cemetery. I think that doing something three times assures that it is becoming a tradition, and this was the third year that I and fellow poet KL Pereira (you can read her account of this year's trip here) picnicked in Forest Hills and read poems aloud there. This year we actually became part of the main attraction when a walking tour of people visiting "wondrous, curious, and esoteric places" happened to pass by (apparently March 20, 2010, was Obscura Day - who knew?).

My method for choosing this year's "read to Anne" poet was simple - the most recently purchased, unread book of poetry on my shelf: Elena Georgiou's Rhapsody of the Naked Immigrants (Harbor Mountain Press, Sept. 2009), which I had not purchased from Amazon (see Elena's blog to find out why) but had instead ordered through my local independent bookseller, who got it from the publisher. So, I read aloud two poems: "Immigrant #18: Prayer for an Alien with Extraordinary Ability in the Arts" (and nearly wept) and "In Case of Emergency" (what a love poem that is).

KL read two poems from Dearest Creature by Amy Gerstler. Her method of choosing this year's "read to Anne" poet was also simple - the most recently purchased, never-heard-of-before-but-immediately-loved book of poetry in her bag. In his review of this book, David Kirby writes that "a poem either sends you a bill or writes you a check." On Sunday in the cemetery, we were rich, and the dead people joyfully rattled their coins as well.

Interview with Fiona Robyn

2010-03-15T11:10:00.014-05:00

Fiona Robyn is a writer and blogger living in Hampshire, UK. Her three novels, The Letters, The Blue Handbag, and Thaw, have been published by Snowbooks. She recently decided to also blog the entirety of Thaw. Dragon's Meow was one of over 260 blogs around the world that joined Fiona in posting the first few paragraphs of Thaw on March 1. Here is a brief interview with the author about the process of writing & publishing online as well as in print.

What is a blogsplash?

As I’m publishing my novel Thaw online over the next few months, I wanted to let as many people as possible know about it as we begun – it’ll take longer to catch up as time goes on. I turned to the blogging community, who have always been supportive and lovely in the past, and asked them to publish the first page of the novel on the same day as me.

What inspired you to blog this book?

I’m still at the beginning of my career as a writer, and I want as many people as possible to get a chance to read my work. I’m hoping that some of those readers might buy the book version of Thaw, or one of my previous novels, but we’ll see if that happens or not!

Is the book already written and you're just posting it, or are you composing as you go?

Yes – the book also has a physical form and was published by Snowbooks in February. Making up as I went along wouldn’t make for a very good book – my novels go through at least 6 drafts!

How is this experience different than with previous books you've written?

It has been interesting to see Thaw on a blog, and to have people commenting on it as pages are posted. It makes me feel quite vulnerable – usually people read my books "behind closed doors!" It’s also been lovely to get lots of positive feedback.

What makes you excited about writing in the era of blogs and online social media?

There are huge opportunities available to writers these days through blogs and social media – we can find ourselves an audience without waiting for a publisher, and market our own books. For me, it’s all about building authentic relationships, and enjoying it. Any book sales are a bonus!

Tribute to Lucille Clifton

2010-03-09T08:48:00.004-05:00

After a long battle with cancer, Lucille Clifton died on February 13, 2010, at the age of 73.

Rita Dove, quoted on Poets.Org, wrote: "Her revelations ... resemble the epiphanies of childhood and early adolescence, when one's lack of preconceptions about the self allowed for brilliant slippage into the metaphysical, a glimpse into an egoless, utterly thingful and serene world."

Yesterday, Delirious Hem began posting writers' reflections and tributes to Clifton. In Naomi Nye's poem, she calls Clifton one of the people "...who remind us / more of ourselves than our own selves do."

Thank you, Lucille Clifton, for your words, your poems, and your life.

Thaw

2010-02-28T21:18:00.003-05:00

Ruth's diary is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, called Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.

Ruth's first entry is below, and you can continue reading tomorrow here.

These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It's a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we're being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.

The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they're stuck to the outside of her hands. They're a colour that's difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I'm giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don't think I'm alone in wondering whether it's all worth it. I've seen the look in people's eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I've heard the weary grief in my dad's voice.

So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me? I'm Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact, I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I'm sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first diagnosis. What else? What else is there?

Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting wine. I have huge books all over my flat; books you have to take in both hands to lift. I've had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours, concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I've still got that book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake into dust.

Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been writing about; princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad's snoring was.

I've always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I'll take one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it through. No-one can say; 'It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful girl, had everything to live for', before adding that I did keep myself to myself. It'll all be here. I'm using a silver fountain pen with purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My writing is small and neat; I'm striping the paper. I'm near the bottom of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I'm allowed to make my decision. That's it for today. It's begun.

Continue reading tomorrow here...

Those Timeless Greeks

2010-02-26T09:44:00.007-05:00

I can't review this book (Greek by Theo Dorgan) since I haven't read it yet, but I can say that it appears to be worth reading, given these two poems reprinted today by Poetry Daily, in which Artemis, talking on her cell phone, "stalks past, imperious and aloof, / radiant in her first flush of immortality."

What is it about the Greek myths that is so endlessly fascinating to so many of us? I think it's the fact that they were (correct me if I'm wrong) the last Western pagans - at least the last Western pagans who left an extensive enough written record that we can revisit them and their myths and stories again and again. Their deities were so human in their divinity, so petty and powerful and imperfect. That's why I like them, anyway.

When I was in grad school, I wrote my fair share of Greek-myth-inspired poems. One of my advisors said, "Why is everyone writing about Persephone now?" I won't try to psychoanalyze my generation of writers. All I know is that, as a writer who grew up hearing those myths, they are a starting place, a framework, a location where we can hang meaning. A theme with endless possible variations.

Fail Better

2010-02-18T14:32:00.012-05:00

Writers always need reminders and encouragement to keep going through the challenges, vagaries, and doubt that is an inevitable part of creating and also of sharing one's work. This is why so many of us have encouraging quotes taped to the walls near our desks or bed or mirrors or anywhere else we frequent while lost in thought, why so many of us benefit from supportive peer groups.

In this essay, author Rebecca Brown makes another thoughtful contribution to the body of literature addressing the need to keep going despite difficulties.

Brown begins: "I often need to remind myself that I need to hear failure out, because by failing at doing an easy thing, a groupthink thing, a thing one has been taught to do for one's career, one might be encouraged to make or do or be something more original and true. Because failing as an artist is a necessary thing, a thing I wish I could more easily accept."

Brown is a scholar well attuned to the world, and in this essay she doesn't stop with encouraging individual artists & writers to follow our dreams but also reminds us that the point of creating something beautiful or useful is to "give it away" to our community. This service aspect of art can widen our view of the context of our work, and provide deeper motivation for us to work through our own fears, insecurities, and failures.

