Sharon Olds and her new book; another expansion ahead for me

Sharon Olds changed me from a timid vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce writer to more of a rum raisin ice cream writer. From expected to unexpected. From bland to bold.

When I read her book, The Father, Alfred A. Knopf 1992, I became brave. She wrote bravely and I could do the same. This collection of poems became a touchstone for poems I knew needed to be written.  What she wrote about (the dying of her father) and the way she wrote about it did not mince words. She used skillful diction and structure to come at this topic with honesty. Death and dying was taken off the pedestal of veiled sentiment or sentiment at all, and placed right there in front of us. Death, and in particular slow dying, was no longer a topic to be hedged, but was confronted in its nakedness and inevitability. We all secretly want to know, but no one was talking about it. Certainly no one was talking about it like Sharon Olds. Here is a poem that exemplifies that for me:


My Father's Eyes

The day before my father died
he lay there allay with his eyes open,
staring with a weary dogged look.
His irises had turned hazel in places
as if his nature had changed, bits
of water or sky set into his mineral solids.
...

and he swerved his blurred iris toward me and with-
in it for a moment his pupil narrowed and
took me in, it was my father 
looking at me. This lasted just
a second,
...

Then his vision sank back down
and left only the globe of the eye, and the
next day his soul went out
and left just my father there 
...

I'd never read such a thing. No overt emotion whatsoever, no flowery speech, just clear vision, inspiring diction. The poem shows what is possible in the intimate moments of our lives and our deaths. The rest of the poems in the collection are as barefaced, some even more so. I wanted to write with such clarity, such attention, such bravery. Olds' work gave me permission.

I'd always written safe poetry. I did not tackle topics that were lurking in me. It was not that I did not want to/need to write about being molested as a child, or about my father's post WWII PTSD, or my difficult relationship with my mother. I very much wanted to write about those things, not just to serve my need to vanquish them, but because I knew (have always known) that others had similar experiences. Maybe they needed to hear someone else say these things out loud. But who would say them? Maybe me? But I was a good girl poet. I was concerned about whether or not I came off as a good girl in what I wrote. I was trapped in the good girl image fostered by my very proper parents, an image I eventually held for myself too. I chose silence because that was what good girls did, to the point that my poems were too safe to be real.

Along came Sharon Olds and her book. For the first time in my reading life, a woman writer was telling some big Truths. She was writing in such a way that there was authenticity even boldness, all the while using the tools poetry uses to attract. Her skills as a poet showed me how to write. I could say the previously unsayable and still be a good girl. Good had nothing at all to do with Truth in writing. I could get at the reality in my own life and connect to the lives of others if I was brave enough. I did not need to shy away from the tough parts and hide in the shadows of safety, but it would be a dance. I would need to balance my writing to expose Truth through careful diction and style. Fortunately I have had great teachers and models for doing this. Sharon Olds, unbeknownst to her, played that role for me. When I think of the balance, the dance, I remember these words from Ric Masten about relationship:

Let it be a dance we do
Let it be a dance for two.
In the good times and the bad times too,
Let it be a dance.

Of course Masten was referring to a relationship between two lovers, but I see it as the same relationship between poets and readers. The steps must be careful and skilled. The dancers must be in a partnership.

Once I discovered my bravery in writing, I was faced with figuring out how to tell my own truths without disrupting the life I wanted to live as wife, mother, daughter, friend. Since that moment I have defined and redefined Truth and revised my way of getting to it. I am certain this will be an ongoing project as I move along my own timeline as a writer, as a woman, as a woman writer. It is not a simple thing to stay authentic in writing. It would be easy to slip back into the bowl of vanilla ice cream, that safe place where no one is ruffled by my writing. It is too easy to back down, back off, back away deferentially. But I will not back up and become the timid writer I was.

Until last evening, I had never met Sharon Olds in person. I did not yet have a copy of her latest book of poems, Odes. (by the way, the ode is not my favorite kind of poem to write, or to read). I was privileged to hear her read and to meet her afterward as part of the 16th Annual Terry Plunkett Poetry Festival, where I was a featured reader. The topic for the festival this year: Poetry and Truth. It was wonderful to hear her read, to engage with her audience for Q & A. A high point of the evening for me was meting her, getting her to sign my First Edition copy of The Father  as well as her new book, Odes, and being able to thank her for helping me to become brave.

Her new book is all about being brave even within the parameters of form (the ode) and I discovered in these poems a bravery coupled with humor, pun, word play, and liveliness of expression. I have only read (or heard) five of these odes, but I can tell you that there is another lesson for me therein. I urge you to find a copy for yourselves and read it. If you dare. It is a risky book. But then again, why not take the risk and discover something. I look forward to another expansion for my own work, thanks to this book and thanks again to Sharon Olds.

Revising is an art unto itself

Poem made. Seems pretty good. Is it done, ready for prime time? Well...

I write almost every day. But not all of my writing is writing. Most of it is revising.

