This is a post I started a week ago. Sorry not to have gotten it finished and posted, but as soon as my cooking tools were put away, leftovers eaten, and adulations received, I was off to a week-long poetry workshop, an annual evwent that is not to be missed! So I am posting what I had written before and didn't post, just to keep you up to date:
"Today was a banner day. It was long planned and practiced. Today was the cook-off for the Lobster Festival. I am happy to report that my Lobster Curry Mac 'n' Cheese took 3rd place. But better than that was the event itself. Lords of people came to watch the 5 of us cook "live" and watch the judges taste, evaluate our table settings, and ask us questions. We got to engage with the public as we cooked which was great fun for me. I was asked how to keep the noodles from getting overcooked, asked about my special Purple Basil Vinegar (which I make), and asked details about my recipe. People were fascinated by my vinegar, which the judges did not get to hear about because they come in after the cooking is done and just eat and evaluate. I'm wondering if the judges might make a visit WHILE we are cooking, just to see the process and hear the details of our recipes AS WE TALK to the crowd about them.
"No matter, the whole experience was wonderful for me and for the audience. I loved having people come up to me as I was cooking, to see the dish come together, to smell my wonderful vinegar, to taste once we had finished our dishes. I'd say that for a very public event, it was quite intimate. I will definitely submit a recipe again next year."
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Breathing Room
Have you ever attended an event (in my case a poetry workshop) and felt so exhausted from the goodness of it that you needed time off to sleep, regroup, recharge? Well here I am, one day removed from Kathleen Ellis' poetry Workshop at the Farnsworth Art Museum and I am in need of (possible choices):
1. a day at the beach
2. a day on my front porch with cool lemonade and chocolate
3. a day with lots of sleeping
4. a day at sea on a schooner
So I'm thinking that #2 is most likely, but now I have to drive somewhere to get the chocolate and lemons, and then SQUEEZE the lemons. Maybe I'll sleep a little and sit on the porch with a Moxie and read. But then I will get inspired and want to WRITE. Oh, Muse, why do you pester me so?
1. a day at the beach
2. a day on my front porch with cool lemonade and chocolate
3. a day with lots of sleeping
4. a day at sea on a schooner
So I'm thinking that #2 is most likely, but now I have to drive somewhere to get the chocolate and lemons, and then SQUEEZE the lemons. Maybe I'll sleep a little and sit on the porch with a Moxie and read. But then I will get inspired and want to WRITE. Oh, Muse, why do you pester me so?
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Parades
I love a good parade. I enjoy all the kids running around with candy they got from people on floats, love the music, the excitement of it all. I think I have oop-pah-pah music in my blood. I might have run away and joined the circus if I'd had the chance, just to be a part of the circus parade. I used to be the drum major in my high school band and it was thrilling to lead the whole parade down the streets of our town. I loved my white and gold uniform and the tall shako and the big baton I carried to keep the band in step and in rhythm.
Here in Maine, parades are a big part of any kind of public occasion. Today is the HUGE lobster festival Parade here in Rockland. Last year it took over and hour and a half. Last year I marched in the parade. (Not this year...pure spectatorship is the thing for me in 2011) The street will be jammed, waiting for the giant lobster (Rocky) and the Sea Goddess and her court. I will be sitting under the new awning at the new and IMPROVED Rock City Café with a fall iced coffee and a notebook (of course). Ahhh, it just doesn't get any better!
What will REALLY annoy me however (and it WILL happen) is seeing how many people do not stand as the US Flag passes by them. It makes me crazy. I am used to the normal patriotism of standing in respect (not worship mind you) as the flag goes by. I was raised right. I will grumble and grouse about this.
Still, I will be there, coffee and notebook and all. I will feel good to be alive and living in Maine where somehow there are still parades and balloons, and lobster festivals. I will end the day with a good feeling. I will end the day remembering all the times it was ME at the head of the parade, me leading the music and the marching. I will celebrate the fact that parades can make us feel special and happy even in the toughest of times.
Here in Maine, parades are a big part of any kind of public occasion. Today is the HUGE lobster festival Parade here in Rockland. Last year it took over and hour and a half. Last year I marched in the parade. (Not this year...pure spectatorship is the thing for me in 2011) The street will be jammed, waiting for the giant lobster (Rocky) and the Sea Goddess and her court. I will be sitting under the new awning at the new and IMPROVED Rock City Café with a fall iced coffee and a notebook (of course). Ahhh, it just doesn't get any better!
What will REALLY annoy me however (and it WILL happen) is seeing how many people do not stand as the US Flag passes by them. It makes me crazy. I am used to the normal patriotism of standing in respect (not worship mind you) as the flag goes by. I was raised right. I will grumble and grouse about this.
Still, I will be there, coffee and notebook and all. I will feel good to be alive and living in Maine where somehow there are still parades and balloons, and lobster festivals. I will end the day with a good feeling. I will end the day remembering all the times it was ME at the head of the parade, me leading the music and the marching. I will celebrate the fact that parades can make us feel special and happy even in the toughest of times.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
And then there was someone other than me
OK, so I am taking a new approach to this blogging thing. Once a month I will do a DETAILED blog on another writer (poet or otherwise). I will bare it all for the sage of art. I will take a workshop approach to the thing. Up first:
Larry Kramer
Suggested Reading:
Brilliant Windows (the book AND the poem)
Stay tuned. I'm off to re-read and take notes.
Larry Kramer
Suggested Reading:
Brilliant Windows (the book AND the poem)
Stay tuned. I'm off to re-read and take notes.
Sitting the Book Signing Table
It's a bit like a family reunion or a wake or any other gathering where polite conversation and smiling are expected. You have the book (books) and a great pen. You might even have change and a mailing list sheet. You've chosen an outfit that looks "poet-y." And of course there is the required bottle of water. You hope a few people will stop by to say hello, and that they will be duly impressed that you have WRITTEN a book. You wonder if they are lookie-louing their way from table to table, trying to look literate and upscale. You wonder if they actually read and appreciate poetry (you PRAY that they do!) You want to chat with them about poetry. You want them to want your book.
You think that they probably fall into one of three categories:
1. They have written a book too and want to know how to get theirs published
2. They are also poets and trying to be supportive by stopping by to say hello
3. They are trying to impress someone (the man they are dating, their children, themselves)
What you HOPE is that they fall into one of three of the OTHER categories:
1. They have written and published a book too and want to buy yours because they know it is hard work
2. They are also poets and want to be supportive AND they want to add your book to their libraries
3. They are impressed with your work and want to buy your book to learn from your writing
Personally, I love book signings. I want to see the faces of people when (if) they open my books and read a few lines. I love talking with people about writing and hope to find a new writer or two. I love signing a book and the feel of the ink smoothing itself onto the title page as I come up with a (hopefully) insightful message.
I'd be crazy not to admit that I also love it when I don't have to pack up the books and take them home afterwards. I want them OUT THERE. I also want to be able to go to the bank and deposit the few dollars into my account, feel like I do actually DO THIS as a means of supporting my book and paper and pen habit!
So here's the thing: buy books directly from authors. Don't say "Oh I love your book, I'll order it from Amazon." Get the books directly and the authors make a few bucks more. (Book sellers take 40%) It is heartening and feels good to see a person walk away from the book table with my book in hand.
So, enough with the commercial. Off to my book signing. Really. Today, 10 AM - 1 PM Marine Tent, Maine Lobster Festival. See you there?
You think that they probably fall into one of three categories:
1. They have written a book too and want to know how to get theirs published
2. They are also poets and trying to be supportive by stopping by to say hello
3. They are trying to impress someone (the man they are dating, their children, themselves)
What you HOPE is that they fall into one of three of the OTHER categories:
1. They have written and published a book too and want to buy yours because they know it is hard work
2. They are also poets and want to be supportive AND they want to add your book to their libraries
3. They are impressed with your work and want to buy your book to learn from your writing
Personally, I love book signings. I want to see the faces of people when (if) they open my books and read a few lines. I love talking with people about writing and hope to find a new writer or two. I love signing a book and the feel of the ink smoothing itself onto the title page as I come up with a (hopefully) insightful message.
I'd be crazy not to admit that I also love it when I don't have to pack up the books and take them home afterwards. I want them OUT THERE. I also want to be able to go to the bank and deposit the few dollars into my account, feel like I do actually DO THIS as a means of supporting my book and paper and pen habit!
So here's the thing: buy books directly from authors. Don't say "Oh I love your book, I'll order it from Amazon." Get the books directly and the authors make a few bucks more. (Book sellers take 40%) It is heartening and feels good to see a person walk away from the book table with my book in hand.
So, enough with the commercial. Off to my book signing. Really. Today, 10 AM - 1 PM Marine Tent, Maine Lobster Festival. See you there?
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Sun-baked Wood
What are the smells associated with the various seasons? My friend Don (who used to be my high school boyfriend) reminded me how powerful smells are when he commented to me that whenever he goes to the beach, the smells of tide and sand and sea make him think of me and summertime. I recently read a comment on another blog that the smell of sun-baked wood made the author think of summer. These two comments are lurking now in my margins. I think I will have to do some serious thinking on this and write a bit about sensory details that speak to the seasons.
Several months ago, I bought a cologne that smells like summer to me. Bobbie Brown's "Beach" is as close to what I recall about beach summers as I can come. When I spritz a little on after a shower, I am transported back in time. I wonder if Don were to smell that scent, would he think of summers at our favorite beach? I do think of that exact place, and can almost feel the sand under my feet, the splashy cold of the surf.
It is not just summer that carries scent. There is a certain aroma after a fresh snow that I sometimes experience when doing laundry. There is also the way the air smells after a rain, REALLY strong after a thunderstorm. My daughter calls it the wet dirt smell. It is more than that. It is the smell of spring. We writers are fortunate to have these olfactory experiences to make our poems more embodied. When I read "sun-baked wood," I was immediately aware of how driftwood smells wrapped in seaweed, cooking in the sun on the rocks. Oh and how those rocks smell too. I wonder sometimes if I am REALLY sensitive, or if I am a little bit nuts. (both?)
Did you know that some people are not able to smell skunk odor? It's true. My ex-husband cannot smell a skunk. I used to laughingly say that of course one doesn't smell a skunk if one IS a skunk... a slightly bitter comment to be sure. But I have discovered that the "ability" to smell certain things (skunks being one of these) is a genetic thing. True! What a blessing to NOT smell skunks! I have an unusual "sniffer" myself: freshly brewing coffee smells like tuna sandwiches to me. Yes, like TUNA. Who ever heard of that? Is that a genetic thing?
Scent is a powerful thing. We are both blessed and cursed by it. Time to go write about this myseterious sense.
Several months ago, I bought a cologne that smells like summer to me. Bobbie Brown's "Beach" is as close to what I recall about beach summers as I can come. When I spritz a little on after a shower, I am transported back in time. I wonder if Don were to smell that scent, would he think of summers at our favorite beach? I do think of that exact place, and can almost feel the sand under my feet, the splashy cold of the surf.
It is not just summer that carries scent. There is a certain aroma after a fresh snow that I sometimes experience when doing laundry. There is also the way the air smells after a rain, REALLY strong after a thunderstorm. My daughter calls it the wet dirt smell. It is more than that. It is the smell of spring. We writers are fortunate to have these olfactory experiences to make our poems more embodied. When I read "sun-baked wood," I was immediately aware of how driftwood smells wrapped in seaweed, cooking in the sun on the rocks. Oh and how those rocks smell too. I wonder sometimes if I am REALLY sensitive, or if I am a little bit nuts. (both?)