Reinventing Publishing Again

2010-02-09T16:30:00.020-05:00

Some thoughts on the new and evolving world of online & Internet-influenced publishing, a topic that came up when I recently signed up to be part of a "blogsplash." What's that, you ask? Well, check back on March 1.

In the meantime, I read this recent essay by Ted Genoways of the Virginia Quarterly Review about the supposed death of literary fiction. Similar to essays about the death of poetry that seem to crop up every few years, this one was in a way a justifiable lament, but on the other hand was limited by the author's point of view.

The fact that some publishers and literary journals are moving to a nonprofit model is intriguing. And I think it could make sense to ask people to "pay" for their literature after they read it, by making a donation. I almost never buy new books - they're just not in my budget. I get books from the library, and if I like them and can justify their taking up space on my bookshelf, then I buy them.

Narrative Magazine seems to have come up with one solution to the changing (virtual) landscape of publishing. Their magazine is free to read but they charge a fee for submissions and for special access to certain content. This could addresses the issue described by Ted Genoways of over-worked editors drowning in "navel-gazing" submissions.

Small Beer Press, publisher of "good, weird, interesting" books, has this to say about making books available online for free: "We love books. We want to keep on publishing good books... If everyone downloads books straight to the Kindlenub in their head, we might be in trouble. But if there are still people who like to read books on paper, maybe some of them will read some of these downloads and then decide they would like the actual books... In other words: as with any book, if you want to read it for free, you can. We’ve just made it easier for this book to reach the 6 billion readers out there!"

Poetry for Haiti

2010-01-29T09:48:00.003-05:00

Tonight in Northampton, MA, local poet and poetry advocate Lori Desrosiers will host a poetry fundraiser for Haiti at Green Street Cafe, with 25% of the dinner proceeds being generously donated by the restaurant to Partners in Health. The event begins at 7 p.m.

Tomorrow, across the pond, UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will host Poetry Live for Haiti. In describing the event, Duffy said:

"We turn to poetry at intense moments in our lives...And I think that can happen at moments of public grief too, as well as personal. It is so close to prayer, it is the most intense use of language that there is."

Writing About Work

2010-01-17T18:28:00.007-05:00

A few days ago I heard this piece of philosophy about art and work in which author Alain de Botton states:

"We need an art that can proclaim the intelligence, peculiarity, beauty and horror of the modern workplace and, not least, its extraordinary claim to be able to provide us, along with love, despite current economic mayhem, with the principal source of life's meaning."

I've written a lot about the two years I spent working on organic farms while taking time off from college. Those years were valuable to me personally and also politically in that they made me much more aware of where food comes from and how much effort is needed to produce and consume healthy food.

I've written a lot less about the several years I've spent working in offices. Perhaps the office environment is better suited to satire than lyric?

Humorous Links

2010-01-12T10:38:00.017-05:00

Humor can be such a relief during challenging times. I've recently been getting a good laugh out of these sites.

Shitmydadsays
This caught my attention because I just watched Sunshine Cleaning, which stars Alan Arkin as a grumpy old man (he also played a grumpy old man in Little Miss Sunshine), so I was in the mood to laugh at the exclamations of another foul-mouthed older man.

Petty Petitions
From a "petition to set politics aside long enough to agree on a catchy, non-partisan nickname for Sarah Palin" to a "petition to live every day like it’s your second to last," this blog offers satire at its best.

Stuff White People Like
This blog pokes hilarious, though not mean-spirited, fun at my tribe: the class (more than the race) of folks who listen to NPR, own Apple computers, eat hummus, and attend yoga classes on a regular basis.

Amusing Ourselves to Death
More serious than funny, here's something of a different stripe to make you think twice about too much distraction.

The Name Says It All

2010-01-03T15:10:00.000-05:00

To Emend the World

2009-12-04T12:25:00.002-05:00

In "God Bless the Experimental Writers," Corey Mesler gently and humorously tackles the reasons why many of us write. I'll admit it, I had to look up the definition of emend, especially since it's such an important part of this poem.

John Cage said that all writing, indeed all creative work, is experimental. I'll put myself in the category for that reason. That and a lack of huge, formal recognition puts many of us in the category of Mesler's experimental writers - we might not know why we write, or for whom, but we know that we must. The emending, a gradual righting of the world through acts of creation, is what we hope for.

30 in 30

2009-12-01T13:00:00.003-05:00

Inspired by the Northampton Arts Council's 30 Poems in 30 Days Challenge and all my local poet friends, I quietly committed myself to drafting 30 haiku (or haiku-ish things) in the month of November. I'm proud to say that I did it! Here are 4 of my favorites, in no particular order:

marshmallows, cigarettes, and rum
at the birthday party
all grown up now

walking down fifth ave
so this is where all those clothes
at marshall's come from

comfortable habits
collide with love, nervous me
exploding poems

the bones of mount tom
stones from mother's house, a new
path to my front door

Let Us Now Praise Famous Cliches

2009-11-13T16:18:00.009-05:00

Nobody hates cliches more than poets. Yet cliches do what we are trying to do in our poems: create condensed, memorable, useful metaphors. In this fun article in the Boston Globe, writer James Parker takes us through the history and function of cliches, the phrases we (to use a cliche) love to hate.

As Parker points out, "Durable, easily handled, yet retaining somehow the flavor of its coinage, the classic cliché has fought philology to a standstill: it sticks and it stays, and not by accident."

The history of the word cliche comes from old printing techniques... "So the cliché was an object, and a useful one: a concrete unit of communication that minimized labor and sped things up."

Cliches grease the wheels of the government... "An American politician can be off-the-cuff, instinctive, zig-zag, but only if he or she is prepared immediately to make a cliché of it: look at what happened to the word 'maverick' in the last election."

And cliches range from the petty to the profound... "But what of the timeless cliché, the cliché you can steer your course by, the cliché that carries a small freight not just of meaning, but of wisdom?"

The author also chooses two cliches (the one about free lunch and the one about the tango) that describe the range of his "entire psychological and ethical structure." I'll have to think now about what mine would be. And what are yours?

Mazel Tov

2009-10-28T13:32:00.003-05:00

I'd thought to crack a bottle
of champagne against the corner
of our first home

instead, the first thing I broke
was a basement window,
throwing a ball for the dog.

Oh, the immediacy of shatter and collapse
the laws of momentum and gravity
so unbreakable!