For me as poet, revision is the best part of the process. I look at a particular poem and ask the same question: what does the poem want? Years ago I took a week-long workshop with poet Michael Dennis Browne wherein he posed that question to us, a question I had never considered. Since that time, I cannot revise without the question. As I wait to hear what the poem is saying, I review some possible revision strategies, try on a few and see what might make the poem stronger or more definitively a "poem." (another topic for another post)I used to think of revision as something I would do to peel away layers that were obstructing the poem's message or motive. Until the Browne workshop and later Jack Myers' workshops that was my strategy.

Myers says in his helpful book, The Portable Poetry Workshop (Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), that revision was once thought of as violating a sacred gift... the workings of the unconscious. The idea that a poem comes from somewhere unearthly or is bestowed as a vision or is some kind of dictation from on high has always befuddled me. I've been in workshops where someone defended her/his poem by saying this didn't come from me and I have no right to alter it. I wonder why the person is writing at all if the writing is mere dictation. Do people who feel this way see themselves as prophets or soothsayers or mystics? Isn't automatic writing best left to the religious?

Myers tells us that re-vision is actually the act of taking a closer look and seeing a poem with new eyes, then implementing techniques which potentially make the poem stronger. He promises that this process is engaging, rewarding, and worth doing. He is right.

Let's look at three types of revision.

1. Reductive Revision

This refers to the kind of cutting that most think of as the hallmark of revision. Get rid of the following and at least the poem will be tighter:

a. unnecessary modifiers (cut out extra or extraneous adverbs, adjectives!)
b. passive or flat verbs
c. obvious and over the top transitions
d. narratives or plot elements that are fillers (do not add to the poem but only provide back story)
e. too many prepositional phrases
f. poet-intrusive or editorial comments

This is a decent strategy for the beginning poet to find ways to tighten his/her poem, however this is just one way, and a base-level way to revise.

I am as guilty as the next poet when it comes to having extraneous elements in my poems. I get so intense over the imagery, the syntax, line breaks, end words, stanza construction, etc. that sometimes the throwaways creep in when I am distracted. Using articles (a, an, the, etc.) is my biggest issue right now. I must pare them, tame them, even obliterate them.

I am getting better about adjectives and adverbs. I've been on a campaign to free the literary world of ly words for some time. They almost never add much to the understanding of a poem. Clearly, less is more. But some poets are married to adverbs.

Ing  words are on my hit list too. I try to rewrite without them. Always seems to make the poems better.

Adjectives in strings of 4 or 5 drive me up the wall. Just because one is good doesn't mean 3 are better. How many dark, grey, ominous, threatening, thunder clouds are better than one nimbus. A wise choice of adjectives is a better strategy. Hint: if there is a list of adjectives that uses a bunch of commas, revise them out.

Another way (my personal favorite after doing the reductive revision) is to ADD material or elements to the poem. The poem may want to be more, say more, embody more.

This, in my opinion, is where the art comes in.

2. Additive Revision

If a poem seems clunky to me, the first strategy I use is to print out a copy and write some notes in the margins, arrowing where the places in the poem are not quite right. I may do a free write or I may write out (in prose) what I mean to say here is.... I can find new material in the free writing of my intentions. Sometimes clarity appears and I can move toward fixing the clunky part(s). Sometimes I just look for places where there might be something new or surprising to insert. This may seem a bit dangerous and I get a feeling in my spine or in my chest that I am venturing into deep water. I was working on a poem just yesterday where this was the case. The poem was ok, but lacked something to unify and to give it a bit of a punch. I chose a single line, a repeating line. I inserted the line in three places, the result being that the POINT of the poem emerged. It was a line that had been running through my head, that I had pushed aside in my desire to get the incident just right, accurate. Once I agreed to let the line into the poem, it began falling into place. Is the poem done yet? Maybe not. But it is better, clearer, more like itself.

Here are a few ways to insert additive elements to a poem:

a. add images
b. add flashbacks or flash forwards — be careful here, consider changes in verb tense a way to go back or go forward in time
c. insert an anecdote (SMALL) that is supportive of the larger story being told
d. add a line that repeats at least 3 times
e. add color, landscape, food,  or even game elements ... let it flow and look a the results; can always take out later
f. add a mysterious line that seems dystopian or utopian
g. add a quote or phrase from science, mathematics, or literature

These are just some ways a poet can be additive in her/his revision. Be creative. Settle in and let the poem reveal what it wants/needs. Worth remembering: when writing about something that happened, it is not necessary to be wholly factual. Get at the essence; the kernel of truth that lies somewhere, perhaps somewhere buried in fact. You can lie a little. Sometimes you need to lie a little.

3. Deep Revision

This can be the scariest, also the most rewarding, process of all. It requires a poet to be somewhat relentless and cold-minded. It requires a poet to be willing to change everything about the original in order to arrive at the real poem. It requires a poet to fall purposefully out of love with every part of the original, only to discover what is really wonderful.

What would happen, for instance, if the poet took the original poem apart, laid all its elements separately on the table, then reassembled (rewrote) using either reductive or additive revision strategies? Deflate or expand each element.  Every line, every phrase, every stanza.