Did you know that some people are not able to smell skunk odor? It's true. My ex-husband cannot smell a skunk. I used to laughingly say that of course one doesn't smell a skunk if one IS a skunk... a slightly bitter comment to be sure. But I have discovered that the "ability" to smell certain things (skunks being one of these) is a genetic thing. True! What a blessing to NOT smell skunks! I have an unusual "sniffer" myself: freshly brewing coffee smells like tuna sandwiches to me. Yes, like TUNA. Who ever heard of that? Is that a genetic thing?
Scent is a powerful thing. We are both blessed and cursed by it. Time to go write about this myseterious sense.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
I've been an AWOL blogger... sorry!
So sorry to have been AWOL a bit. I am not at home, am in Vermont for a long weekend (see blog on Bear Pond and other indie bookstores). But the blog in my head continues daily. I am not without thoughts to share or lessons I need to learn as I type. But really, when I am at someone else's house, can I actually break away to blog? Not so much.
Today is a low key day, both my friend and I lying low and doing our own thing. So I am at the keyboard and ready to chat about poetry. I've been thinking a bit about the issue of so-called "confessional" poetry and wondering what you think about that. This designation of the personal as somehow off limits or "less than" certainly has made the rounds. Some people think the poet should be totally absent in his or her poems. I can't say I agree with this, although I do not want to be dragged in to anyone's personal drama if it is not meaningful in a universal sense. I guess that is the distinction I would make. AND the poet should keep enough of an emotional distance to be able to see and write without artifice. "Accessible" and also discerning is my mantra when writing poems that have a basis in truth, a connection to my own experiences. I want to be close enough to my own life to KNOW, and distant enough to include more than just myself in the activity of the poems.
This brings me to a myth that exists in poetry, experienced by attendees at readings: that every poem is the poet writing about him/herself. Not at all. Do I need to be IN every poem I write in order to write with authority? I do not. It's called observational research. I cannot tell you how many times people will come up to me after a reading and comment on a poem, thinking I was writing about myself when I really was not. There are more than one voice possible in any poem. I refer to the "inside" voice of the poem or the "outside" voice of the poem. The voice INSIDE is the voice of the character performing or experiencing the action of the poem. The OUTSIDE voice is that of the poet, the observer or chronicler of the action. Sometime these are the same voice. In that case, the poem can be "confessional" in nature. Does that mean this kind of poem is not good, is somehow less adept or successful? No. But clearly, the confessional poem runs the risk of artifice, of self-important posturing. I do not want my writing to be that. But if one is to write from a position of knowledge, particularly on sensitive topics, one must take the risk. Of course the editing/revision process can be a place of removal of the too personal information or tone. We are always able to revise.
So go ahead and write about what you know and/or have experienced. Take the risk. After all, if you do not care deeply about what you write, no one else will either. But look at what you have written and ask: will my readers CARE about this? Will they CONNECT to this? Who is the voice inside and the voice outside the poem? Are those voices one and the same? Is this poem accessible to your reader? Will your reader feel as if he/she had just barged into a private moment? The answers to these questions will help in the revision process.
Confess if you must. Share if you think it will help others. Tell all if all needs telling. But remember that writing is for OTHERS, not just for ourselves. If you are writing for yourself alone, maybe you should just keep a journal.
Today is a low key day, both my friend and I lying low and doing our own thing. So I am at the keyboard and ready to chat about poetry. I've been thinking a bit about the issue of so-called "confessional" poetry and wondering what you think about that. This designation of the personal as somehow off limits or "less than" certainly has made the rounds. Some people think the poet should be totally absent in his or her poems. I can't say I agree with this, although I do not want to be dragged in to anyone's personal drama if it is not meaningful in a universal sense. I guess that is the distinction I would make. AND the poet should keep enough of an emotional distance to be able to see and write without artifice. "Accessible" and also discerning is my mantra when writing poems that have a basis in truth, a connection to my own experiences. I want to be close enough to my own life to KNOW, and distant enough to include more than just myself in the activity of the poems.
This brings me to a myth that exists in poetry, experienced by attendees at readings: that every poem is the poet writing about him/herself. Not at all. Do I need to be IN every poem I write in order to write with authority? I do not. It's called observational research. I cannot tell you how many times people will come up to me after a reading and comment on a poem, thinking I was writing about myself when I really was not. There are more than one voice possible in any poem. I refer to the "inside" voice of the poem or the "outside" voice of the poem. The voice INSIDE is the voice of the character performing or experiencing the action of the poem. The OUTSIDE voice is that of the poet, the observer or chronicler of the action. Sometime these are the same voice. In that case, the poem can be "confessional" in nature. Does that mean this kind of poem is not good, is somehow less adept or successful? No. But clearly, the confessional poem runs the risk of artifice, of self-important posturing. I do not want my writing to be that. But if one is to write from a position of knowledge, particularly on sensitive topics, one must take the risk. Of course the editing/revision process can be a place of removal of the too personal information or tone. We are always able to revise.
So go ahead and write about what you know and/or have experienced. Take the risk. After all, if you do not care deeply about what you write, no one else will either. But look at what you have written and ask: will my readers CARE about this? Will they CONNECT to this? Who is the voice inside and the voice outside the poem? Are those voices one and the same? Is this poem accessible to your reader? Will your reader feel as if he/she had just barged into a private moment? The answers to these questions will help in the revision process.
Confess if you must. Share if you think it will help others. Tell all if all needs telling. But remember that writing is for OTHERS, not just for ourselves. If you are writing for yourself alone, maybe you should just keep a journal.
Friday, July 29, 2011
3 new books/a visit to Bear Pond Books
So here I am in Vermont, home of the Happy Hilltop (Vermont College of Fine Arts). I am in Vt to visit my former college roommate from the 60s who lives in Barre. We try to get together once a year here and once a year in Maine. I've known her hubby since then too as they were dating in college. Long story short, I love coming here and spending time with them (my hubby loves them too and we have a great time together). I also get to go over to Montpelier and up to the college for a bit. Today I took a copy of my newest book to give to the MFA Library for the Alumni section.
As usual, I made a visit to Bear Pond Books, down the hill from school. They always seem to have a few titles I cannot find elsewhere. Today's finds were:
1. Freight by Sondra Upham, a chapbook put out by Slapering Hol in 2000. I'd not seen it anywhere before. The poems are wonderful, as much as I have read so far. Marie Ponsot (whose poems I admire greatly) picked this chapbook as the winner of the competition that year. I wonder how it is we don't get these little gems widely distributed to more bookstores. I've not been disappointed in the ones I've stumbled upon over the years. I'd like to sign up to read special little chapbooks like this one, to be the official chap reader!
2. The Paper Rose by Tom Absher. This collection was published in 2007 by Plain View Press (Austin TX). I have read a few Poems this evening and recommend one in particular: Mrs. Townsend. It is about a person coming in on an autopsy of an elderly lady. Now I have to say I have seen autopsies and helped embalm one of my patients (nursing school, 1982). The poem is spot on in details and yet seems so lovely. Hard to explain. You have to read it. I also recommend Alternative Service, a wonderful and rich telling of what it is like to be an orderly, "doing the dirty work of the sacred." Really you must read these wondrous poems.
3. The Good Kiss by George Bilgere. This was published by University of Akron Press in 2002. The poems are at once personal and universal, bring the American culture of the 50s and onward alive on every page. Some of the poems are written in the voice of a small child, some are written in the more autoritative voice of the grown man. All are written with the eye of one whose life was a panorama of tones and shadows, matter and ether. Absher is brilliant at recreating the simple mystery of the past within the complicated landscape of the present. I keep wanting to read lines over and over just to see how they feel in my brain as I read them.
OK, lest you think I am all poetry and nothing else, I also bought a sci-fi novel by Philip K. Dick (one I had not seen before) and the 2011 Poets Market. Let's just say it was a full day at the bookstore.
As usual, I made a visit to Bear Pond Books, down the hill from school. They always seem to have a few titles I cannot find elsewhere. Today's finds were:
1. Freight by Sondra Upham, a chapbook put out by Slapering Hol in 2000. I'd not seen it anywhere before. The poems are wonderful, as much as I have read so far. Marie Ponsot (whose poems I admire greatly) picked this chapbook as the winner of the competition that year. I wonder how it is we don't get these little gems widely distributed to more bookstores. I've not been disappointed in the ones I've stumbled upon over the years. I'd like to sign up to read special little chapbooks like this one, to be the official chap reader!
2. The Paper Rose by Tom Absher. This collection was published in 2007 by Plain View Press (Austin TX). I have read a few Poems this evening and recommend one in particular: Mrs. Townsend. It is about a person coming in on an autopsy of an elderly lady. Now I have to say I have seen autopsies and helped embalm one of my patients (nursing school, 1982). The poem is spot on in details and yet seems so lovely. Hard to explain. You have to read it. I also recommend Alternative Service, a wonderful and rich telling of what it is like to be an orderly, "doing the dirty work of the sacred." Really you must read these wondrous poems.
3. The Good Kiss by George Bilgere. This was published by University of Akron Press in 2002. The poems are at once personal and universal, bring the American culture of the 50s and onward alive on every page. Some of the poems are written in the voice of a small child, some are written in the more autoritative voice of the grown man. All are written with the eye of one whose life was a panorama of tones and shadows, matter and ether. Absher is brilliant at recreating the simple mystery of the past within the complicated landscape of the present. I keep wanting to read lines over and over just to see how they feel in my brain as I read them.
OK, lest you think I am all poetry and nothing else, I also bought a sci-fi novel by Philip K. Dick (one I had not seen before) and the 2011 Poets Market. Let's just say it was a full day at the bookstore.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Coffee shops and bookstores
It is a well-established tradition (hmmm, how long?) that bookstores and coffee shops co-exist. I've always wanted to own/operate one. I got smarter and decided a while ago that I just want to go to them. Kinda like my B & B fantasy. At any rate, we have a BS/CS entity here in Rockland that has long been an anchor in the community, a place of good food (except for the plethora of chick peas ... I ask WHY?) and of reading and writing. Now it has closed for a week to move to a new location (one door down from current location). I will be heading over there later today to help out. What I want to say here is this: we need to support Indie Bookstores and their partner coffee shops. Borders is apparently closing and selling itself to the lowest bidders (liquidations sales). Who knows about Barnes & Noble. But really? How warm are they? Do they know your reading preferences or how you like your coffee? Do they know in advance you will pick chips over chickpea salad offerings? I think not.
My favorite indie bookstore is Prairie Lights in Iowa City. They have the BEST poetry selections I have ever seen. They will do online orders. They have a great coffee area upstairs with tables you can inhabit for hours at a time (have done this). During the summer, they broadcast author readings live on NPR (we worry about them too with the current trend against funding arts).
And when I am in Vermont I go to Bear Pond Books. This is a great spot too, although they do not have coffee or tables and chairs for writing. They are fiercely protective of our reading privacy. When the government was thinking of invading the book industry to track our reading preferences, BPB kept NO records of our purchases to have NOTHING for them to track. Gotta love that.
But I don't live in Iowa or Vermont. I live here in Maine. I have hello hello books and Rock City Cafe. Now this is no sacrifice. I don't mean to sound as if I am "settling" or taking sloppy seconds. Not at all. I am pleased to go there, to spend writing time there, to buy books, trade in books, meet with friends over coffee and tri-berry pie. I love the soups and sandwiches there. It is a destination. It is my place.
So, wherever you are, go into your local bookstore and inhale the atmosphere. Thank the owners and workers for being there, for fighting the good fight for literacy and intelligence. BUY books. READ voraciously so you need to buy more books. DONATE books to school libraries.
Have a latte today and think of Rock City and hello, hello books. They will be open next week for our next adventure in reading and sipping.