Magnetic Poetry

2009-10-15T09:40:00.003-05:00

I don't really like magnetic poetry. It's too limiting (or I'm too inflexible) for me to get really creative with the limited selection of words it offers the writer of casual kitchen poetry. However, I do really like this poem that my wife & I co-created with the magnetic poetry set that someone gave us about dogs. It's meant to invoke the young retriever who's still learning how to be a dog.

remember to retrieve

sniff everything
no pooping on toy
no devour cat
yes play
discover
investigate
love
faithfully together

For another fun poem about dogs, check out Kay Ryan's "Fool's Errands" in The New Yorker.

Grandmother Oliver

2009-09-29T22:29:00.005-05:00

She said to write it down
and so I did:

Above a wild white rose,
the moon bled onto clouds.

"Smell that," said my love,
"it's still summer."

I put my face into the flower
and drowned in fragrance

on this cool September night
after Mary Oliver smiled at me -

Mary Oliver with her white hair
and wild, shining eyes.

What Makes A Writer?

2009-09-08T10:01:00.005-05:00

I just saw the movie Julie & Julia. It was fun. But of course I couldn't help paying special attention to the movie's subtext about how a writer is made and defined. The beginning of the movie shows the main character, Julie, at loose ends, with lots of promise and talent, but directionless. Through discussions with her friends and husband, she decides she needs a project to which she can commit herself. She starts a blog in which she charts her daily progress through Julia Child's cookbook, and updates it for a year. Her blog becomes so successful that she ends up with a book and a movie.

As the credits roll up the screen in the dark theater, the audience is informed as to the dates of death for Julia Child and her beloved husband, as well as current information about Julie Powell. The final line reads, "She is a writer."

I congratulate Julie Powell on her tenacity and success. But I take issue with the movie's message that a writer is defined by her publications. Julie became a writer when she began her blog, before she had hundreds of fans leaving comments. She became a writer when she started writing.

Eternal Paper

2009-08-18T10:32:00.012-05:00

I was both entertained and educated by Michael Agger's article in Slate about writing for the web (writing for the web is part of my day job, so I'm continually learning more about such things).

I was simultaneously heartened by the author's observation of the permanence of paper. "We'll do more and more reading on screens," he writes, "but they won't replace paper - never mind what your friend with a Kindle tells you."

Intimacy and tactility - sensuousness - are the most notable aspects of reading from paper as opposed to reading on the screen. Agger describes paper as "a balm for the distracted mind." This is absolutely true for pleasure reading, where one treasures the feeling of diving into a book. I also prefer to proofread and copyedit publications of any length on paper instead of on screen, since paper allows for easier concentration and focus.

When I visited Goddard College for the first time and heard program director Paul Selig describe the MFA experience, he talked about how most of the professors still prefer to receive packets of physical paper in the mail (oh, the time we spent on those packets!) as opposed to being emailed manuscripts. "You might get your manuscript back with wrinkles and coffee stains," he said, and I felt the instinctive joy of a bibliophile whose passions have been recognized and acknowledged. Not only did we all love writing, but we all loved paper.

Poetry for the Young

2009-08-12T11:21:00.005-05:00

I recently found this post by author and fellow Hampshire alum Leah Hager Cohen on her blog Love As A Found Object. Cohen describes a momentary yet wonderful solution to a two-part dilemma: how to reconnect with her teenage son, and which poem to suggest he memorize for English class. You might be surprised at her choice!

Sculpted Language

2009-08-05T15:04:00.011-05:00

Last Saturday I treated myself with a trip to the Smith College Museum of Art, to see the show I Heard a Voice: The Art of Lesley Dill. (Actually, I treated myself with time, but the entrance was free thanks to a pass I checked out of the Lilly Library. What a great public resource.) I didn't go because it was the work of Lesley Dill (I wasn't familiar with her work). I went because Dill incorporates fragments of poetry into her sculptures, predominantly the work of Emily Dickinson.

I had pretty low expectations of the show. Somehow I expected it to be cheesy. Plus, while gorgeous in person, the sculptures do not come across nearly as well when photographed. They're like written-down words that only truly come alive when spoken. All my expectations were completely blown out of the water. I was amazed by the show, and hope to see it again before it closes on September 13.

I can't imagine that Dill's sculptures could possibly do a better job of embodying the ambiguous, troubled, transcendent lines of poetry with which she chose to work. The two main themes in the show were spirituality and language. The materials (thin sheets of tin, thread, luminous silk fabric), the compositions (figures, partial figures, mixed media, collages), and the scale (a few very large pieces and several very small pieces) all do a great job of illustrating either the spirituality captured in the words, or simply the spirituality of language itself.

You can preview the show here.

Road Trip to Indiana

2009-07-23T23:16:00.006-05:00

Extreme Reading

2009-06-28T22:33:00.005-05:00

For today's post, I bring you an essay by prose poet John Olson. While at first I found "Extreme Reading" difficult to get into - it really reads as more of a prose poem at the beginning - I was soon able to drop into Olson's particular and illuminating logic that zooms around in a nonlinear, beehive fashion.

He writes:

"Reading is a form of hallucination. The images and people we encounter among the letters are not there. The reality they acquire in our mind is equal to the effort we make in building them in our mind. Sufficient training will help understand the meaning of someone waving semaphores up and down but true reading requires something more of you than knowing how to spell or understanding the relationship between a sign and its referent. The letters invite a cooperation greater than the peremptory commands of a traffic light. Whoever came up with the idea of separating green from red with the happy ambiguity of yellow was clearly someone who enjoyed reading."

I have to admit, I needed to look up two of the words in this paragraph... but that's also part of extreme reading.

Read the entire essay here.

The Bear Details

2009-06-19T14:21:00.029-05:00

If you are anywhere in the area of Easthampton, MA, between now and October, you really should walk around and see the bears. You can download a map here.

All the bears were created by local artists, and they are wonderfully varied in their themes. Some are serious, some are whimsical, some abstract, some historical. The best part of this display is the great attention to detail paid by so many of the artists. A goal of this event is to get people out and walking, and the bears truly reward those who stroll and look closely. Driving through town and seeing all the bears is fun, but walking from bear to bear and viewing them up close is the way to truly appreciate them and the craft that went into making them.
Plus, a lot of the bears have backside surprises that are not visible from the street!

Visiting Emily Dickinson

2009-06-17T12:50:00.012-05:00

There comes a time in every young poet's life (at least for those of us who live in my part of the world) - a time to visit the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. For me that time was last Saturday, and I had a beautiful experience on the guided tour (the only way you're allowed to see the Dickinson house), which was really like walking through a talking book about Emily and the Dickinson family.