Certainly, separating the elements will give the poet a new view of each as an independent gesture. It allows the poet to assess the strength or weakness of each and make informed decisions about revision.

The poet should consider changing the shape, format, or form of the poem. Sometimes a poem just wants to be a pantoum, a sonnet, or a poem in heroic couplets. Sometimes, it wants to be a prose poem. It is helpful not to be nailed to writing (constructing) the poem in one way.

The great thing about revision in general, deep revision in particular, is that the possibilities for great improvement abound. Be brave enough to try.

Quickie Revision Checklist:

1. Read the poem aloud until you get to point where you KNOW it deeply
2. Do not revise while writing the first draft.
3. Keep every draft until you are certain the poem is satisfied.
4. Do not title the poem until (at least) two drafts into the process.
5. Play line/element agains each other to check for repetition (the bad kind) and for confusion (always bad)
6. Check for mixed metaphors.
7. Check all verbs for activity and power. 
8. Check for a overabundance of adverbs and adjectives.
9. Try making the end (line or stanza) the beginning, the beginning (line or stanza) the end. What happens?
10. Put the poem away for a week or two (or longer) after you think it is done. It may not be.

When you are ready, send your poem to a trusted poetry reader. See what glitches she/he may find. If needed, go at it again. Remember, if you have to explain the poem to someone, you have not let the poem have its own voice. 


Revise, re-envison, re, re, re  until the poem has had its say. Listen to the poems. They will speak on their own behalves. And keep in mind, remember ... it is a PROCESS.

Metaphor is not just for poets, although it may be the poet's life blood

Yesterday my husband forwarded me an article on metaphor which I share in a link below. It is worth reading even if you are not a writer.

I admit that I think, speak, and operate in metaphor all the time. I see this as one of my strengths.

People often say to me, oh you have such a way with words or I've not thought about ___________ quite like that.  I am speaking in a metaphorical way, choosing comparative language or substituting an image or idea to make the idea, issue more pointed, clearer, relatable.

My kids used to accuse me or inserting drama when I did this. True enough if drama means heightening the conversation or my speech with metaphor. When I would say your room is a pig sty I did not mean that literally, but even at a young age they got that pig sty was not good. Later they understood the full meaning of pig sty and knew I meant to compare directly the dirty nature of their rooms to the mucky, icky place in a barnyard.

Two gestures of metaphor:

There are two types of metaphor. Direct and Comparative: your room is a pig sty (direct) or your room is like a pig sty (comparative... aka simile). The clue here is the use (or not) of comparatives such as like, as.

We hear metaphor in our daily lives, in advertising and political speeches and even in the music we enjoy.

(Direct metaphors)

She is sunshine on a cloudy day. When it's cold outside, she is the month of May. (from My Girl) 

(similes/comparative metaphors)

He is behaving like a bull in a china shop. 

I wandered lonely as a cloud.  (Wordsworth)

black as night

sweet as candy

sharp as a tack

guilty as sin

These are not obscure. They may be oblique however, choosing a different path to get to a truth. Sometimes comparative metaphors end up being clichés due to overuse. Metaphor creation, therefore, can be a bit tricky.

There is another way to use a simile which is to emphasize by opposite:

clear as mud 

We all know mud is not at all clear, so we understand that these two words do not equate. That makes the argument for whatever the phrase refers to as being in fact unclear, murky, muddy.

Another way to examine metaphor in literature and in speech is to look at single words to find a controlling metaphor. 

A controlling metaphor is one that dominates (controls) an entire literary piece or is ubiquitous in a person's speech. For example, a character or a live person may refer to things in light of certain images or actions. Constant references to food for example may indicate the person sees life as a banquet. Depending on the tone of the piece or the tone of speech  that may further indicate that the person sees life as a banquet to which she/he is not invited. The use of controlling metaphor is a great way for a writer to enhance a scene or develop a character.

This literary device is frequently seen in poetry.  For poets, metaphoric diction, including controlling metaphor, is tantamount to creating intensity and deepening (expanding) meaning. 

Controlling metaphor is similar to extended metaphor, which extends over a large portion, but not all, of a literary piece. When you read the article linked below, be very careful not to confuse controlling metaphor with metaphor used to control. There is a difference.

For now, I absent myself to the kitchen where my side dish for Easter dinner is cooking like a champ. (mixed metaphor), which is a topic for another day, along with the way slang has evolved (or perhaps devolved) into or from metaphor.

Your assignment: READ the article

https://qz.com/1241030/metaphors-can-change-our-opinions-in-ways-we-dont-even-realize/

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday, the day before Easter is here, and with it a dearth of sunlight. After the long winter (or seemingly long), there is light again. My husband saw a crocus yesterday and there are green spikes underneath the crabapple in our yard. Soon we will be able to open the windows and let in fresh air.
I can hardly wait for the opening of our windows. Hallelujah!

Waiting

It’s easy to know weather

when the horizon blackens.