My favorite indie bookstore is Prairie Lights in Iowa City. They have the BEST poetry selections I have ever seen. They will do online orders. They have a great coffee area upstairs with tables you can inhabit for hours at a time (have done this). During the summer, they broadcast author readings live on NPR (we worry about them too with the current trend against funding arts).
And when I am in Vermont I go to Bear Pond Books. This is a great spot too, although they do not have coffee or tables and chairs for writing. They are fiercely protective of our reading privacy. When the government was thinking of invading the book industry to track our reading preferences, BPB kept NO records of our purchases to have NOTHING for them to track. Gotta love that.
But I don't live in Iowa or Vermont. I live here in Maine. I have hello hello books and Rock City Cafe. Now this is no sacrifice. I don't mean to sound as if I am "settling" or taking sloppy seconds. Not at all. I am pleased to go there, to spend writing time there, to buy books, trade in books, meet with friends over coffee and tri-berry pie. I love the soups and sandwiches there. It is a destination. It is my place.
So, wherever you are, go into your local bookstore and inhale the atmosphere. Thank the owners and workers for being there, for fighting the good fight for literacy and intelligence. BUY books. READ voraciously so you need to buy more books. DONATE books to school libraries.
Have a latte today and think of Rock City and hello, hello books. They will be open next week for our next adventure in reading and sipping.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The heat and my head and writing
One of the reasons I love Maine is the lack of oppressive heat in summer. I remember a few days when I was growing up here that the temps got "up there" and the mug was so thick that we could barely breathe. Those nights we slept downstairs on the dining room floor, and those were the nights our dad would pile us into the car in our jammies to take us out for ice cream. But basically these were rare times. Maine (coastal Maine I ought to say) is pretty cool in the evenings even when the days are "scortchy." The tide will turn, a breeze will blow in off the sea, and everything chills a little, just enough to sleep at least.
Well, last night was a no-sleep kind of night. The temps had been close to 100 all day, no relief. The wind blew in from the west. The air got very very still after dark. I slept downstairs in my chaise chair, my hubby braved the upstairs under a ceiling fan. Hot. Just plain hot. We'd gone to a movie in the late afternoon and then to a restaurant for supper, all AC'd and cool enough. Back at home, we watched the ballgame (Sox won) and then tried to sleep. I was so distracted yesterday by the heat that I could not DO anything I wanted/needed to do. No writing (except the blog) and no meaningful domestics. UGH.
This morning is overcast and the weather widget says there is rain all around us. We need it. We WANT it, a nice gully-washer please. I need my head washed too, some kind of flood to clear it and make me feel creative again. I am certainly happy my workshop got canceled or I'd be getting ready to teach and feeling inadequate to do so.
I'm also getting physically and mentally ready to cook my Lobster Curry Mac 'n' Cheese with crispy crab topping at the upcoming lobster festival here in town. My recipe is one of five chosen and I am the only "cook" from Rockland, so a little bit of pressure there. I get to make the recipe "live" at the festival. So, now to assemble all I need and do a practice run. THAT will happen next Wednesday. I have 4 happy volunteer tasters coming to my house for that.
But today I write. It cooled down a bit overnight and my head doesn't feel so furry. I have poetry group on Tuesday and need to figure out what to take along for critique.
I heard in the news about a shooting in Norway at a youth camp, and the nearly simultaneous bombing of a big building in Oslo. Nearly 100 people dead. Why Norway? I think of Norway as a peaceful place, with laid back people. And Norway is not exactly on the world radar for terrorism. What gives there? I guess there are crazy people everywhere, nut jobs who think nothing of human life. Makes me sad.
So, this blog is a bit of a mish-mash. Figures, given the state of my head since yesterday. Heat. Killer of writing and clarity. Be gone! Makes one long for a good snowstorm.
Well, last night was a no-sleep kind of night. The temps had been close to 100 all day, no relief. The wind blew in from the west. The air got very very still after dark. I slept downstairs in my chaise chair, my hubby braved the upstairs under a ceiling fan. Hot. Just plain hot. We'd gone to a movie in the late afternoon and then to a restaurant for supper, all AC'd and cool enough. Back at home, we watched the ballgame (Sox won) and then tried to sleep. I was so distracted yesterday by the heat that I could not DO anything I wanted/needed to do. No writing (except the blog) and no meaningful domestics. UGH.
This morning is overcast and the weather widget says there is rain all around us. We need it. We WANT it, a nice gully-washer please. I need my head washed too, some kind of flood to clear it and make me feel creative again. I am certainly happy my workshop got canceled or I'd be getting ready to teach and feeling inadequate to do so.
I'm also getting physically and mentally ready to cook my Lobster Curry Mac 'n' Cheese with crispy crab topping at the upcoming lobster festival here in town. My recipe is one of five chosen and I am the only "cook" from Rockland, so a little bit of pressure there. I get to make the recipe "live" at the festival. So, now to assemble all I need and do a practice run. THAT will happen next Wednesday. I have 4 happy volunteer tasters coming to my house for that.
But today I write. It cooled down a bit overnight and my head doesn't feel so furry. I have poetry group on Tuesday and need to figure out what to take along for critique.
I heard in the news about a shooting in Norway at a youth camp, and the nearly simultaneous bombing of a big building in Oslo. Nearly 100 people dead. Why Norway? I think of Norway as a peaceful place, with laid back people. And Norway is not exactly on the world radar for terrorism. What gives there? I guess there are crazy people everywhere, nut jobs who think nothing of human life. Makes me sad.
So, this blog is a bit of a mish-mash. Figures, given the state of my head since yesterday. Heat. Killer of writing and clarity. Be gone! Makes one long for a good snowstorm.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Pets and writing; I am probably stepping in it here
It keeps coming up. Chatter about the cats, the doggies, the fish swimming around and around in the bowl on the desk. Sigh. I read a blog this morning wherein the author apologized for not blogging because her kitty was sick. She thanked the person who gave her a recipe for tuna popsicles. Y I K E S !!! I read on another blog that the blogger's "muse" is her iguana. She "discusses" her writing with him, "gets his opinion" on revisions. In my opinion, these folks need therapy. The iguana blogger needs to take her meds. I need to hear about raspberry popsicles not tuna popsicles. Oh my... lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Before someone out there in blog-land decides I am a pet-hater, I will state that, although I am currently pet-free by choice, I have had beloved pets: cats, dogs, birds, fish. All of them are dead. All of those deaths hurt me. All of those pets enriched my life in some way, or the lives of my children. But I can say without reservation that I am not at all interested in pets that consume so much of a person's life that human beings take a back seat. My sister is one of those people for whom the dog is #1, excluding herself from visiting me because I don't want her to bring her terrier to my home. Sigh. When she once called me "Aunt Carol" to the dog, I drew the line. And listening to her refer to herself as the dog's "Mummy" sends me over the edge. How must that make her actual children feel?
But what does this have to do with writing? There are tons of poems out there dealing with pets, immortalizing pets, including pets in some way. I have to say that never in my experience have I seen one of these poems where the inclusion of the pet made the poem better than it would have been with the pet OUT of the poem.
As poetry editor of Pulse Literary Journal (www.heartsoundspressliterary.com) I get submissions of "pet poems" all the time. I never take them, never publish them. It is not that I hate pets, but that the poems are not good. I don't care that the dog nuzzled the author and made the author cry for missing her dead mother. I don't care that the cat seems almost human in the way she touches her paw to the author's cheek to wake her. Really, it is not the stuff of poetry. It well may be the stuff of kiddie lit, but not poetry. (By the way, here is where I have probably stepped in it.)
This is not saying that animals should not be in poems. WC Williams and his white chickens for example: right way to include animals, as symbolic of something else, of a greater truth.And of course there is the long poem by T S Eliot that led to the play, CATS. Well done, pertinent symbol of the workings of humanity. But let's not get all Bambi or Old Yeller here. Enough with the Lassie Come Home approach to writing about animals or including them in our poems. Make that animal or pet work for his spot in your poem.
Having said this, I would love to hear from you who hold the opposite opinion here. I'd love to see a poem or two where having the pet as a featured character is not sappy or schmaltzy. Come on, make me take back my words!
Meanwhile, I am still happily pet-free and writing without having to consult my hamster or my goldfish.
Before someone out there in blog-land decides I am a pet-hater, I will state that, although I am currently pet-free by choice, I have had beloved pets: cats, dogs, birds, fish. All of them are dead. All of those deaths hurt me. All of those pets enriched my life in some way, or the lives of my children. But I can say without reservation that I am not at all interested in pets that consume so much of a person's life that human beings take a back seat. My sister is one of those people for whom the dog is #1, excluding herself from visiting me because I don't want her to bring her terrier to my home. Sigh. When she once called me "Aunt Carol" to the dog, I drew the line. And listening to her refer to herself as the dog's "Mummy" sends me over the edge. How must that make her actual children feel?
But what does this have to do with writing? There are tons of poems out there dealing with pets, immortalizing pets, including pets in some way. I have to say that never in my experience have I seen one of these poems where the inclusion of the pet made the poem better than it would have been with the pet OUT of the poem.
As poetry editor of Pulse Literary Journal (www.heartsoundspressliterary.com) I get submissions of "pet poems" all the time. I never take them, never publish them. It is not that I hate pets, but that the poems are not good. I don't care that the dog nuzzled the author and made the author cry for missing her dead mother. I don't care that the cat seems almost human in the way she touches her paw to the author's cheek to wake her. Really, it is not the stuff of poetry. It well may be the stuff of kiddie lit, but not poetry. (By the way, here is where I have probably stepped in it.)
This is not saying that animals should not be in poems. WC Williams and his white chickens for example: right way to include animals, as symbolic of something else, of a greater truth.And of course there is the long poem by T S Eliot that led to the play, CATS. Well done, pertinent symbol of the workings of humanity. But let's not get all Bambi or Old Yeller here. Enough with the Lassie Come Home approach to writing about animals or including them in our poems. Make that animal or pet work for his spot in your poem.
Having said this, I would love to hear from you who hold the opposite opinion here. I'd love to see a poem or two where having the pet as a featured character is not sappy or schmaltzy. Come on, make me take back my words!
Meanwhile, I am still happily pet-free and writing without having to consult my hamster or my goldfish.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Early bird catches worms? Aaaargh!
I'll start right out by saying I do not advocate eating worms. I don't advocate getting up early either. Leave both of those things to the birds and my neighbor, Jan. But since summer started I am up early every day. It's that sun, light, chirping outside my window thing I guess. So what to do? BLOG
I admit I enjoy doing the blog early-ish in the day. My head is usually filled with dream-cloth fuzz and I feel a bit like sharing (if I'm up, you have to be up and reading my blog).
Today what is on my mind is Henry Beston and his Outermost House. I just found an actual Society formed for him and his work and for the little dunes cabin where he penned his most famous book. The cabin was "claimed by the sea" in the 1970s so no one can actually "go there" at this point, but the Society touts his adventure there in the late 20s as having begun the Cape Cod National Seashore. (good job, HB!)
I have a personal reason to love HB and his seminal book. I read it in January of 1967 for the first time. I was a college drop-out and living in a 2nd story walk-up flat near the bus station in Burlington Vermont at the time, working for the phone company. I had no social life to speak of and no money AT ALL to be spending on books. I lived very frugally out of need. I had a few bric-a-brac items in my apartment, a little green blown glass cat and a tiny amber jar. (I still have these, keep them to remind me of leaner days). I had a few books left over from college (I left over a dispute with the head of the English Department and her stubborn views of literary analysis).