Emily Dickinson's poems are so sparse, so clenched, and they give up so little in terms of explanation, that I've always found them to be greatly enhanced by their social and historical context. The poems are Biblical, or scriptural, in terms of the intensity of their images and the dense, sometimes opaque, nature of their content. The tour, which our guide had animated by selecting many quotes from Dickinson's letters, provided this kind of illuminating context.

It was amazing to stand in the room where those verses were born, to look out of the large sunny windows at nearby trees and the road. It was easy to imagine that space being enough of a world for a poet with such a rich inner life.

One thing I really appreciated was a display used to convey how word choices affect the meaning and nuance of a poem. Dickinson often chose alternate verbs or nouns or adverbs for a poem, and instead of crossing out and replacing one with another in her manuscripts, she let them stand, indicated with asterisks. Editors have had to choose one word when preparing Dickinson's poems for publication, but the display board in the museum had sliding pieces that allowed one to change which word was included in any given line. I had visions of an interactive book where the poem is still alive, given its final incarnation not by an editor but by each reader.

If you go to the museum, make sure to take the extended tour, which includes the Evergreens. The Dickinson Homestead has been redecorated, cleaned, and somewhat updated. The Evergreens, where Emily's brother and sister-in-law lived, still contains many of their possessions. It smells of age and dust, and echoes with history.

After a tour of the museum, I went with my friend to find Emily Dickinson's gravesite, a short walk away in the West Cemetery. Instead of "died" or "deceased," her gravestone says "called back." People have left offerings of coins, flowers, and pencil stubs on top of the unassuming white marble marker. And close to her gravestone, the grass has (intentionally or unintentionally) been left to grow, wild and tall, a fitting tribute to this local and domestic, yet wild and spiritual, poet.

Earth is Hiring

2009-06-04T14:01:00.004-05:00

It's the time of year for sitting through graduation ceremonies. Education is such a big part of the economy where I live, I think that people here have a much higher than average chance of sitting through at least one or two addresses. It's too bad that the two graduations I attended this year didn't feature this inspired speech, given by Paul Hawken at the University of Portland. Here's an excerpt:

"You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done."

Bibliophile

2009-05-18T09:32:00.003-05:00

"Sometimes, I wish I could read faster."

If you can relate to that statement, check out this little animation I found on the website of the Boston Book Festival.

No Time for Writer's Block

2009-05-11T08:41:00.005-05:00

Wishing for more time to write is a trap into which we writers often fall. What's more important is to make the best of the time you have. I can fit small poems quite easily into the chinks and pauses and cracks of my life. Even novelists such as the wildly successful Jodi Picoult have managed to write little bits at a time. (No, I haven't read any of her books, but I do respect her dedication.)

In a recent interview in Time, Picoult said, "When I started writing, I had a newborn baby and then I very quickly had his brother and sister. I didn't have time for writer's block. I wrote every few minutes that the kids were napping or at nursery school or watching Barney on television. Because of that, I learned how to really sit down quickly and focus when I needed to. I've always sort of believed that writer's block is a luxury for people who have time on their hands. If you don't, you don't get it."

If you're using lack of time as an excuse not to write or do whatever it is you love to do, that's what it is - an excuse. Begin where you are, and do what you can in the present moment.

You'll Know You're Famous When Your Words are Carved in Stone

2009-05-06T13:37:00.009-05:00

Every so often I like to take my country self into the city - Boston, that is - and tool around with my urban poet friends. On my last visit, as I walked into the Stony Brook stop on the orange line, I stopped to read words that I saw carved into a triangular granite pillar. I'd recently returned from a trip to the Pacific Northwest, and I was still in tourist mode - stopping to look at and read everything.

I was expecting something historical, something mainstream and maintaining the status quo - such are the words I've often seen carved into rock. But these words were more lively: two poems, by Martin Espada and Rosario Morales told an alternate history of immigrants, injustice, and working class heritage.

Apparently there is literature carved into such stones all over Boston. Like this author, my friend and guide through Jamaica Plain had walked by these solid monuments to literature on a daily basis before noticing them. It always helps to see your own city through the eyes of a tourist.

Thanks to KL Pereira for the photos.

Poetry off the Page

2009-05-01T10:09:00.012-05:00

One of my friends is teaching poetry in her son's elementary school, as a community service. She had a book called The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet: 104 Unusual Ways to Write Poetry in the Classroom and the Community. Many of the exercises in this book have the class write poems on objects - chairs, foam heads, etc.

I love poetry best when it's performed or read aloud. That's when the words truly come alive - when they are embodied. This allows a connection to occur between two or more individuals - and that, to me, is the essential different between poetry and prose. I'm happy to read a novel alone, curled up in my favorite chair. I'll also read nonfiction that way. But poetry is so much better when I read it to someone or someone reads it to me. Poetry is music, is performance. Performing poetry - through the voice or via a physical object - gives it a temporal, momentary, golden quality.

One of the best writing workshops I ever attended was based on the creative practices of John Cage. One thing the leaders did was give us various objects on which to write - coffee filters, cash register receipts... changing the surface changes the writing, and pushes the creation into more of a performance space.

A class at the University of Auckland in New Zealand is doing some cool things in this realm: the realm of poetry off the page. Check it out - then grab a napkin, or a matchbox, or some duct tape, and create!

Fresh Young Voices

2009-04-20T13:35:00.011-05:00

Last night I went to hear Paul Muldoon read at the Smith College Poetry center, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that we would also be hearing from the winner and runners up of the 3rd annual poetry prize for high school girls. Check out their really great poems here. My favorite line: "all things backwards, wrong, and beautiful".

Fresh is a word that's thrown around often during the teaching of poetry, yet at the same time is difficult to describe or define. It's the kind of thing where you know it when you see it. These poems are fresh, juicy, shimmering with dew.

Great Month for Poetry

2009-03-27T11:44:00.005-05:00

Despite what TS Eliot wrote (“April is the cruelest month”), I think April is a great time for National Poetry Month, especially for those of us who are committing to do some extra writing during these 30 days. At least in the Northern Hemisphere, since spring is inspirational and symbolic on so many levels.

I won’t say what my plan is, because I’ve found that making too formed of a writing plan kills the project before it’s born—but I will say that I’m doing something, hopefully around a certain theme and experience. 30 days is great time frame to develop a current project or generate a new body of work.

Are you in need of some added inspiration or direction? Both the Poetic Asides blog and Poets & Writers are posting daily prompts this month.

Working and Writing

2009-03-25T06:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, in the course of a conversation, I told a friend that I nearly went into landscape architecture instead of writing. “Why?” she asked. So I had to ask myself—why did I abandon several years of experience in landscaping and horticulture to “start over” on a new vocational path?