Something new is on the way, 

rinsed in yesterday’s mood. 

The sun spins

away like a mad kite, light 

a shattered wine glass 

on the hearth.

What of the plot to bury

the yard in shrouds of white? What

witch came casting that spell? 

Has winter had enough of us?

Wait for the sky to open, to cast

its bluest eye on the yard again, 

rouse bulbs from sleep. Wait

as the bird waits in her egg. 

It is the season of windows. Hear

nothing more of falling snow. 

Wait.

Watch the sky.

This poem, on its face, is a celebration of oncoming spring, a cautionary tale about the power of winter to linger, but for me it has always been a metaphor for the way our lives are in flux and at the whim of others. When I wrote it, I was in a period of contemplation and feeling deep-seated angst over the political situation. Everything I had once assumed to be real appeared topsy-turvy. Everyday life seemed beleaguered by widespread madness in Washington DC. 

Even today, the poem rings true to the metaphor I intended. I see the sunlight shining through the glass jars on my windowsill today and see the kaleidoscope of colors. This reminds me that where there is light, there is hope. 

Yes, it is the season of windows. Soon enough I will raise them and draw in a deep breath of fresh sea air. I will sing the green corn song loudly and with gusto. I will give thanks for another chance for peace. I will write poems and make watercolor paintings. I will kiss my husband. 

Today is Holy Saturday. I will remind myself that every day is Holy.

Fog, not just weather

I've always liked the expression "in a fog." It refers (logically) to days or nights wherein a sweeping mist covers us, obscures things, and makes visibility closer than usual. We famously refer to the fog in London, but I can say that when I lived in Germany the fog was thicker and more dangerous than any I saw in London when I lived there. Fog was so pervasive in Germany that the road markers were painted with reflective paint in such a way as to alert drivers to what side of the road was on their left or right so they would not run off into a field or into trees, etc. Thick fog would obscure the not-so-occasional herd of wild boar careening into the roadway. Here, in Maine and the rest of NewEngland, spring fog is helpful in taking down the remaining snow so things can begin to green up and bloom. Last night and into this morning that process is underway. I'm grateful to see the last vestiges of snow melting before my eyes. I am hopeful for a change from cold, ice, snow. I want flowers and sunshine.

But fog is not just weather. It is not always helpful. The word fog can also denote a state of dullness or confusion that befuddles the mind, keeps us from clarity of thought or makes us feel ill-at-ease. I think that the entire country has been in a fog for the past 16 months or so. What else can explain the dull acceptance of behaviors and attitudes and events that we previously decried as wrong? Even multitudes of avowed Christians are not outraged or offended by some prurient behaviors that once would have sparked action to remedy. We are through the looking glass into a realm of fog.

It's not hard to spot the fogged-in state. We do not act. We act symbolically, but without result. We turn away and run from the truth or we accept it as a nothing-we-can-do status quo. We are left wondering if there will be a spring, or if we are infected so badly with fog that we might never recover. I am weary of people saying that this is our new normal. I pray it is not.

Why are so many people, good people, pulling the fog around their shoulders like a quilt and resisting remedy? Did we, in our national state of shock a year ago November, just give up, cede spring to the fog makers? Where are there political heroes who have power and will to clear away this malignant fog that seems to be spreading?  The fog-makers are in possession of a giant fog machine and use it every day. They benefit from the dullness and apathy that fog brings. They are paid for fog. I prefer real fog, the kind that takes down snow. This national political fog is something else. It is a killing fog and its time is up.

There is a growing flock of robins in the yard. Teens and children are arriving with song and hope. I am proud of these young people across the nation who are taking direct action by marching in every city and town, saying enough, no more, never again. We need to listen to them. We need to believe them and honor them with our own action. It is their world and ours that they are trying to heal, a world we have allowed though our apathy to be covered by a killing fog.

The children, our beautiful flock of robins, will have to shame the adults who are responsible for allowing this fog to spread. The children will have to vote them out, will have to plant seeds that will bloom so profusely as to choke out the weeds, and we who are not fogged in need to help them.

Spring Cleaning

Another day where spring looks like it might be here. Dare we hope? I am hoping. I need warm weather and want to put out the porch furniture. I want things to start getting green and flowery. I want everything and everyone to wake up.

One thing is certain: I have an itch to do some spring cleaning. As I sit here in my study, I see stacks upon stacks of projects, materials, etc. and wonder how I could have gotten so lazy over a few months. Was I in some kind of hibernation? Was I dulled and numbed to my surroundings?

I have a strange way to clean: I take everything OUT of a room that is not supposed to be there and move it to another room. I dust, vac, and polish the now cleared out space. DONE! Then I move to the next room and take out everything that doesn't belong. Repeat add nauseam until at long last I am down to one room. Then whatever still doesn't need to be there can get donated or otherwise disposed of to someone else.

My question for me: do I start with this space (the worst) so I have a huge sense of accomplishment? I'd say yes, but... if I do this, it will be a LONG process. I may get discouraged and stop. I may lose sight of my goal as I begin re-reading poems, looking at my paints and brushes and wanting to stop to make a drawing or painting....