I remember the day I found the Outermost House as if it were yesterday. I had walked downtown from my flat, window shopping and wanting to go to the stationary shop (McAuliffe's on Church Street) to buy some writing paper. They had the BEST onion skin paper. What was especially nice and very intriguing about McAuliffe's was their upstairs book area. I loved going up there and browsing. I felt at home, safe, perfect. On this particular day, it was very bright and cold outside, a nice soft snow having fallen the night before. I remember stamping my boots up the wooden stairs, stuffing my gloves into my coat pocket as I went up to the book area. I remember taking off my coat and laying it over the banister at the top. Sunlight was burrowing its way in between the rows of books from an upper window. I was alone and I was happy. Books. So many books. I made my way along the shelves, running my fingers over the spines. Now there is a saying "you can't judge a book by its cover." We all know this is true, but we all also know you can PICK a book by its cover. That is exactly what happened the day I "met" Henry Beston in McAuliffe's. I noticed a slim yellow spine sticking out just a bit from the neighboring spines. Just a tiny bit. I pulled it out rather than smoothing it into place as I often did unevenly shelved books. I was immediately intrigued by the bright simplicity of the cover: a hand-drawn dunes shack window looking out on a beach. I was drawn to the title too. What in the name of all that is holy is an "outermost" house. WHERE is one? I sat right down on the floor of McAuliffe's and began reading. One hour later, NO KIDDING, I was downstairs with book in hand, digging in my coat for change. $1.45 was the cost of that first TOMH copy. I forgot entirely about buying the writing paper. I had to get home and finish the book. I still have my original copy, my $1.45 copy. Over the decades since then, that book has gone everywhere with me. I have moved 22 times since then. I never considered leaving that book behind. I have bought countless other copies of TOMH, given away to friends and colleagues or to students or family members. I try to find copies with the original cover, though I have purchased copies with a modern cover. (I don't much care for those copies; they seem fake to me). The most I have paid for a copy (modern cover) is $12.95 + tax.
The point here is that I want to share this wonderful, inspiring book with other writers and with readers. So I keep buying copies and giving them away. I was heartened to notice a copy of the book on the bed in my spare bedroom this summer when my 18 yr old grandson was here for an extended visit, one of the copies I'd gotten recently with the good cover. I asked him if he was reading it. I asked if he'd like his own copy. He said yes. That copy went back to college with him. Success! Another generation of HB readers!
So what is it about the book that is so wonderful, that made me know I could do this writing thing? It's the language, the attention to detail, the magical connection between HB and the sea, sky, landscape. It's the way HB connects everything in such a natural way. I am a poet of place because he made place sacred.
Now you go get a copy for yourself and one to give away. (you will NOT want to give yours away)
I admit I enjoy doing the blog early-ish in the day. My head is usually filled with dream-cloth fuzz and I feel a bit like sharing (if I'm up, you have to be up and reading my blog).
Today what is on my mind is Henry Beston and his Outermost House. I just found an actual Society formed for him and his work and for the little dunes cabin where he penned his most famous book. The cabin was "claimed by the sea" in the 1970s so no one can actually "go there" at this point, but the Society touts his adventure there in the late 20s as having begun the Cape Cod National Seashore. (good job, HB!)
I have a personal reason to love HB and his seminal book. I read it in January of 1967 for the first time. I was a college drop-out and living in a 2nd story walk-up flat near the bus station in Burlington Vermont at the time, working for the phone company. I had no social life to speak of and no money AT ALL to be spending on books. I lived very frugally out of need. I had a few bric-a-brac items in my apartment, a little green blown glass cat and a tiny amber jar. (I still have these, keep them to remind me of leaner days). I had a few books left over from college (I left over a dispute with the head of the English Department and her stubborn views of literary analysis).
I remember the day I found the Outermost House as if it were yesterday. I had walked downtown from my flat, window shopping and wanting to go to the stationary shop (McAuliffe's on Church Street) to buy some writing paper. They had the BEST onion skin paper. What was especially nice and very intriguing about McAuliffe's was their upstairs book area. I loved going up there and browsing. I felt at home, safe, perfect. On this particular day, it was very bright and cold outside, a nice soft snow having fallen the night before. I remember stamping my boots up the wooden stairs, stuffing my gloves into my coat pocket as I went up to the book area. I remember taking off my coat and laying it over the banister at the top. Sunlight was burrowing its way in between the rows of books from an upper window. I was alone and I was happy. Books. So many books. I made my way along the shelves, running my fingers over the spines. Now there is a saying "you can't judge a book by its cover." We all know this is true, but we all also know you can PICK a book by its cover. That is exactly what happened the day I "met" Henry Beston in McAuliffe's. I noticed a slim yellow spine sticking out just a bit from the neighboring spines. Just a tiny bit. I pulled it out rather than smoothing it into place as I often did unevenly shelved books. I was immediately intrigued by the bright simplicity of the cover: a hand-drawn dunes shack window looking out on a beach. I was drawn to the title too. What in the name of all that is holy is an "outermost" house. WHERE is one? I sat right down on the floor of McAuliffe's and began reading. One hour later, NO KIDDING, I was downstairs with book in hand, digging in my coat for change. $1.45 was the cost of that first TOMH copy. I forgot entirely about buying the writing paper. I had to get home and finish the book. I still have my original copy, my $1.45 copy. Over the decades since then, that book has gone everywhere with me. I have moved 22 times since then. I never considered leaving that book behind. I have bought countless other copies of TOMH, given away to friends and colleagues or to students or family members. I try to find copies with the original cover, though I have purchased copies with a modern cover. (I don't much care for those copies; they seem fake to me). The most I have paid for a copy (modern cover) is $12.95 + tax.
The point here is that I want to share this wonderful, inspiring book with other writers and with readers. So I keep buying copies and giving them away. I was heartened to notice a copy of the book on the bed in my spare bedroom this summer when my 18 yr old grandson was here for an extended visit, one of the copies I'd gotten recently with the good cover. I asked him if he was reading it. I asked if he'd like his own copy. He said yes. That copy went back to college with him. Success! Another generation of HB readers!
So what is it about the book that is so wonderful, that made me know I could do this writing thing? It's the language, the attention to detail, the magical connection between HB and the sea, sky, landscape. It's the way HB connects everything in such a natural way. I am a poet of place because he made place sacred.
Now you go get a copy for yourself and one to give away. (you will NOT want to give yours away)
Sunday, July 17, 2011
ahhhhhhh, breathing day
Well, today is Sunday and I have nowhere I am SUPPOSED to be today. I will take a few long deep breaths and enjoy the final day of my daughter's visit. Off to church together and then out to breakfast then maybe a drive to Lucia Beach or to Lincolnville Beach.
I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who had fingers crossed for me in the Maine Literary Awards. Even though I did not win, I feel like a winning poet. Really, anytime you can go to a library or bookstore and see your own book on the shelves, it is a win. And anytime you are invited to read your poems and get to chat with people who want to HEAR your poems, it is a win. Yesterday afternoon I read at the Personal Book Shop along with two poet friends, Gayle Portnow and Wendy Rapaport. The owner of the shop provided tea (iced) and lovely goodies with fruit and chocolate and we sat in comfy chairs. The people who came were very good about asking questions and making comments and were so ENGAGED in hearing our poems. It was great.
So now a bit of a breather. But only a BIT... coming up are some very interesting events for me. I am in the final stages of preparing for a weekend workshop at Ripples Inn in Rockland which takes place NEXT weekend. We have a meet and greet on Friday evening and the workshop on Saturday, with a wrap-up on Sunday morning. Sandi, the owner of the B & B is a gem, a very enthusiastic person who came up with the idea that her guests might enjoy having something planned for them other than just soaking up the scenery (not that doing that is a bad thing of course). She came up with Express Yourself, a series of artsy-crafsty weekends. I am weekend #1. What I have planned for her guests (and others who signed up for the workshop) is a look at how one can use the natural or contrived (urban) landscape as material for writing. In other words, WRITE WHERE YOU ARE. I am looking forward to this event very much.
Before the writing weekend, there is one other event on my calendar. I am driving to Portland on Tuesday (19th) and meeting 2 other Native American writer-friends for lunch and an interview with Prof. Siobhan Senier of the University of NH. Siobhan is interviewing the three of us for a project she is doing on NA women and writing. I look forward to seeing these three amazing women and having a nice lunch at DeMillo's (SP?) on the wharf. It will be a refreshing time and invigorating. What will be especially good for me is that our chatter will have a native flavor and focus. I find it hard sometimes that non-native writers do not "get" the cultural tone, references, etc. in my writing. I often have to explain myself in terms of some references and certainly in the way my mind works. (really, can anyone understand my mind workings? maybe not... LOL)
I know in advance, however, that Cheryl and Alice do "get it" and that feels so good. Siobhan gets us too and understands our culture. What is even better than just being three native women is that we are all Wabanki women (Alice is Miq'mac and Cheryl and I are both Abenaki) and our cultural base is one in common tribally. I can hardly wait. I've known these woman a long time, though I have not met Alice in person. I consider Cher a sister. One of these blog days I will talk a bit more about that.
So, time to get out of my jammies and get my daughter moving (ahh, that feels a bit like the old days getting her up for school! ha ha). It's a beautiful day here in Rockland and most of the Blues Fest folks are still abed after a lively pub crawl last night. So if we want a quiet breakfast (the Brass Compass, where else?) we need to get downtown.
More poetry tomorrow, I promise. Again, thanks to all of you who were rooting for me in the Maine Literary Awards. I am honored that you rooted!
I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who had fingers crossed for me in the Maine Literary Awards. Even though I did not win, I feel like a winning poet. Really, anytime you can go to a library or bookstore and see your own book on the shelves, it is a win. And anytime you are invited to read your poems and get to chat with people who want to HEAR your poems, it is a win. Yesterday afternoon I read at the Personal Book Shop along with two poet friends, Gayle Portnow and Wendy Rapaport. The owner of the shop provided tea (iced) and lovely goodies with fruit and chocolate and we sat in comfy chairs. The people who came were very good about asking questions and making comments and were so ENGAGED in hearing our poems. It was great.
So now a bit of a breather. But only a BIT... coming up are some very interesting events for me. I am in the final stages of preparing for a weekend workshop at Ripples Inn in Rockland which takes place NEXT weekend. We have a meet and greet on Friday evening and the workshop on Saturday, with a wrap-up on Sunday morning. Sandi, the owner of the B & B is a gem, a very enthusiastic person who came up with the idea that her guests might enjoy having something planned for them other than just soaking up the scenery (not that doing that is a bad thing of course). She came up with Express Yourself, a series of artsy-crafsty weekends. I am weekend #1. What I have planned for her guests (and others who signed up for the workshop) is a look at how one can use the natural or contrived (urban) landscape as material for writing. In other words, WRITE WHERE YOU ARE. I am looking forward to this event very much.
Before the writing weekend, there is one other event on my calendar. I am driving to Portland on Tuesday (19th) and meeting 2 other Native American writer-friends for lunch and an interview with Prof. Siobhan Senier of the University of NH. Siobhan is interviewing the three of us for a project she is doing on NA women and writing. I look forward to seeing these three amazing women and having a nice lunch at DeMillo's (SP?) on the wharf. It will be a refreshing time and invigorating. What will be especially good for me is that our chatter will have a native flavor and focus. I find it hard sometimes that non-native writers do not "get" the cultural tone, references, etc. in my writing. I often have to explain myself in terms of some references and certainly in the way my mind works. (really, can anyone understand my mind workings? maybe not... LOL)
I know in advance, however, that Cheryl and Alice do "get it" and that feels so good. Siobhan gets us too and understands our culture. What is even better than just being three native women is that we are all Wabanki women (Alice is Miq'mac and Cheryl and I are both Abenaki) and our cultural base is one in common tribally. I can hardly wait. I've known these woman a long time, though I have not met Alice in person. I consider Cher a sister. One of these blog days I will talk a bit more about that.