I’ve had times in my life when my paid work was gardening or landscaping, and writing was a hobby. I’ve also had times when my paid work was writing or something to do with writing, and gardening was a hobby. I found that I prefer the latter state of being—it feels more flexible and filled with artistic possibilities.

My grad school advisor Rachel Pollack said that the best job for a writer is the one that allows you to do the most writing. My current day job now is great because it’s interesting and I interact with intelligent people, but it’s not all-consuming and doesn’t take up an undue amount of mental space.

Writing is a net that can be thrown over anything, incorporating all of the author’s varied and unusual interests. Currently I edit the newsletter of the Ecological Landscaping Association (a great nonprofit that educates professionals and homeowners about how to work with nature instead of against it in the landscape). The folks there told me it’s rare to find a writer who also has landscaping experience. If you are a writer and have other passions or experience (as all writers do), I encourage you to try find out how you can put them to good use—someone will value your background.

The other thing about jobs is that—just like all those failed relationships—everything is material. I have been an usher in a concert hall, a park ranger, ice cream maker, farmer, and after school teacher, just to name a few of the positions I’ve held over the years. As Pat Schneider wrote, “Live your life thoughtfully, empathetically. Listen, and watch. Write. From these practices will come the most important things you need to know in order to create good fiction.” Or good anything.

Poem of a Certain Place and Time

2009-03-11T15:21:00.008-05:00

So I logged onto the Writer's Almanac today as I often do, and found a poem by James Tate entitled "Suburban Buffalo." What are the chances that I have seen those same buffalo? I have seen them. James Tate teaches (taught?) at UMass Amherst, which is a short trip down Route 9 away from the bowling alley in Northampton, MA. On that two-lane strip of wannabe highway in Hadley stands (stood?) the Longview Bison Farm, the land of which has been sold and will soon be a Lowe's.

Tate's poem is a wonderful portrait of a surreal moment in real time, which concludes with a fanciful depiction of deconstructed farmers. It seems even more poignant when you know that the buffalo in the poem are no longer there and the poem has become an inadvertent memorial.

Write ye poems while ye may
old Time is sure a-flyin'
the same subject matter that's there today
tomorrow may be bulldozed

Vessels of Words

2009-03-08T10:21:00.003-05:00

There are different stages
to this process:
throwing poems
letting them dry
trimming them
glazing them
sometimes smashing them
and starting again.

Practicing my Cinquains

2009-02-26T09:48:00.006-05:00

You could write some, too! They’re the perfect length for a coffee break, or while you’re waiting in a doctor’s office. See where it takes you. Relax your mind and you might be surprised - or just have a little creative fun.

Playground
Snow-covered, somnolent
Waiting, watching, remembering
A factory stood here
Space

Park
Night-shrouded, star-dazzled
Humming, tripping, thumping
Senses of old buildings
History

Umbrella
Wet, unwieldy
Folding, opening, shielding
Held against the sky
Protection

Pomegranate
Chambered, embryonic
Waiting, ripening, rotting
Not death: a circle
Seeds

Poetry Variety Show

2009-02-16T12:50:00.007-05:00

Yesterday’s Spoken Word: Page and Stage, put on by the Northampton Arts Council as part of their Four Sundays in February series, was a variety show at its best.

The poets who performed were diverse in the familiar, external ways: ethnicity, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation. Just as importantly, where art is concerned, they were diverse internally. Their style, content, delivery, and intention were varied amounts and degrees of personal, political, intellectual, scientific, elegiac, avant garde, loud, quiet, reserved, and dramatic.

The three headliners were US Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur and slam poets Taylor Mali and Iyeoka Okoaw. They were joined by members of the Hampshire Slam Collective and UMass MFA candidates. By sharing the stage with each other they implied respect for one another. It was a beautiful thing.

Iyeoka Okoaw performed with a strong, honest voice and powerful imagery. Richard Wilbur read regally. I had to leave early so I didn't get to see Taylor Mali, but I found this on his website: "A Baker's Dozen Secrets of Slam: 13 Tips for Performing Poetry in Public." It's perfect advice for all poets who want to read or perform their work.

I attended the event to support the poetry community – and there was a great showing, as the Academy of Music was nearly filled by several hundred people. Thanks to all who made the show possible!

Writing about Pottery

2009-01-30T21:35:00.001-05:00

Add this to the great and growing collection of random things I found on the web while supposedly doing something else: students at Exeter Academy being challenged to write vivid, descriptive poetry about pottery. It makes me want to go do that, too.

Learning to Write: From Ceramics to Poetry

Call for Garden Poems

2009-01-28T11:01:00.005-05:00

They say that you always give other people the advice that you need to hear. In the spirit of that, I am posting this press release (which I found on Poetic Asides) that calls for poems about gardening. I plan on submitting something later this week, and I hope you will, too, if you are so inclined. It could help with the cabin fever.

Open Call for Submissions

Horticulture, the oldest and most respected magazine for avid gardeners in North America, is pleased to announce the addition of poetry to its editorial features. Cave Canem fellow (and fellow gardener) Michelle Courtney Berry's "What I Learned in the Garden" has been chosen as the debut poem, to appear in the April 2009 issue and online at Hortmag.com.

"For over 100 years, Horticulture has been dedicated to celebrating the passion of avid, influential gardeners, and there is an even longer history of poetry inspired by flowers and gardens -- from William Blake to Louise Glück, and so many great poets between them," explained publisher and editorial director, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez. "Adding garden verse to our editorial mix is simply another way to celebrate and encourage a real passion for gardening."

Horticulture is accepting submissions on a rolling basis, and is seeking poetry about, related to, or in honor of gardeners and gardening: traditional forms and free verse, the meditative lyric and the "light" or comic poem, the work of the famous and the work of the unknown. Our one limitation is length; we are unable to publish very long poems, and our limit is 42 lines.

Submissions should be sent as an email attachment (.DOC or .RTF only) per the guidelines posted at http://www.hortmag.com/submissions/
For more information on Horticulture, visit Hortmag.com.

What a Morning!

2009-01-21T08:36:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was a day of wonderful celebration. I've not engaged much in national politics until now, yet I couldn't help but be inspired by the hope that Barack Obama represents for our country.

The reading of inauguration poems last night in Northampton was an event full of community spirit and powerful words. Wanting to participate, I was going to read a poem that I'd written and didn't much care for, but luckily I was rescued by my father, Walter Schiff, a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war, who sent me a wonderful, heartfelt email. I arranged the words into lines, but the words are all his.

The Flag
Before I left for work today
I put out our flag.
I can't remember the last time
I felt proud about doing that.
Most years I have been sad
because it was a reminder of the ideals
which seemed to be ignored.
After hanging the flag out, I looked up
as I walked back to the garage.
There right overhead was the big dipper
which was the "drinking gourd"
for slaves headed north.
What a morning!