No! I have to begin. I have a goal of getting it all done in 6 days.... after all I am not creating the world here, just cleaning my world. And on the 7th day I will go outside and look for crocuses.

Now, to begin!

I have one of those USPS boxes that they give you when you pick up mail that was on vacation hold... good transport vehicle to move things from room to room. Of course first I have to do something with whatever I dropped in to get it out of the way.... oh sigh.

For those of you who might be concerned that I have become some kind of hoarder.... nope. Just a stacker.  (slacker?)

Loss and how spring might help

The sun is breaking through an otherwise grey and grim day. At long last there is no snow in the forecast. It is 46 degrees. I keep a row of colored bottles and jars on my office windowsill so that there is sparkle whenever the least ray of light comes through. They are shining today: blue, yellow, green. I really need the sparkle.

Loss is inevitable in every aspect of life. It is a fact that people and things come and they go. If we are paying attention, we learn how to grieve the losses and find our way out of the darkness. We don’t forget, but we forbear.

I am dealing with some artisitc losses right now that are hard. I am cheered by the fact that spring is here (mostly) and summer is on the way. But the losses are still losses. I must figure out how to forbear.

Loss #1

The lingering death of Poetry Month Rockland has been difficult. I established Poetry Month Rockland in 2010 with the coperation of Steve Donoso and the public library. It was designed to be part of the National Poetry Month festivites and celebration. Our first ever Poet Laureate, Kendall Merriam was appointed and served for two years. I was appointed in 2012 and served 2 terms (four years). We appointed our 4th laureate, Joanna Hynd, in 2016. She has served for 2 years.

I put my heart, soul, (and education) into the office of Poet Laureate with a multitude of activities and events which brought poetry to life in our city. On average, one event or activity per month. I was more than visible and ready to engage anyone with poetry at any time. Poetry Month was a big deal, always ending with our Swarm of Poets, something Steve Donoso and I conceived of in 2010. A room full of poets, reading their work. Contest winners getting their prizes (usually sacks of books of poetry) and reading in public for perhaps the very first time. There were poems all over town in various places and ways. It was nothing short of festive!

It all began to die in 2016. I saw it happening, and there was nothing I could do. Of course it was not at all about me…it was and remains all about poetry and bringing it to the people. It was and is about making people realize that poetry is for everyone. Now it is all about something else, perhaps about there being too much work involved (I offered my help and was turned away) … or maybe it is about cashing in on poetry via the Millay House and its for-profit festival in the fall.

When I was asked to do a workshop in April, one of two things happening for “poetry month,”I was told by the current laureate that the Swarm was going to be different this year, focusing more on contest winners. There is no swarm on the last Thursday in April as it has for 8 years. The contest begins in April and ends in August with winners to read at the Millay festival, part deux which will be in September. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a rocket sonnet-ist) to see what is happening.

I have never asked to be in charge of anything with the Millay group. I don’t want to be in charge. I do want to help. Why not allow a person with experience and education in the area of poetry and the time and willingness to lend a hand? I don’t know because I have been shut out of the conversation, ghosted as it were. I have offered for the last time. Message received loud and clear.

At any rate, Poetry Month Rockland is no more a thing we do in April. I am grieving the death of poetry month. I am angry too, but that is going away, leaving instead sadness and disappointment… but leaving also RESOLVE.

Poetry is more important to me than to let it get run over by lack of intitative or by indifference, so I am preparing to create something in place of poetry month, something that will not be killed off so easily by someone else. So far, my idea is to create a Foundation for the Writing Arts. I will likely crowdfund and seek donations and other forms of financial support. I will locate the Foundation and it activities in a place conducive to its business and functioning. I want to bring something to this community that will last, as I thought Poetry Month would last. Poetry is for everyone and ought to be readily available to everyone, all the time.  The foundation will make it so.

Through the loss and the grieving, there is hope. The sunlight will continue to stream though the glass jars on my windowsill and I will stop feeling so sad.

Loss #2

Winter is a time of loss in many ways. This winter I have experienced the loss of the poetry group of which I have been part for many years. In fact, for the past few years I was the last one of the original group which I joined in 2009.

This death too has been a slow process. Despite all attempts by some of us to save it, others were not dedicated to poetry or not dedicated enough to save the group. Some let their commitment slide, some were too thin-skinned to take critique as being about the poem, not about the person. Inevitably, personalities derailed the whole group. Details here are irrelevant. Even a carefully worded mission statement did not sustain us.

I will miss the sharing. I will miss the poems of some of the group members who have worked hard to hone their skills in making poems. I will miss the thoughtful comments/critiques of my poems by most of the members. I will miss these very much. But I cannot do anything to make this group last another single minute. It is not at all up to me. I did my part. I would do it all over again, in a heartbeat.

So now, another loss becomes another opportunity. I will grieve and move on. I will forbear.