So, time to get out of my jammies and get my daughter moving (ahh, that feels a bit like the old days getting her up for school! ha ha). It's a beautiful day here in Rockland and most of the Blues Fest folks are still abed after a lively pub crawl last night. So if we want a quiet breakfast (the Brass Compass, where else?) we need to get downtown.
More poetry tomorrow, I promise. Again, thanks to all of you who were rooting for me in the Maine Literary Awards. I am honored that you rooted!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Pick me! Pick me! How I choose poems
I admit it: I am tired. I mean I am REALLY tired. This is a very busy time in my writing life, with a new web page just up (www.carolbachofner.com) and several reading/speaking/book signing events and an upcoming weekend workshop to teach. But I have to say this is a very good kind of tired. It is wonderful when there is so much to do in one's writing life! So today is event #3 in 3 days. I am reading and signing books with my two good friends, Gayle Portnow and Wendy Rapaport. The Personal Book Shop & Gallery in Thomaston, Maine (one town away) is having a tea and poetry event for us at 1 PM. This is a great thing, sounds relaxing and sweet. I look forward to this particularly as it is local (last two events were in Portland and S. Portland, thus a night in a hotel...thanks Marriott at Sable Oaks for a great stay!).
But every event requires preparation. Oh I could "wing it" and just pick the poems as I do the reading. NOT a good idea. I care more for my listeners than that. So this morning, after a walk and breakfast and a shower, I will sit with my books and new poems and pick out what will get read this afternoon. I know right away that Hiding Your Money will be one of the poems along with There's Something Not Quite Right at Crayola and Red, A Modern Tale. These poems are light-hearted and get lots of chuckles when I read them. I will also read Allow the Year, which opens my new book and which is scheduled for publication in Bangor Metro. I will also read a poem each from Gayle's and Wendy's books. We did this read eachother's poems thing at the book launch earlier this summer and find we love the extra zip it gives to readings. But there is plenty of time to read and I need a few more poems.
Pick me! Pick me! the poems beg. All of them want to be heard. So, how do I choose?
I use a very UNscientific method: I begin by deciding I will read 2 poems from each of my three books. OK... which ones? I think of what the likely audience will be: kids? no kids? veterans? grammas and grandpas? other writers? family? It is NOT good to read adult-oriented material if you have kids present, not good at all. (I have been to readings where this was the case and it made me nervous, felt kinda creepey actually) So I choose poems that would be okay for a mixed audience, tucking away a couple "mature" poems to read if there are no kids in the room. I also have a couple kid poems: Peas: a sonnet is a good one for that.
My next step is to pick poems that might be appealing on a regional basis. I know I can capture the attention of a Maine audience by reading The Artist Has Laid Down His Brush and is Done, an Andrew Wyeth elegy. I can read water and sky and tree and yard poems most everywhere. So, I guess I just get to the point where I am picking poems I had fun writing, or poems that caused me to grow as a poet. Today I might read some of the psalm poems in my forthcoming collection: Psalms From the Commons, Invocations For Everyday Life (expected publication in early 2012) I will not read winter poems today. I will not read my poem comparing my ex to my hubby. I will not read edgy poems about my mother. I will not read poems that make people cry... oh maybe one. I may read a couple poems I wrote out on the Isles of Shoals, and definitely will read one from there that I wrote for my husband (I try to include this one at every reading now). Polaris is a favorite of mine because of how I FELT when it was finished and how I can feel that exact same thing when I read it.
Dear readers, I just love reading to you. I want to read you into a personal space where the world makes a little more sense, feels a little safer and softer. I want to inspire you and cause you to think. So, I'd better go make eggs and toast and take my walk and get to the picking.
Dear poems, I'm getting to you shortly. Line up nicely and don't push or shove.
But every event requires preparation. Oh I could "wing it" and just pick the poems as I do the reading. NOT a good idea. I care more for my listeners than that. So this morning, after a walk and breakfast and a shower, I will sit with my books and new poems and pick out what will get read this afternoon. I know right away that Hiding Your Money will be one of the poems along with There's Something Not Quite Right at Crayola and Red, A Modern Tale. These poems are light-hearted and get lots of chuckles when I read them. I will also read Allow the Year, which opens my new book and which is scheduled for publication in Bangor Metro. I will also read a poem each from Gayle's and Wendy's books. We did this read eachother's poems thing at the book launch earlier this summer and find we love the extra zip it gives to readings. But there is plenty of time to read and I need a few more poems.
Pick me! Pick me! the poems beg. All of them want to be heard. So, how do I choose?
I use a very UNscientific method: I begin by deciding I will read 2 poems from each of my three books. OK... which ones? I think of what the likely audience will be: kids? no kids? veterans? grammas and grandpas? other writers? family? It is NOT good to read adult-oriented material if you have kids present, not good at all. (I have been to readings where this was the case and it made me nervous, felt kinda creepey actually) So I choose poems that would be okay for a mixed audience, tucking away a couple "mature" poems to read if there are no kids in the room. I also have a couple kid poems: Peas: a sonnet is a good one for that.
My next step is to pick poems that might be appealing on a regional basis. I know I can capture the attention of a Maine audience by reading The Artist Has Laid Down His Brush and is Done, an Andrew Wyeth elegy. I can read water and sky and tree and yard poems most everywhere. So, I guess I just get to the point where I am picking poems I had fun writing, or poems that caused me to grow as a poet. Today I might read some of the psalm poems in my forthcoming collection: Psalms From the Commons, Invocations For Everyday Life (expected publication in early 2012) I will not read winter poems today. I will not read my poem comparing my ex to my hubby. I will not read edgy poems about my mother. I will not read poems that make people cry... oh maybe one. I may read a couple poems I wrote out on the Isles of Shoals, and definitely will read one from there that I wrote for my husband (I try to include this one at every reading now). Polaris is a favorite of mine because of how I FELT when it was finished and how I can feel that exact same thing when I read it.
Dear readers, I just love reading to you. I want to read you into a personal space where the world makes a little more sense, feels a little safer and softer. I want to inspire you and cause you to think. So, I'd better go make eggs and toast and take my walk and get to the picking.
Dear poems, I'm getting to you shortly. Line up nicely and don't push or shove.
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Sound of a Wild Poet Writing
7/14/11 1130 PM
Back from the 2011 Maine Literary Awards event and now in the Marriott (S Portland) relaxing until tomorrow's author event at Borders. I am tired, but happy. No, I did not win in the category wherein I was named a finalist. I tell myself I came in second, but maybe it was Martin and I was third. No matter. We are all winners when there are events like this one and organizations like Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.
Were there surprises or disappointments tonight? Yes. I really wanted Dawn Potter (Harry's American sister? LOL) to win for her poetry book, How the Crimes Happened. I wanted Elizabeth Tova Bailey to win for her memoir, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. I love these two books and admire the authors. Selfishly I wanted to meet Elizabeth, who actually did not attend (sniff sniff).
But the feeling in the room was wonderful, the words of Robert Chute wonderfully inspiring. What did I take away from the event? Here it is: write. No matter what else there is to do, just write.
I am often asked what it is like to find something that seems to work, in other words, if I am "in the zone" or in some altered state of cognition or emotion. I can only describe the feeling as slightly wild. I get a little buzz in my head, sometimes I feel a little heat at my core. It is never, I repeat: it is NEVER a place of calm, never serene. I get the same feeling when I am reading something wonderful, something amazing. So, when the wild, that crazy-tingle feeling comes over me as I write, it is a clue for me that I must be doing something right. I might be in the magic space where I am not me anymore, the place where the words take over, where the poem tells ME what it wants.
The funny thing about that is that the poem often wants something other than what was on MY mind when I started writing it. I LOVE when that happens! I love the feeling of having to jump out of the way or duck when something surprising shows itself.
So what IS the sound of a wild poet writing? It's something like YEE-HA!
Back from the 2011 Maine Literary Awards event and now in the Marriott (S Portland) relaxing until tomorrow's author event at Borders. I am tired, but happy. No, I did not win in the category wherein I was named a finalist. I tell myself I came in second, but maybe it was Martin and I was third. No matter. We are all winners when there are events like this one and organizations like Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.
Were there surprises or disappointments tonight? Yes. I really wanted Dawn Potter (Harry's American sister? LOL) to win for her poetry book, How the Crimes Happened. I wanted Elizabeth Tova Bailey to win for her memoir, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. I love these two books and admire the authors. Selfishly I wanted to meet Elizabeth, who actually did not attend (sniff sniff).
But the feeling in the room was wonderful, the words of Robert Chute wonderfully inspiring. What did I take away from the event? Here it is: write. No matter what else there is to do, just write.
I am often asked what it is like to find something that seems to work, in other words, if I am "in the zone" or in some altered state of cognition or emotion. I can only describe the feeling as slightly wild. I get a little buzz in my head, sometimes I feel a little heat at my core. It is never, I repeat: it is NEVER a place of calm, never serene. I get the same feeling when I am reading something wonderful, something amazing. So, when the wild, that crazy-tingle feeling comes over me as I write, it is a clue for me that I must be doing something right. I might be in the magic space where I am not me anymore, the place where the words take over, where the poem tells ME what it wants.
The funny thing about that is that the poem often wants something other than what was on MY mind when I started writing it. I LOVE when that happens! I love the feeling of having to jump out of the way or duck when something surprising shows itself.
So what IS the sound of a wild poet writing? It's something like YEE-HA!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Books Have Changed Me
I read. No, I mean I REALLY read. I learned to read at age three by sitting on my father's lap while he read "the funny papers" to me. Prince Valiant and Archie were my favorites (I now get Ballard Street daily via computer). But as satisfying as it was to read the funnies on my own, it was actual books that made a difference for me. I got my own library card when I was in grammar school and was able to walk to the library on my own to check out books by the time I was in 4th grade. I took out the maximum number of books each time (3) and never paid a fine for an overdue book except for once when I kept Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl a week longer at 10 cents a day fine because I couldn't bear to part with it (I just got a copy recently as my copy had been loaned out never to return. (I'm not mad at that person, I understand really I do).
Once I had a library card, I was on my way to a life of reading (and then writing) that has held me up in times of great travail and underscored the times of great happiness. Reading is one very large brick in the foundation of who I am. I have hundreds of books and I generally do not read them only once (so they stay). I admit to judging people a little when I go to a house and see or don't see books. (sorry, it just crosses my mind that they are either happy readers or somehow disadvantaged in that area... I don't stop LIKING a person for lack of books, just feel sorry for them a little).
Now I have an e-reader. I have devised a way of combining technology with low-tech that works for me. Most fiction is purchased on my Kindle for Mac (iPad). It simply saves shelf space and is portable in ways the actual books are not. I travel a fair amount and lugging a ton of books around can be daunting to say the least. But my poetry books have to live in my house with me. I have some poetry on my iPad (usually duplicates or really ancient works) so I am never far from my poetry. But generally fiction = iPad and poetry = bookshelves. Nonfiction can go either way.
Books have changed me from a shy girl to a confident woman. Left on my own, I might never have left Maine. I had a comfortable life here when I was growing up, enjoyed my family and my surroundings, had some excellent close friends. But reading made me want to see more, do more. I wanted to be as smart as the people I found in faraway places, I wanted to have adventures and see the world outside of my small Leave-It-To-Beaver life.
When I was in high school I read foreign books, including Camus' L'Etranger (The Stranger) IN FRENCH, along with loads of historical fiction about the British monarchy. In earlier years I read Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl and Heidi and Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. All of these books made me want to travel beyond my hometown and my state.