Indeed. And here is the text of Elizabeth Alexander's poem, "Praise Song for the Day."

Inaugural Poems on the Way

2008-12-22T10:48:00.010-05:00

There were few things that interrupted the regular schedule of classes while I was in high school. One of them was Bill Clinton's inauguration. I have a very clear memory of sitting in the small school's library, watching Maya Angelou read On the Pulse of Morning. I was 14 years old, and a bit confused as to why this famous poet was there, reading about a rock and a river and a tree. But it was a good confusion, brought on by wonderful things not normally seen in our nation's public life.

Luckily, we'll again have a similar experience, when Elizabeth Alexander reads her inaugural poem. The New York Times quotes her as saying, “Writing an occasional poem has to attend to the moment itself, but what you hope for, as an artist, is to create something that has integrity and life that goes beyond the moment.” Read the article.

For those of you who are local, the Florence Poets Society is also putting on a poetry reading in celebration of the inauguration. Western MA poets will celebrate Obama's inauguration by reading and listening to original inaugural poems.

Inaugural Poetry Day Celebration
Tuesday, January 20, 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Updated information: Leslea Newman will be hosting the celebration at the Yellow Sofa instead of at Thornes. It is sponsored by Leslea, Florence Poets Society, and the Northampton Arts Council. Please keep working on those inaugural poems!

Private in Public

2008-12-17T09:58:00.002-05:00

I recently heard Philip Seymour Hoffman being interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh Air. He is one of my favorite actors, because he plays the downtrodden guy so frickin’ well, and also because even when he’s not the star of a film, you can tell he’s putting all his energy into his part.

Hoffman said a couple things that I found interesting in particular. He compared acting to being an athlete, saying the performance or the game comes from a similar place, from the ability to be private in public. I thought that really made sense in terms of the boundaries a creative person must set in order to be able to create—whether the creation is a monologue or a physical achievement. I would imagine that Michael Phelps’s headphones helped him be private in public before his races.

One of my writing teachers in college was very demanding, and could be harsh, but he was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had because he held high standards and expected us to meet them. While in the classroom, he was on, he was present, he was intense. When he read and wrote comments on my essays, he was focused and insightful. But when he walked around campus, I was no one to him. He didn’t seem to ever look up at anyone—he just walked quickly from one place to another, inviting no interaction. I guess that was his way of being private in public.

I’m still trying to find my own way of being private in public. As Hoffman pointed out, a creative person experiences all sorts of messy highs and lows when working on an intense piece of creation. He talked about working with a certain director and the level of trust necessary in order for him to really work. I have found this level of trust and support in some of my writing groups and workshops. Having a witness to one’s creation can really help with going deep. To me, working alone is scarier—but, of course, still necessary.

Reading Girls / Girls Reading

2008-12-10T11:10:00.007-05:00

I've been trying to read Twilight to see what all the hype is about. So far, I'm not really enjoying it but haven't stopped reading because I want to see what happens. I'm doing the skim-until-you-don't-know-what's-happening-then-go-back-and-
see-what-happened thing.

Fascination with fantasy and creatures of other worlds is, to me, explained by this quote, which arrived in my inbox this morning: "Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." - Jules de Gautier

There's an excellent review of Twilight in this month's Atlantic Monthly that I think is a fabulous description of the pull of reading on certain girls (of which I certainly was one). Here's an excerpt:

"The salient fact of an adolescent girl’s existence is her need for a secret emotional life—one that she slips into during her sulks and silences, during her endless hours alone in her room, or even just when she’s gazing out the classroom window while all of Modern European History, or the niceties of the passé composé, sluice past her. This means that she is a creature designed for reading in a way no boy or man, or even grown woman, could ever be so exactly designed, because she is a creature whose most elemental psychological needs—to be undisturbed while she works out the big questions of her life, to be hidden from view while still in plain sight, to enter profoundly into the emotional lives of others—are met precisely by the act of reading."

Read the full article here.

For Mumbai

2008-12-03T15:18:00.003-05:00

candle wax puddles
where blood spattered and pooled
the trains cannot take us away now

raise your hand in prayer
unlike jasmine and marigolds
these memories will not wilt

On Keeping Going

2008-12-03T08:35:00.004-05:00

This morning was one of those times when I sat down and scribbled on a blank piece of paper words that seemed to have no purpose or meaning or need for existence. But I kept going anyway because it's the only way to keep the channel open, to keep the pump primed, as they say. Writing is often an experience of delayed gratification, work and work and even boredom before something happens again. I think of it as exercise, meditation, discipline in the wee dawn hours.

Then I got to my office, looked at my Poetry Speaks daily calendar, and came across this quote (it was dated November 28 ... I'm still playing catch up from vacation last week):

"I think that poetry is the voice of the soul, whispering, celebrating, singing even ... poetry is the consciousness which gives rise to voice.... You have to keep writing and writing until the poem emerges from your soul." - Carolyn Forche

Bitextual

2008-11-25T23:15:00.004-05:00

Well, a Google search for "bitextual" turns up several different types of entries, but what I mean by this word is an author who writes in more than one genre. I first heard it used this way by Chris Abani (poet and novelist). I don't know if he coined the phrase, but I think it's a great word and encourage writers to both use it, so that it will become more widely known, and practice it, because we can all benefit from literary cross-training.

Thinking about this made me wonder how many other writers I admire are bitextual. This is the short list I came up with so far:

Margaret Atwood, famous for her novels, also wrote many well done poems that are polished and mythic.

Vikram Seth, author of the epic A Suitable Boy, wrote a novel in verse that I recently picked up at a used book store (but I can't recall the title at the moment).

Jan Clausen, one of my advisors at Goddard, has written extensively in both poetry and fiction, and talked to me about how switching back and forth can feel freeing.

Maya Angelou, of course, has written a library of memoir and also several volumes of poetry.

I'm sure there are others who have been masters of more than one form... feel free to add to this list! Let's get bitextual...

Better When Broken

2008-11-12T22:08:00.008-05:00

eggs
a fever
the waves
a seed casing
water
morning
day
horses
rules
norms
buds
silence
the mold
a pattern
bread
taboos
bad habits
new ground
the fast
records
the seal
wedding glasses
pinatas
hearts

I wrote this list poem after a discussion with my friend Bob led me to think about all the things that we break on purpose, even though "break" usually has a negative connotation. Leave me a comment if you can think of others.

Election

2008-11-07T15:48:00.003-05:00

They called it a landslide
but that's such a negative image.
I say it was a huge flock of birds
rising all together
into the morning sky.