GOING ON après mort:

On the horizon is a spring day, leading to another and another until it will be summer. I am cheered by that. I look forward to days at the beach with a book and a notebook in my bag. I look forward to more writing time. I have two new books, another in the works, and another finished except for fine-tuned editing. I will not be deterred from my life’s work. I will continue to bring poetry to as many people as I can in my short time here on this planet.

Poetry and Truth

I recently attended a workshop entitled, Singing in the Dark. It was about poetry as witness. We were each asked to contribute one of our own "political" or "witness" poems. We looked at many examples of poetry of witness.

By the end of the day I was convinced that there is

1. There is no one way of witness
2. There is no clear way to write about issues of society... the polis
3. There is a difference in seeing and giving the facts about something that happened and giving witness
to a greater truth, a universal truth.

AND

4. There is a big difference between truth (facts, the what happened when) and Truth.

I have wrestled with (Big T) Truth all my remembered life.  I have considered absolute truth-telling versus the notion of an underlying morality that settles the psyche.  For the past few decades, I have questioned myself as a poet in terms of what I am willing to say and how I am safe or not safe in saying it.  I have had to become the arbiter of my own risk-taking. That is, I think, a good thing.

One thing seems clear to me: Truth (with the big T) is much more important than truth (with the little t).

Oh sure, telling the truth is a good thing, most of the time. One wants to be seen as honest and dependable. Lying (in the extreme) is certainly to be seen as pathological. However, all truth all the time can be pathological too, or at least passive aggressive.

There are glaringly obvious times when truth-telling could be a not so great plan. For example, don't tell your wife the dress makes her look fat even if she asks. Here is where tact replaces truth. But if asked do you love me? perhaps the unvarnished truth-telling needs to be plugged in. Tact may be involved here too, but don't duck out of the answer. Telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth might, in some cases, even get you killed. So truth-telling, for me, is a bit situational. It requires care and finesse. I am not suggesting a life of dishonesty or even a totally utilitarian style of truth-telling. I am saying, think first, speak second.

Eye witness accounts at crimes are universally seen by experts as unreliable. Why? Because the eye is NOT really a camera, and the brain is NOT really a recording device. Witnesses bring their own stuff, their baggage, their biases to their supposed recall. This is known. Still, juries love to have eyewitness accounts, largely I believe to make their decisions less self-responsible. It takes them off the hook for judging the defendant, the accused. Eyewitness accounts are not DNA evidence.

The bottom line for truth-telling is do your best to be honest as you can within your human limitations. Be a reliable, dependable person.

(Big T) Truth is markedly different from truth-telling. It's something far-reaching and critical. Universality, our shared human experience, depends upon it. We hold these Truths to be self-evident was the way the Founding Fathers put it. It ought to be that there is some kind of Truth we share, a Truth that protects us from the four horsemen of disenfranchisement, desperation, disillusionment, and despair. We ought to be able to hold on to something solid. Truth.

Let's examine this concept of Truth as it relates to poems and poets. To begin, we must acknowledge that there is always (ALWAYS) something happening that seems wrong, fearful, upsetting: government's behaviors, environmental issues, poverty, racism, abuse, divorce, and betrayals of all sorts.  There is crossover between a single personal episode or incident and an acknowledged or disavowed pubic interest.

There is plenty of angst out there, all at once public and personal.
There is rampant injustice and strife out there and in families behind closed doors.

What to do if you are inclined to comment (write) about personal or public injustice or social issues? How can you be truthful while creating art? Is this possible? And what of the details? Must they be written about in such a way as the piece of writing is reportage rather than something artful? What is poetic license? What is my responsibility to Truth as a poet, as a human?

I write within my deeply-held belief that Truth is important.  It is about authenticity for me. It ought to come through clearly that I am a sort of authoritative voice when I write.  Have I done the research or am I writing from personal experience? What about the object and subject(s) of my writing? What is my responsibility to their truth?

I do consider the impact of my writing on others, which has held me back from risk-taking in my writing in the past. My early poems reflect that over-reticence and restraint. However, I am less interested now in censoring myself than at any other time in my career as a poet/writer. Where previously I have held back, I am more willing to take risks now. Of course I would not publish certain of my poems if it turned out that my doing so would put someone else's life at risk. I would not publish certain poems (though I am willing to write them) which would destroy relationships or livelihood.  I am more likely to write anything, choosing whether or not to publish as my line of restraint.

Aside from public realm of comment, I seem to be the holder of many personal secrets. People tell me things. Must be I just have that face as my grandmother said. Do I want the secrets I have? Not so much. But am I in a weird way honored to have them. If you tell me a secret, it stays with me.

I carry one big secret that my mother told me over 50 years ago about someone close to me. To this day, I don't know why she shared the secret with me at age 17. I have never told that secret, other than to my husband who is never going to reveal it either. Letting it out would most certainly cause hurt. The secret likely dies with me. I had another, more personal secret that I kept for decades having to do with being molested by a dear friend's grandfather. I wrote that secret, but never put it out there until that friend died. Were she still alive today, the poem would exist only in my computer and the secret would be secret still. Here is the poem that I finally published about that secret:

At Our 20th Class Reunion

for Debby

If you mention him, your grandfather,

speak of his beautiful garden, of the tall corn 

where we played 

as children, I’ll have to tell

you about the rows

of theiving stalks with their pale silk flags —

warnings of the approaching storm, 

the shaft of lightning

that split my childhood in two.