I should say here that not only did I read, but I was read to ALOUD by wonderful teachers from 3rd grade through high school. My fondest memories are of Mrs. Emery, Mr. Libby, Mr. Harrison, and Mrs. Parsons reading to our class. There was another teacher whose name I cannot quite recall but whose beautiful cashmere skirt and sweater sets I will never forget along with her 4" heels and her beautiful diamond ring. Her voice was like liquid chocolate. I listened raptly and got lost in the world of The Raven by Poe as she was reading it to us, perched on the edge of her desk. Mr. Libby was my first man teacher and he read Little Britches (Ralph Moody) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to us. He had a low, rumbling voice and a chuckle that was infectious when he'd get to something funny. By the way, it never occurred to me that there was "boy literature" and "girl literature," just wonderful stories. Mrs Parsons read to us from a serialized story by Daphne Du Maurier, The Glass Blowers. We'd get it as the story came out week by week in either Red Book or Ladies Home Journal until the whole thing was finished. We looked forward to each installment. She also read aloud from Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice) and read poetry to us. Mr Harrison read to us from our country's documents and from people like Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln. Mrs. Emery read to us from Little Women and House of the Seven Gables.
See how darned lucky I was? What a childhood/girlhood I had in books. Of course I was reading on my own too, outside of school. In grammar school I read the Judy Bolton mysteries. I was never a Nancy Drew girl for some reason, maybe because everyone else was reading her. I recently bid on and won a 10 book set of Judy Boltons and am re-reading them. They are as good as I remember.
By the time I had children of my own, reading had become a habit. I don't ever remember thinking that books were a waste of time or money. My first husband was VERY critical of my having books in the house, thought they were wasteful purchases. Why not just get books from the library? We fought about this. We fought bitterly about this. When we met in college, he bragged about his "reading skills," saying he only read the first line of Moby Dick ("Call me Ishmael") and yet understood the whole novel. Bah! I thought that was awfully arrogant (should have been a clue!). I later discovered he faked a lot of things and bragged about doing so. Aaaargh!
But not for me. I savored every page, every dialogue, every line of every poem. It was like breath for me. In 1968, I was living in Burlington, Vermont (college interuptus) and found the book that would propel me into a lifetime of writing poetry. McAuliffe's on Church Street (now gone, sadly) was a magical place of fine paper and writing instruments and books (upstairs). I was browsing by my usual method of running my eyes and my fingers over the spines of books. A little yellow binding caught my eye and there it was: The Outermost House by Henry Beston. The cover was pretty, a drawing of a dunes cabin, a window out onto a beach. I forked over the $1.45 and headed home to my apartment to read. OH MY! As I read though the whole night, I became intrigued with the way Beston wove a true story with poetical language and Latin words and details of his life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod. He had built his dune cabin himself (the fo'castle) and lived an entire year there through every kind of weather, writing and observing nature and finding out about his own nature as a human being. I cannot say for sure how many copies of this book I have bought and given away over the years. Dozens. I scour used bookstores for them. I have paid as much as $10 for a copy. Mostly they are in the $3 range. No matter. And I have my original copy which has gone everywhere with me since 1968. I describe this book as my all-time favorite. No kidding, it changed me from a wanna-be writer into a writer. I wanted to SAY things and say them well and beautifully. I wanted my words to matter to other people. I noticed how he used multiple approaches to his storytelling, and how his words stirred my heart — sappy sentiment, but true. It was devastating to me to find out that his shack washed away in a big storm decades ago. I wanted to go there, sit on the dunes nearby, and write something wonderful. I wanted to breathe in the same air he breathed, to be there at night and see the swinging flash of the Naussett Light. Sigh. But part of the beauty of writing and reading is that one can do those things anyway, by reading and re-reading. By being open to allow the words to enter.
Happily my reading habit has infused my family as well. My eldest daughter read Beowulf aloud to her son starting at age 6 or so. He later read Grendel on his own. My granddaughter Alyssa has a book in hand most of the time. (her dad once "laid down the law" that there was to be no "nose in a book at the dinner table" and she rebelled. I'm with her on this one of course). My grandson Justin was read to by me at age two, the same book over and over (God Made the Puppies) until he could recite it with sound effects as I read it to him. I recently found a copy of that book and sent it to him (he is 21) and he was THRILLED, noticing a missing page and reciting it to me over the phone! My grandson Christopher loved when I'd read Muskrat Will Be Swimming as he'd take his morning bath before going off to kindergarten. He has his own library card here which he uses when he visits us from college. My daughter Erin and her husband read to their two kids and there were always stacks of library books by the comfy chair for them to enjoy. Many trips to the library for those kids. We send books to people in our family when we find things that might be of interest. We just sent daughter Gina two of Kate Braestrup's books for example, and I am sending grandson Alex a book on clouds. My legacy: a life of books. I couldn't be happier than to leave this to my family.
So, get yourself a copy of the book you loved the most when you were younger. Find copies of your kids' old favs, get them, send them. Discover what huge adventures you can still have by reading and reading and reading. Today I will return to The Outermost House. It's a great place to be.
Once I had a library card, I was on my way to a life of reading (and then writing) that has held me up in times of great travail and underscored the times of great happiness. Reading is one very large brick in the foundation of who I am. I have hundreds of books and I generally do not read them only once (so they stay). I admit to judging people a little when I go to a house and see or don't see books. (sorry, it just crosses my mind that they are either happy readers or somehow disadvantaged in that area... I don't stop LIKING a person for lack of books, just feel sorry for them a little).
Now I have an e-reader. I have devised a way of combining technology with low-tech that works for me. Most fiction is purchased on my Kindle for Mac (iPad). It simply saves shelf space and is portable in ways the actual books are not. I travel a fair amount and lugging a ton of books around can be daunting to say the least. But my poetry books have to live in my house with me. I have some poetry on my iPad (usually duplicates or really ancient works) so I am never far from my poetry. But generally fiction = iPad and poetry = bookshelves. Nonfiction can go either way.
Books have changed me from a shy girl to a confident woman. Left on my own, I might never have left Maine. I had a comfortable life here when I was growing up, enjoyed my family and my surroundings, had some excellent close friends. But reading made me want to see more, do more. I wanted to be as smart as the people I found in faraway places, I wanted to have adventures and see the world outside of my small Leave-It-To-Beaver life.
When I was in high school I read foreign books, including Camus' L'Etranger (The Stranger) IN FRENCH, along with loads of historical fiction about the British monarchy. In earlier years I read Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl and Heidi and Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. All of these books made me want to travel beyond my hometown and my state.
I should say here that not only did I read, but I was read to ALOUD by wonderful teachers from 3rd grade through high school. My fondest memories are of Mrs. Emery, Mr. Libby, Mr. Harrison, and Mrs. Parsons reading to our class. There was another teacher whose name I cannot quite recall but whose beautiful cashmere skirt and sweater sets I will never forget along with her 4" heels and her beautiful diamond ring. Her voice was like liquid chocolate. I listened raptly and got lost in the world of The Raven by Poe as she was reading it to us, perched on the edge of her desk. Mr. Libby was my first man teacher and he read Little Britches (Ralph Moody) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to us. He had a low, rumbling voice and a chuckle that was infectious when he'd get to something funny. By the way, it never occurred to me that there was "boy literature" and "girl literature," just wonderful stories. Mrs Parsons read to us from a serialized story by Daphne Du Maurier, The Glass Blowers. We'd get it as the story came out week by week in either Red Book or Ladies Home Journal until the whole thing was finished. We looked forward to each installment. She also read aloud from Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice) and read poetry to us. Mr Harrison read to us from our country's documents and from people like Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln. Mrs. Emery read to us from Little Women and House of the Seven Gables.
See how darned lucky I was? What a childhood/girlhood I had in books. Of course I was reading on my own too, outside of school. In grammar school I read the Judy Bolton mysteries. I was never a Nancy Drew girl for some reason, maybe because everyone else was reading her. I recently bid on and won a 10 book set of Judy Boltons and am re-reading them. They are as good as I remember.
By the time I had children of my own, reading had become a habit. I don't ever remember thinking that books were a waste of time or money. My first husband was VERY critical of my having books in the house, thought they were wasteful purchases. Why not just get books from the library? We fought about this. We fought bitterly about this. When we met in college, he bragged about his "reading skills," saying he only read the first line of Moby Dick ("Call me Ishmael") and yet understood the whole novel. Bah! I thought that was awfully arrogant (should have been a clue!). I later discovered he faked a lot of things and bragged about doing so. Aaaargh!
But not for me. I savored every page, every dialogue, every line of every poem. It was like breath for me. In 1968, I was living in Burlington, Vermont (college interuptus) and found the book that would propel me into a lifetime of writing poetry. McAuliffe's on Church Street (now gone, sadly) was a magical place of fine paper and writing instruments and books (upstairs). I was browsing by my usual method of running my eyes and my fingers over the spines of books. A little yellow binding caught my eye and there it was: The Outermost House by Henry Beston. The cover was pretty, a drawing of a dunes cabin, a window out onto a beach. I forked over the $1.45 and headed home to my apartment to read. OH MY! As I read though the whole night, I became intrigued with the way Beston wove a true story with poetical language and Latin words and details of his life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod. He had built his dune cabin himself (the fo'castle) and lived an entire year there through every kind of weather, writing and observing nature and finding out about his own nature as a human being. I cannot say for sure how many copies of this book I have bought and given away over the years. Dozens. I scour used bookstores for them. I have paid as much as $10 for a copy. Mostly they are in the $3 range. No matter. And I have my original copy which has gone everywhere with me since 1968. I describe this book as my all-time favorite. No kidding, it changed me from a wanna-be writer into a writer. I wanted to SAY things and say them well and beautifully. I wanted my words to matter to other people. I noticed how he used multiple approaches to his storytelling, and how his words stirred my heart — sappy sentiment, but true. It was devastating to me to find out that his shack washed away in a big storm decades ago. I wanted to go there, sit on the dunes nearby, and write something wonderful. I wanted to breathe in the same air he breathed, to be there at night and see the swinging flash of the Naussett Light. Sigh. But part of the beauty of writing and reading is that one can do those things anyway, by reading and re-reading. By being open to allow the words to enter.
Happily my reading habit has infused my family as well. My eldest daughter read Beowulf aloud to her son starting at age 6 or so. He later read Grendel on his own. My granddaughter Alyssa has a book in hand most of the time. (her dad once "laid down the law" that there was to be no "nose in a book at the dinner table" and she rebelled. I'm with her on this one of course). My grandson Justin was read to by me at age two, the same book over and over (God Made the Puppies) until he could recite it with sound effects as I read it to him. I recently found a copy of that book and sent it to him (he is 21) and he was THRILLED, noticing a missing page and reciting it to me over the phone! My grandson Christopher loved when I'd read Muskrat Will Be Swimming as he'd take his morning bath before going off to kindergarten. He has his own library card here which he uses when he visits us from college. My daughter Erin and her husband read to their two kids and there were always stacks of library books by the comfy chair for them to enjoy. Many trips to the library for those kids. We send books to people in our family when we find things that might be of interest. We just sent daughter Gina two of Kate Braestrup's books for example, and I am sending grandson Alex a book on clouds. My legacy: a life of books. I couldn't be happier than to leave this to my family.