Yay, Obama! Yay, America!

2008-11-05T14:41:00.004-05:00

Oh, I am so happy. So relieved and hopeful and proud.

As Obama said in his speech last night:

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Read the full text of Obama's inspirational speech here.

Yipee!

My Emily Dickinson Walks

2008-10-20T06:31:00.006-05:00

Having a bouncy young dog gets me out of my apartment three times a day for walks around the neighborhood. She's good like that, getting me my exercise. The downside is that I've been going far less often for longer hikes in the surrounding area. A few years ago, I would hike up Mount Norwottuck and Mount Holyoke regularly, in all kinds of weather and every season.

It's funny, though, all the different things I can get used to. I was blessed with a trip to New Zealand five years ago, and when I returned in March I was dismayed at the meager topography and the lack of altitude in Massachusetts. After a while that feeling faded and I became readjusted.

Now am becoming adjusted to the particular landscape of fading industrial town mixed with renewed artistic community, layered among the trees and houses and gardens that all make up Easthampton. I feel like Emily Dickinson, walking in the same small area every day but watching it closely for every change: the fence covered in grape vines progressing from soft spring leaves to fruits hidden beneath yellow foliage to bare vines that still dangle purple berries. Or the way Mount Tom changes color depending on the time of day, just like that cathedral Monet used to paint.

Now that it's still dark at the time of my dog's first walk, I can also watch the sun rise, "a ribbon at a time," just like Emily Dickinson. Even if your world is small-- a town, a block, a room-- there is life and death, and beauty and wonder to observe.

"If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever-more wonders." —Andrew Harvey, The Return of the Mother

Quote of the Day

2008-10-01T09:29:00.003-05:00

"Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is a supreme creative act."
- Ram Dass, quoted in Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter

Along the same lines, I just found out that this fabulous speech about the importance of making art, which was given at my Goddard MFA graduation by program director Paul Selig, is now available online.

Powerful Article

2008-09-29T10:28:00.004-05:00

I encourage you all to read this blog post and consider its implications. I was grateful for the reminder of how far we still have to go as a culture.

This is Your Nation on White Priviledge

Writing Tips from Gregory Maguire

2008-09-22T15:20:00.003-05:00

“Like everyone else, I began life in anonymity, as a child.” It sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale. It was the opening line of a talk by Gregory Maguire, given last Tuesday at The Williston Northampton School. After reading from Wicked, Maguire traced the development of his creative passions from fourth grade on using a very entertaining slide show of illustrated stories he wrote as a child. His message to aspiring writers of fiction was, in a nutshell, boredom is the kiss of death. If you are bored with what you’re writing, then your readers will most certainly be bored as well. Inject the unexpected and the quirky as much as possible. Make your spies into a couple of balding old ladies, and have plenty of avalanches and bomb scares to keep people hooked.

Maguire revealed that his process of storytelling was aided greatly by illustrating his own stories. Before theories of right brain vs. left brain were popular, he used drawing as a way to develop plot. “I would draw the picture first,” he said, “and then ask the what, where, how, why? Why is the princess still clutching her handbag as she falls from the tower? What is in the handbag?”

In a more serious tone, Maguire made a great point about the thinking behind his empathetic treatment of the Wicked Witch of the West. It is tied in to a larger vision. Similar to Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, Maguire is examining the story of Dorothy Gale from multiple perspectives. “We don’t have enough knowledge if we only have one point of view,” he said. His next book, A Lion among Men, is told from the perspective of the Cowardly Lion.

This was the first in Williston’s fall 2008 Writers’ Workshop Series, which includes public readings and lectures by prominent writers followed by a Master Class for students.

Chinese Moon Festival

2008-09-15T07:28:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Daphne Burt (Chaplain at the school where I work) for letting me know that today is the Chinese Moon Festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival. On this day, families eat dinner under the moon, eat mooncakes, pomeloes, and tell the story of Chang’e, the moon maiden.

Some of you may know that my damselfly tattoo was inspired by a theater experience I had (it was more than just being part of the cast) while at Hampshire College. The play was based on the story of Change'e. So... I feel a connection to this day. My journey from cast member to damselfly is a mystical story, not really fit for this brief blog entry, but I wanted to at least acknowledge that ancient and beautiful Chinese myth here.

Blessings to all this day!

Does anybody know what a pomelo is?

Environmental Writing Contest

2008-09-10T11:52:00.005-05:00

I recently received this notice from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

From Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth century to Rachel Carson and E.O. Wilson in the twentieth, writers have played a profound role in drawing attention to our natural environment and inspiring people to protect it. To continue this tradition and inspire action on global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists has partnered with literary publisher Penguin Classics to encourage the public to submit essays and images about climate change for publication in a new online book, Thoreau’s Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming.

We want to hear from you. To participate, write a 200- to 500-word first-person account of global warming that relates to your life or the world around you. Is there a place that holds a special meaning to you that you want to protect? What people, animals, or activities that you love are at risk from a changing climate? Are you taking steps in your own life to stem the tide of global warming? Tell us your story, or send us a photograph related to topics like these. The best submissions will be included in Thoreau’s Legacy, which will be published online in spring 2009 and in a limited-edition hardcover version.

Two leading scientists and one of the nation’s most respected nature photographers have contributed representative works to the project to serve as examples of the kind of essays and photographs we are seeking. To view them and learn how you can submit your own essay or photograph, visit the UCS website.

It’s time for the writings of a new generation to inspire our country to take on the challenge of global warming and save our natural—and national—heritage. Submit your story or photographs today.

Writers for Obama

2008-09-08T10:23:00.005-05:00

Event
Writers for Obama fundraiser
Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 4:00pm
Hotel Northampton Ballroom, 36 King Street, Northampton, MA
Donations: $50 and up (students with ID $10).
RSVP or get further infomation: Gordon & Linda Tripp (413) 665-3580

Sticker
Show your well-reasoned support! Get your stickers here. Stickers and buttons come in several shapes and sizes.

I Survived the 3-day Novel Contest

2008-09-01T19:23:00.008-05:00

I return to this blog after running a marathon...a writing marathon, that is. I signed up for the 3-day Novel Contest and chained myself to my desk over Labor Day weekend. I laughed, I cried, I screamed, and I drank a lot of coffee. I conclude the experience 12,809 words richer. I do not have a novel to show for it, not yet anyway...I worked for a while on my main story, and when I hit a wall I worked on a few other short stories. It seems that many participants came away with more words or pages than I, but the point is not to compare...the point is the journey, and I have done it.