If you talk about his stubbled jaw,

say it smiled, say it was kindly,

I’ll think of crooked yellow teeth

like misshapen kernels of corn, grimacing

through open husks, a sudden

split in the green of August.

If you go so far as to say 

he loved you, and you miss him,

I’ll glance away, remember the day 

you strode from the rows

to brush your teeth over and over, to scrub

garden dirt from your face, your knees,

your pretty lace socks.

If you utter a single word

about his sad end, twisted with palsy,

rotting bit by bit from cancer, 

I’m afraid I will laugh, twirl madly

with my skirts up around my waist,

letting the stench of his garden

fly off me into the wind.

At the time of the molestation, I did not my tell my own parents about what happened to me. I was afraid of the man, of his influence in the neighborhood, of the fact that his wife was my 2nd grade teacher and a lovely woman. I was afraid that if my father found out, he would kill the man and end up in jail. Fear = the enemy of Truth.

This remained a secret until 2003, when I finally confided in my mother. I might as well have not said anything to her. Her reaction was flat, somewhat unbelieving. She said well if that happened to you, I am sorry. She did not ask for details or ask me if I was okay. She simply turned the conversation to something else. Although she under-reacted, I did need to tell her for my own sense of well-being. I needed her, of all people, to hear it. To hear me. She just did not get it. Nothing I could do about that. There. Out. Secret told. Did I feel better? Worse? Honestly, her flatness just made me angry. But, Mr S and his disgusting garden were finally relegated to the compost pile. So, yes. Better.

What does telling this hard secret have to do with Truth (Big T variety)? It is a fact that I am not the first girl to be molested nor will I be the last. It (the poem) is only remotely about me, or even my friend, or even her grandfather. Here is where the Big T comes in: it is about the way men decide that women and girls are theirs for the taking. I know that somewhere a woman will read or hear my poem and relate. It is for her, and all of the rest that I tell the secret. Because I am a poet, my vehicle for telling is poetry.

You may wonder if the way the poem is written is accusatory of my friend. It is not. It speaks to her own silence. It is empathetic of that silence, while asserting that I could not deal with the silence. It isolated us both. Read the poem closely and you will see (I hope) that I have always suspected Debby was a victim too. I'd lay big money on that one. My regret is that we were never able to talk about it and be there for one another. She was sent to boarding school for junior high school and high school. I suspect that her parents knew what had happened and chose this way to protect her. I hope so.

I have written about hard things for a long time. It is a need I have to be more myself and less hidden. I was always myself inside, but as a bit of an introvert I kept myself closed. Why rock the boat? Why risk judgement or even retribution? I decided a few years ago that I would not be quiet (good little girls are seen, not heard). I wanted to be heard. I am still good, just no longer quiet. Risk-taker, not rule-breaker.

Web site is up!

The site is live!

What a learning curve this has been, with each challenge fraught with a bit of the crazy. I am pretty tech savvy, but all the code stuff and the settings required help from both rapid weaver (my building platform) and GoDaddy (my hosting and domain service)

The result of over a week of hard work to rebuild my web site is a site that is beautiful and functional.  I will be able to keep track of myself and my books, with a solid format for book sales and reviews and notes by me on the reasons and processes of the books as they are created and offered for sale. I think the site is easy to navigate for readers. It is nw easy for me too. I can add and change pretty effortlessly now.  Feels a bit like I just had a new baby.

So, please visit the site at www.carolbachofner.com and browse, read, comment, and ORDER books!

Enjoy.

PS
I need to mention here the person who built and managed my site for the past five years, DiTa Ondek. As I built this new site, following the news that DiTa was retiring from this work, I kept thinking how wonderful her help has been. Whew!

Building a new web site

My web master is retiring. She has been wonderful for several years of managing my web site. All I ever had to do was send things her way and voilà. Within hours or at worst a day, the new material would be there. The only drawback was that I had no direct control  over how the page looks or adding things on my own. I was the administrator of the site without direct access to administer. It was certainly workable and I got to be a bit lazy. I would say, please do —— and it would get done.

Fast forward to now:

She's retiring from 20+ years of managing web sites, building web pages, etc. Great job, but she is ready to be done. Therefore, I have to do it on my own now, including finding a place to host the site. This has sent me off on a BIG-ASS journey. I have until April 1st. Then my web site goes bye-bye. I am determined not to have this happen.

I am fortunate to have an involved husband, one with a few skills and more than a few ideas. He suggested I try something called RapidWeaver 7.5 to build (rebuild) my site. He suggested Go Daddy for hosting. They are where I get my domain name and renew it.