So, get yourself a copy of the book you loved the most when you were younger. Find copies of your kids' old favs, get them, send them. Discover what huge adventures you can still have by reading and reading and reading. Today I will return to The Outermost House. It's a great place to be.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Baseball and Poetry
Well, let me just say that it is glorious to be living in New England where one can watch baseball nearly every day or night all summer long. Yesterday afternoon my husband said something like "why don't we watch a movie tonight?" and I gave him my one word answer: BASEBALL. Really, honey? A movie when we can watch a hockey game fight break out in Fenway? Good sport that he is, we watched the game. Hubby retired in the 5th inning, sent himself to the showers. I on the other hand stuck it out until the after-game wrap was over. It's like this for me since moving back to Maine in 2006. I love the repartee between Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy, the tarp rolled out on the field during rain delays, the crack of the bat, seeing the Yankees lose in a spectacular fashion, seeing Jacoby Ellsbury's cuteness, watching Papelbon give the batter "the face" when he's set to pitch, the opposing fans fleeing the stands to avoid humiliation, our fans staying until whatever o'clock even if we're not winning, and Big Papi jacking one over the Monster. It just doesn't get any better than this (except for 2 WS wins in my lifetime!)
So how does baseball (btw, the actual word baseball for me always means RED SOX baseball) connect to poetry? You have to ask? It is nuance, tension, some interesting symbols and images, a few colorful words in various meters, and an overall setting where, due to long delays and hitless innings, one can take out a favorite book of poems and READ, or one can whip out a notebook and WRITE. Now now, lest you start thinking I am mocking baseball... I love the game. I would rather watch baseball than anything else on TV. Last night's game was a really exciting one and fulfilled its basic promise to fans everywhere: a fantastic single inning (8 runs in the first) followed by some rain (we did not roll out the tarps), a minor but scary pitcher injury (Beckett ... minor hyper-extension of left knee), and a full-on bench-clearing, bullpen-clearing brawl (8th inning), and a win over the O's 10-3. I did read poetry during the game (innings 5-8) and I did take notes for a new poem (inning 7... hey! its called the 7th inning stretch for crying out loud!).
Let's talk about "the fight." Big Papi gets thrown AT by pitcher Gregg (big snarl, spit-filled sneer to him). Not once but twice did the lug try to take Ortiz out at the gut, but then to add insult to injury he smart-mouthed him when he hit a fly ball that was obviously an out, telling him to run to first insinuating Papi was too lazy to do so... I take umbrage with that but a whole other story....
WELL, as soon as Gregg flings the words at BP, the ump throws the "yer outa da game" signal at Gregg, who doesn't pay attention to it at all, and instead throws a punch at BP who has headed to the mound for a "nice little chat" on etiquette (oh yeah sure! LOL). BP returns the punch and it's on! Both benches, both bullpens empty onto the infield and start the melée in fine fashion. It was a lot like watching hockey (another fav!). Of course we don't quite notice that the guy on 3rd who is waiting to be hit in for a score, also joins in the fray by leaving 3rd. Ha! New idea here.... he "abandoned" 3rd base and is now considered out. We find out about this in the ensuing minutes when the umps get together to decide who is ejected and when the game might resume. Oh dear. Ejected are the pitcher, Gregg (jerk) and BP who were duking it out. Also ejected are Johnson, a relief pitcher from the Orioles, and Saltalamacchia from our bullpen. Salty later said he has no idea why he was picked to eject as "I ran out of the bullpen, ran back to the bullpen, and then I got bounced." Guess the umps needed a couple of sacrificial ousters here. Whatever. The fact of the base runner's being out is announced and we head to the 9th, me on my feet by now waiting for the next fight or some kind of retribution from our guys. Calmly, we get the inning done and everyone goes home. Whew! So I go to bed with a satisfied grin on my face and wake up the hubby to share. He utters an "Oh, wow" and rolls over.
Isn't this just pure poetry? We play these guys again today... stay tuned.
So how does baseball (btw, the actual word baseball for me always means RED SOX baseball) connect to poetry? You have to ask? It is nuance, tension, some interesting symbols and images, a few colorful words in various meters, and an overall setting where, due to long delays and hitless innings, one can take out a favorite book of poems and READ, or one can whip out a notebook and WRITE. Now now, lest you start thinking I am mocking baseball... I love the game. I would rather watch baseball than anything else on TV. Last night's game was a really exciting one and fulfilled its basic promise to fans everywhere: a fantastic single inning (8 runs in the first) followed by some rain (we did not roll out the tarps), a minor but scary pitcher injury (Beckett ... minor hyper-extension of left knee), and a full-on bench-clearing, bullpen-clearing brawl (8th inning), and a win over the O's 10-3. I did read poetry during the game (innings 5-8) and I did take notes for a new poem (inning 7... hey! its called the 7th inning stretch for crying out loud!).
Let's talk about "the fight." Big Papi gets thrown AT by pitcher Gregg (big snarl, spit-filled sneer to him). Not once but twice did the lug try to take Ortiz out at the gut, but then to add insult to injury he smart-mouthed him when he hit a fly ball that was obviously an out, telling him to run to first insinuating Papi was too lazy to do so... I take umbrage with that but a whole other story....
WELL, as soon as Gregg flings the words at BP, the ump throws the "yer outa da game" signal at Gregg, who doesn't pay attention to it at all, and instead throws a punch at BP who has headed to the mound for a "nice little chat" on etiquette (oh yeah sure! LOL). BP returns the punch and it's on! Both benches, both bullpens empty onto the infield and start the melée in fine fashion. It was a lot like watching hockey (another fav!). Of course we don't quite notice that the guy on 3rd who is waiting to be hit in for a score, also joins in the fray by leaving 3rd. Ha! New idea here.... he "abandoned" 3rd base and is now considered out. We find out about this in the ensuing minutes when the umps get together to decide who is ejected and when the game might resume. Oh dear. Ejected are the pitcher, Gregg (jerk) and BP who were duking it out. Also ejected are Johnson, a relief pitcher from the Orioles, and Saltalamacchia from our bullpen. Salty later said he has no idea why he was picked to eject as "I ran out of the bullpen, ran back to the bullpen, and then I got bounced." Guess the umps needed a couple of sacrificial ousters here. Whatever. The fact of the base runner's being out is announced and we head to the 9th, me on my feet by now waiting for the next fight or some kind of retribution from our guys. Calmly, we get the inning done and everyone goes home. Whew! So I go to bed with a satisfied grin on my face and wake up the hubby to share. He utters an "Oh, wow" and rolls over.
Isn't this just pure poetry? We play these guys again today... stay tuned.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Sleep Your Way to New Poems
It's a funny thing about taking naps and dreaming... one can get ideas for poems. I know many poets who find inspiration in their dreams for poems they get up and write later (or at least they get up and make notes for writing poems later). This happens to me occasionally.
I admit I have a really vivid dream life. I've often wondered if this is a gift of gratitude by the "gods of night" for honoring the fine art of sleeping. Ha, ha! I do love a good long nap, that is for sure. I do not really take those little power naps others seem so adept at taking. When I go down for a nap it is for two hours at a minimum. I wake up groggy if the nap is too short. Faced with the comment about "wasting the day" or "how many years of your life have you slept?" I am quick to say that I am working while sleeping. True. The "stuff of my dreams" is poetry. No, I do not dream poems. But what I do dream is material or ideas, narrative impulses, characters, settings. I dream in color, in detail. I REMEMBER my dreams. I incorporate the material from my dreams into poems. How lucky I am to have this gift of dreaming.
So try keeping a journal next to your bed to record the last dream you have just prior to waking. I don't do this myself as I am so used to the process that I don't need to write anything down to jog my recall. But if you are NEW at mining dream life for poetry, go ahead with the dream notebook. And yes, we ALL dream. Maybe you have to train yourself to recall your dreams, but they are there. So, if you keep a journal of dreams, you might begin to notice a trend of topic, setting, etc. This is very helpful when you sit down to write and think you have nothing about which to write. There, right next to your bed is your material!
Well, time for my nap. See you tomorrow.
I admit I have a really vivid dream life. I've often wondered if this is a gift of gratitude by the "gods of night" for honoring the fine art of sleeping. Ha, ha! I do love a good long nap, that is for sure. I do not really take those little power naps others seem so adept at taking. When I go down for a nap it is for two hours at a minimum. I wake up groggy if the nap is too short. Faced with the comment about "wasting the day" or "how many years of your life have you slept?" I am quick to say that I am working while sleeping. True. The "stuff of my dreams" is poetry. No, I do not dream poems. But what I do dream is material or ideas, narrative impulses, characters, settings. I dream in color, in detail. I REMEMBER my dreams. I incorporate the material from my dreams into poems. How lucky I am to have this gift of dreaming.
So try keeping a journal next to your bed to record the last dream you have just prior to waking. I don't do this myself as I am so used to the process that I don't need to write anything down to jog my recall. But if you are NEW at mining dream life for poetry, go ahead with the dream notebook. And yes, we ALL dream. Maybe you have to train yourself to recall your dreams, but they are there. So, if you keep a journal of dreams, you might begin to notice a trend of topic, setting, etc. This is very helpful when you sit down to write and think you have nothing about which to write. There, right next to your bed is your material!
Well, time for my nap. See you tomorrow.
Haiku, a grumble and then growth
I used to avoid haiku. Really, I avoided it like some kind of bacterium I didn't want to infect me. Frankly these little three-liners got on my last nerve. Too sappy was my usual comment. They seemed like little emotional bundles I'd rather not read.
I actually went to a haiku workshop of sorts five years ago, given by a man who was supposedly "the" haiku guy in the US, Bob Somebody-or-Other. I bought his book (as one ought to do at a writing event) and listened to his talk about what makes a good haiku. For me it was like listening to someone tell what makes a good chickpea salad (don't get me started on that one!). I came away from the experience convinced that haiku were best left to the Japanese unless Western writers were willing to commit to the NATURE and INTENT of the form. I read and then gave away (donated) Bob's book. I did not want to give it space on my bookshelves.
"Well, WOW," you must be thinking, "How negative!" Guilty as charged. I was indeed negative about this poetic form. I vowed not to write any, keeping my writing time to more "important" kinds of poems. Well, as is the case with any extreme position, I needed to get a grip and figure out what about the haiku might work for me, whether I might indeed come to appreciate (although maybe not actually embrace) these little poems. I needed a bit of an attitude adjustment. That's when (by FATE's ironic turn) I found and bought a book of Japanese death poetry. I bought it because I was fascinated and intrigued, not by the haiku therein, but by the notion that people actually took the time and had the impetus to write a poem as life was slipping away. By the way, this is always a good condition (fascination/ intrigue) for me to be in for buying books that turn out to be gems. I wanted to know more about writing death poems. The trade-off: haiku. It was there and it was good and I needed to revisit my previously dug-in position.
As a result of reading the book, I have a new respect for haiku. I enjoy it in its pure (read pure as Eastern) forms. However I still have a bit of a grumble. My "point of irk," if you can call it that is that many English speakers/writers do not GET the point of a haiku: to make comments on human condition through observance of nature, and to show an element of surprise connection or a volta of sorts in the third line. What I see mostly in English language haiku is simply a thought or observation cut into the 5-7-5 syllable format of three lines. This was not the intent of the form in ancient times. By the way, written in English, it is written in 3 lines, whereas in Japanese it may be a single line. And there are other elements of haiku that are often ignored or changed by Western writers:
I actually went to a haiku workshop of sorts five years ago, given by a man who was supposedly "the" haiku guy in the US, Bob Somebody-or-Other. I bought his book (as one ought to do at a writing event) and listened to his talk about what makes a good haiku. For me it was like listening to someone tell what makes a good chickpea salad (don't get me started on that one!). I came away from the experience convinced that haiku were best left to the Japanese unless Western writers were willing to commit to the NATURE and INTENT of the form. I read and then gave away (donated) Bob's book. I did not want to give it space on my bookshelves.