I felt at times a bit like I did when I ran the 8-mile race in this picture: completely unprepared. I did not train for the race. I think I finished 10th from last. But I beat my goal in terms of time, and I finished. The same was true this time...I did not practice writing fiction. I have never in my life completed a work of fiction (correct me if I'm wrong, Mom. I may have done something of the sort in middle school). So it was a little crazy to expect myself to draft a novel with no preparation and hardly any planning. Still, I managed to write for a total of 18.5 hours (about 6 hours per day).

Where's the fun in life if you never do anything crazy? Now I hope to go back and actually do some studying of fiction while I work with the new material I generated this weekend. Pat Schneider, in her book Writing Alone and with Others, relates a fairy tale in which the hero finds a wealth of copper but must give it up in order to earn silver, and then must give up the silver in order to earn all he can carry in gold. She says that is a metaphor for writing, that if we keep going, if we are willing to shed things along the way, we will find treasure. I found some treasure, and it surprised me. That's the whole point, right?

Onward!

Stretch Break

2008-07-02T09:24:00.003-05:00

Dragon's Meow is on summer vacation in order for me to be able to garden, travel, and work on projects for Flutter Poetry Journal and the Ecological Landscaping Association.

So go watch the sunset or something.

Oh, by the way, I now have my Master of Fine Arts in Writing. Yipee!

For a great selection of brain food and contemporary poetry, check out Poetry Daily.

In Memoriam

2008-06-23T12:22:00.008-05:00

The email this morning
was matter-of-fact. Bad news
travels so easily: quick and clean,
sharp, definite. She died.
Thirty years old, she was riding
her bike. I don't know
the details of helmet or speed
but I do know she was married
holding red flowers with a deep
red sash on an autumn day of leaves
and sun, to my childhood
friend. My question is:
"How can I make sense of this?"
From the Tarot deck, I draw the Magician.
White robe, red sash,
cup and coin and sword and staff,
feminine and masculine, lilies
and roses, the go-between of worlds.
This afternoon a bicyclist
passed my bench. I saw him
bend down, pick up a book -
not sure if he dropped it
or found it. I wonder -
when she fell - who
picked her up?

It's true, we are like cicadas...

2008-06-11T10:03:00.004-05:00

I recently signed up for yet another poetry email list, this time from the Poet's Market. I'm not yet sure if it's worth my time, but at least today their message made me think. Today's post from editor Robert Lee Brewer reads, in part, "Lately, there have been a ton of crazy cicadas ... buzzing around without any apparent pattern or thought, which has led to many of them ending up splattered across my windshield (gross!). Anyway, the crazy flight patterns of cicadas remind me of the crazy submission patterns of some poets. For instance, some poets will go long stretches of time without submitting anything. Then, suddenly and without any apparent pattern, they'll begin submitting everywhere they possibly can without any rhyme or reason..."

He is talking about submitting, which, it's true, does require planning and research in order to be successful. However, the actual process of creating poems is much more akin to the life cycle of the cicada. No matter how many wise writing teachers recommend writing every day, practicing and keeping in shape with sonnets and sestinas that no one will ever read, it's still the case that those bright moments of writing something people will actually want to read are few and far between. Yet, unlike the cicada's return, it's unpredictable (though sometimes it does feel like it will be 17 years until it happens again). My advice is: keep going (i.e. breathing, eating, journaling, etc.) but don't beat yourself up when you have to bide your time in the roots of trees before you're ready to grow your wings and keep the neighbors up all night with your incessant buzzing.

Dispatches from the Poet in the Conference Room

2008-06-10T12:45:00.003-05:00

Sitting through meetings, trying to focus on all the big, conceptual words, I can't help noticing petals wilting on the apple tree, and the slow trickle of artificial rain from the lawn sprinkler. Richard Hugo said it best: "Think small.... If you can't think small, try philosophy or social criticism." The reverse is also true. If you can't think big, if the words of organizational work plans and economic indicators sound like the wind worrying pine trees on a stormy night, then you must be a poet.

Yay, California!

2008-05-29T13:42:00.004-05:00

I just love this picture. I found it on Yahoo! news. Let's hope that Californians can stay strong and retain the right for people to marry whomever they love.

It's Hard to Find the Time...

2008-05-28T08:12:00.003-05:00

... to write ...
when "to live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."
-Emily Dickinson

Harvey Karman, developer of a certain soft, flexible tube

2008-05-19T09:55:00.006-05:00

There is so much to say around the experiences of women exercising our right to decide and direct what happens to our own bodies after an evening of misjudgement, contraceptive failure, or rape. It's an issue that's close to my heart and the topic of the middle section of my poetry thesis. I think that poetry is the best genre for such discussions because poetry is a such a good form for nuance and ambivalence.

This morning I read an obituary of a psychologist who helped many women out of their difficult situations. I particularly appreciate this article because it paints his activities as humanitarian, which they were. It reads, in part:

"He became interested in abortion when he was conducting research at UCLA on the emotional aspects of therapeutic abortion. During this time a student with an unplanned pregnancy committed suicide and another died from a botched abortion. Karman responded by helping women obtain illegal abortions in Mexico. Unhappy with the high prices and poor care some of the women received, he began performing abortions himself."

Here's a link to the full article.

Nature's observatory

2008-05-09T14:10:00.006-05:00

At the end of any creative project comes a gap, a pause, an aimlessness that teeters on an edge between still and stagnant. Having concluded the big project of my MFA thesis, I find myself oddly directionless, trying to stay plugged in, but not sure what I want to be plugging in to. It's nice to watch TV and read novels again. But there are so many more poems waiting to be written, and I want to make sure they know that my brain is still open for business as they're zooming along the highway of the Collective Unconscious.

To that end, I've been reading The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron for encouragement. She advocates taking a meditative walk every day as a way to stimulate the imagination and induce active, creative dreaming. Lucky for me I have a puppy to walk every morning. This walk is not always the most mellow experience - there are squirrels to be chased and many people to make friends with. But, it's better than not walking, and the moment that we turn onto the Easthampton bike trail and see the pond through the trees is always an uplifting one.

There's something about "nature" (for lack of a better word... and believe me, I spent a couple years debating whether or not there was one that could better reflect the part-of-us-and-yet-still-other-ness of the nonhuman world) that I find immediately relaxing, soothing, and reviving. Silence and solitude, which I try to drown out with the radio when I'm at home or in any sort of urban environment, are welcome because I don't really feel alone. And it's never really silent.

John Keats, that wonderful Romantic, describes this feeling exactly as I have experienced it:

O Solitude! If I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,-
Nature's observatory - whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigil keep
'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.

Lucky for those of us who live in "murky buildings" that there are green spaces for us to walk and dream and imagine in.