Better When Broken

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

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!

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

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

"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

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

“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.