"Well, WOW," you must be thinking, "How negative!" Guilty as charged. I was indeed negative about this poetic form. I vowed not to write any, keeping my writing time to more "important" kinds of poems. Well, as is the case with any extreme position, I needed to get a grip and figure out what about the haiku might work for me, whether I might indeed come to appreciate (although maybe not actually embrace) these little poems. I needed a bit of an attitude adjustment. That's when (by FATE's ironic turn) I found and bought a book of Japanese death poetry. I bought it because I was fascinated and intrigued, not by the haiku therein, but by the notion that people actually took the time and had the impetus to write a poem as life was slipping away. By the way, this is always a good condition (fascination/ intrigue) for me to be in for buying books that turn out to be gems. I wanted to know more about writing death poems. The trade-off: haiku. It was there and it was good and I needed to revisit my previously dug-in position.
As a result of reading the book, I have a new respect for haiku. I enjoy it in its pure (read pure as Eastern) forms. However I still have a bit of a grumble. My "point of irk," if you can call it that is that many English speakers/writers do not GET the point of a haiku: to make comments on human condition through observance of nature, and to show an element of surprise connection or a volta of sorts in the third line. What I see mostly in English language haiku is simply a thought or observation cut into the 5-7-5 syllable format of three lines. This was not the intent of the form in ancient times. By the way, written in English, it is written in 3 lines, whereas in Japanese it may be a single line. And there are other elements of haiku that are often ignored or changed by Western writers:
- Rather than counting syllables, the Japanese haiku counts sounds.
- Haiku requires a natural setting. It is designed to suggest a single season, however the poet makes that happen. It could be done in a direct manner, using a symbolic word for the season such as ice for winter, blossom or plum or bamboo for spring.
- Haiku should also have a bridge in the final line or a somewhat vaguely linked thought, a leap if you will that makes the reader think beyond the written words or to consider an outcome or result that is beyond the poem itself. This may seem disconnected or disparate, but if done well, it is far from that.
Here are a couple of haiku (yes the same in plural as in singular) that show the bridge thought:
The blossom falls soft,
drifts down to her waiting hand.
Doves drop from the trees.
In this poem (haiku) we see a natural setting wherein the woman or girl is in the springtime of her life (blossom) but that is about to change (falls, waiting hand). In line three, the change is shown and the hint is that this change may not be positive. We see the loss implied in line 3. It leads the reader to consider that doves drop, They do not fly but drop. Her spring (her virginity) is dead, her life as a maiden (young girl) is over. Dropping is a sign of ending, while drifting is a sign of leisure and languor. The dove is a symbol of her once peaceful life and uncomplicated existence. Trees are a symbol of long life. Girlhood is brief, agedness is long.
The cherry opens,
showing its womb filled with seed.
Laughter of children.
This is clearly a birth/motherhood poem. Cherries are symbols of fecundity, speak of a blooming/fruiting season. The opening of the cherry exposing its contents (the seed) speaks to the process of birth, something that is needed to be able to bring the seed to fruition. The bridge is a positive one: after this rending of the womb, there are the pleasures of children and their easy play.
OK... so now let's talk about what YOU think of as haiku... I'm waiting to hear from you.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Symbols
The Greek word symbolon meant something "put together." This was originally a coin or potsherd that was broken into 2 parts and given each to the parties of a legal contract or agreement. The significance was that there was something to come later, some kind of promise that would be fulfilled. In other words, there was a missing element needed to finish the deal, to complete the meaning. The potsherd was a symbol of that promise. It was also, literally a broken coin.
This is true of symbols in poetry (and in other kinds of writing). There are natural symbols and contrived symbols. Natural symbols are those we take on universally, such as the heart for love, the apple or rose for beauty, the dove or olive branch for peace. A danger in poetry writing is to make these natural symbols clichés. In using them as direct symbols, we risk this: I hand him the olive branch is one of these. What if the line were written instead showing a single olive on a plate, lying on its leaf next to a handwritten note? What if the line never was a direct reference to the olive branch at all? Can the reader get there, make the leap to a peace offering? The astute reader, one well-versed in symbolism, will do so with ease, or at least after reading IN CONTEXT. However, there is risk in writing and in reading when symbols are over-thought, over-used, or just plain exploited for meaning. Sometimes an olive is only that, a green fruit on a plate. It may be mere window dressing to the poem, lending texture to a line, setting a scene richly. Or it may be a symbol of loneliness or a symbol of peace-offering.
Finding symbols where there are none can lead to great distortion of reality in the poem. A symbol that needs explaining is a sick symbol, an apology for itself. We don't want to fill our poems with those. What makes symbols so wonderful is the surprise of connections. Making one thing stand for another can accentuate or actuate meaning. Poets who work in symbols are careful of the images they employ, prefer oblique connections of images to any abstraction. It is also true that being too overt, lacking in symbol, can flatten out a poem or make it "too much what it is," that is totally without subtlety or layers. A wise poetry professor told me that for every abstraction in a written piece, there need to be at least two concrete images. In other words, don't write the word love, write about the things that show love is present. He scoffed at a "Christmas poem" I'd written, saying it risked sappiness by being so overt and "Christmassy." He suggested I write the same poem, using an image that would lead the reader TO Christmas, rather than being so obvious. I needed a symbol, something subtle in the poem that would do this. I chose to use the word amaryllis to describe the color of the skater's cheeks. It is common knowledge when the amaryllis blooms. I had my symbol, my image, my half a potsherd. My readers could make the connection for themselves and place the poem at Christmastime.
Images are real, are the "things of the world." As poets and readers of poetry, we take a risk in that images can be taken at face value and not be seen as symbols when they might indeed be symbols. Sometimes they are just what they are: strong images on their own, not symbolic of something deeper. The poet ought to make the difference clear in her/his own mind before sending the poem out into the world. Images that are indeed symbols carry on their backs far more than their physical references. If a poem is seemingly a description of an object or objects, and yet transcends its physical self, we call it a Dinggedichte, a thing-poem. The details of such poems may be vivid, realistic, grounded, but HINT at something more, stand for something more. Consider the following: A poem describes a room devoid of people, but rich with details of images such as an empty chair, a table with a glass or cup turned down, a broken pencil, a lone feather, a curtain blowing at an open window, peeling wallpaper. Is this mere description of place and quietude or a dinggedichte of loss? A bitten yellow pear (lipstick visible on the skin around the bite) on a highly polished table, next to a wedding ring... still life or dinggedichte? It's intriguing to peel back the layers of poems to see what might be lurking there.
The extension of symbolism is metaphor, a forest of symbols (Beaudelaire) that serve together to make a larger portrait, or perhaps in some cases oblique meaning. And where does symbolism give way to allegory? We all know that allegory is a narrative in which characters and events stand for ideas and/or actions on another level. One thing happening may be standing for another deeper truth or event. Animal Farm is a good example of an allegory, where out of control, yet controlling, behavior of animals stands for the same kind of societal behavior of humans, in this case totalitarian society. Poets are not excluded from narrative or allegory. Indeed, narrative poetry is making a comeback in a big way. I for one am happy about this. People are interested in connecting themselves with the stories and experiences of others. We all love a well-told story. Poets tell these too, perhaps more succinctly, in fewer words.
I leave you today with a poem, written a few years ago when I was thinking about how our words either support others, or are perhaps insensitive to others. Have a look. Get back to me.
See if you can determine the symbolic from the overt in the following poem (HINT: there may be both working here). Is this an allegory?
This is true of symbols in poetry (and in other kinds of writing). There are natural symbols and contrived symbols. Natural symbols are those we take on universally, such as the heart for love, the apple or rose for beauty, the dove or olive branch for peace. A danger in poetry writing is to make these natural symbols clichés. In using them as direct symbols, we risk this: I hand him the olive branch is one of these. What if the line were written instead showing a single olive on a plate, lying on its leaf next to a handwritten note? What if the line never was a direct reference to the olive branch at all? Can the reader get there, make the leap to a peace offering? The astute reader, one well-versed in symbolism, will do so with ease, or at least after reading IN CONTEXT. However, there is risk in writing and in reading when symbols are over-thought, over-used, or just plain exploited for meaning. Sometimes an olive is only that, a green fruit on a plate. It may be mere window dressing to the poem, lending texture to a line, setting a scene richly. Or it may be a symbol of loneliness or a symbol of peace-offering.
Finding symbols where there are none can lead to great distortion of reality in the poem. A symbol that needs explaining is a sick symbol, an apology for itself. We don't want to fill our poems with those. What makes symbols so wonderful is the surprise of connections. Making one thing stand for another can accentuate or actuate meaning. Poets who work in symbols are careful of the images they employ, prefer oblique connections of images to any abstraction. It is also true that being too overt, lacking in symbol, can flatten out a poem or make it "too much what it is," that is totally without subtlety or layers. A wise poetry professor told me that for every abstraction in a written piece, there need to be at least two concrete images. In other words, don't write the word love, write about the things that show love is present. He scoffed at a "Christmas poem" I'd written, saying it risked sappiness by being so overt and "Christmassy." He suggested I write the same poem, using an image that would lead the reader TO Christmas, rather than being so obvious. I needed a symbol, something subtle in the poem that would do this. I chose to use the word amaryllis to describe the color of the skater's cheeks. It is common knowledge when the amaryllis blooms. I had my symbol, my image, my half a potsherd. My readers could make the connection for themselves and place the poem at Christmastime.
Images are real, are the "things of the world." As poets and readers of poetry, we take a risk in that images can be taken at face value and not be seen as symbols when they might indeed be symbols. Sometimes they are just what they are: strong images on their own, not symbolic of something deeper. The poet ought to make the difference clear in her/his own mind before sending the poem out into the world. Images that are indeed symbols carry on their backs far more than their physical references. If a poem is seemingly a description of an object or objects, and yet transcends its physical self, we call it a Dinggedichte, a thing-poem. The details of such poems may be vivid, realistic, grounded, but HINT at something more, stand for something more. Consider the following: A poem describes a room devoid of people, but rich with details of images such as an empty chair, a table with a glass or cup turned down, a broken pencil, a lone feather, a curtain blowing at an open window, peeling wallpaper. Is this mere description of place and quietude or a dinggedichte of loss? A bitten yellow pear (lipstick visible on the skin around the bite) on a highly polished table, next to a wedding ring... still life or dinggedichte? It's intriguing to peel back the layers of poems to see what might be lurking there.
The extension of symbolism is metaphor, a forest of symbols (Beaudelaire) that serve together to make a larger portrait, or perhaps in some cases oblique meaning. And where does symbolism give way to allegory? We all know that allegory is a narrative in which characters and events stand for ideas and/or actions on another level. One thing happening may be standing for another deeper truth or event. Animal Farm is a good example of an allegory, where out of control, yet controlling, behavior of animals stands for the same kind of societal behavior of humans, in this case totalitarian society. Poets are not excluded from narrative or allegory. Indeed, narrative poetry is making a comeback in a big way. I for one am happy about this. People are interested in connecting themselves with the stories and experiences of others. We all love a well-told story. Poets tell these too, perhaps more succinctly, in fewer words.
I leave you today with a poem, written a few years ago when I was thinking about how our words either support others, or are perhaps insensitive to others. Have a look. Get back to me.
See if you can determine the symbolic from the overt in the following poem (HINT: there may be both working here). Is this an allegory?
After Your Divorce
I asked you to read my poems
I wrote table and forced you out
into the woods to choose a tree,
maple, oak, or maybe an exotic teak.
You had to decide the shape too,
round or rectangular or oval. I wrote
a cobalt bowl filled with orange day lilies
and a white coffee mug, rim smudged
with Dior’s Infra Rose. I might have
written an apple on an ivory table runner
from Brazil, but I wrote a half-eaten
nectarine set on a white paper towel the way
she did to keep from messing up a plate
for just one item. I knew about your divorce
and yet I wrote table, leaving so much
for you to do. I should have written door.
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