Based upon his suggestions, I immediately started the journey to autonomy as a web author and blogger. I had already been blogging (albeit intermittently) for years and knew I could simply link this site to my web site as it was linked previously. Whew. One less thing to do over. I already have the domain name, so I simply needed to renew it (which my previous web master had done each year). What needed to happen, the two BIG things were:

1. Get my domain administration moved over to my ownership and sign up for hosting services.
2. Rebuild my web site. (This is the BIGGEST thing, requiring loads of time spent and things to master that I have never tried before.)

Getting my domain administration moved to my ownership meant I had to send in my passport face page and my driver's license copy to Go Daddy. They need to know I am me. I suppose I could have waited for my current web master to send me the login and password, but she is out of town right now and I am impatient. After all, I need to be up and ready by April 1st. Tick Tock.

Rebuilding my web site is really involved and a bit complex, but also a load of FUN. I rely upon my husband to interpret things for me, but Rapid Weaver 7.5 is a treasure trove of things one can do to make a site beautiful, efficient, and user-friendly. My site will be uniquely ME. It will be interactive too, with opportunities for readers/visitors to chat with me via my contact page. I have a place to say why the person visited, what was most interesting and what questions could be answered by me. I love this!

I'm learning about plug-ins, stacks, links, and so much more. I think I am about 90% finished with the rebuild. I think I will be fully ready to go live on March 31st. That is my goal. I still have to put PayPal on my site for selling my books and artwork. I still have to tweak the way my books are displayed (stacks maybe?) and I still have to make sure all the pages are ready to be found by my site visitors, so I also need to add an SEO so my site pops up on search engines everywhere.

So, in the meantime, enjoy visiting the site and my blog as they are right now. I think (hope, plan) all will be smooth in the transition.

Why I Don't Write Novels

My husband loves the way I write. He says the words just pour out of you.  Of course I'm happy he loves the way I write. Today, however, he asked me why I don't write novels since I am so prolific. The man certainly is not afraid to poke me when he gets a notion. Sweet man. Poke, poke, poke.

I have long considered why I am a poet, why I don't write fiction. In grad school, my friend Audrey's husband admonished both of us to write something more economically productive. You girls ought to write "smut novels," he said. That's where the money is. We laughed til our sides ached. Smut novels... indeed.  We are poets. We are always going to be poets. It's in our DNA.

Many of my colleagues in grad school were concentrating their schooling on fiction, either short stories or novels. I am in awe of novelists like Janet Fitch (White Oleander is my favorite) and who hates a good short story? But write them? Sigh.

I joke with people when they ask why not write a novel. I tell them that whatever a novelist can put in 100,000 words I can do in 40 lines or fewer. Funny joke, right? Well, it is not so funny to me. I do not, just do not have the staying power to go 100,000 words to get across a single incident or point. I get bored. I get so frustrated that soon I am putting the thing into a poem and feeling darned satisfied if I do say so. And I do say so.

My friend Layne is an amazing writer. She was part of my grad school cohort but in fiction. My friend Nanci was also part of that cohort, but in creative nonfiction (aka memoir). Both of these women can write circles around me when it comes to prose. I love novels and memoir. I have always read both. But when it comes to writing, poetry is my place. It is how I think, all metaphor all the time. I love metaphor, word play, form. I think this way, much the way I dream.  Maybe I am a dreamer because of poetry, or maybe I am a poet because I dream.

I have studied under some pretty fantastic poets. Each class or workshop was like going to Disneyland for me. So many rides! Such a magical land. Look...over there... a woman who flies out of a castle! Each poet/teacher added something to my way of looking at poems, thinking of poems, writing poems. Even the least of these teachers added.

My father used to say to us find something you're good at and do that. Do that all the time if it makes you happy. Smart man. I know that my husband, in asking why I don't write novels, was actually asking me if writing novels might make me as happy as writing poetry does. He was letting me know that he sees my writing as perhaps more malleable and more open than I do. What he he has done however is to make me explore more deeply why I do what I do.

Novels are complex machines. They are also very needy. They want to be fed over the long haul with exotic foods like plots, rising action, climaxes, faux climaxes, falling action, round and flat characters, protagonists and antagonists. Denouement. My friend Layne did a presentation in grad school on the "W" of novel structure. Brilliant way to look at construction of a novel. I kept a copy and look at it from time to time, but every time I look at it, I realize that it is too much for me. It's like building a whole house with five bedrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, four baths, and a garage would be too much for me. I like working small. I don't mind working hard. Just small, please. 40 lines or fewer.

I did write a 100 line poem in 2014. That is 100 lines, not 100,000 words. Writing that poem was like running a marathon. When I was finished I wondered where I had been and how I got here. I will probably never write a poem that long again. And forget ever getting it published. Who would take on a 100 line poem?

One of these days I may do a novel. On my terms. A verse novel. Guaranteed it will not be 100,000 words. It will be a series of poem-like chapters with a plot line running through them. It will have characters and setting and action, rising and falling. Maybe Laynes "W" handout will be my guide.  Oh, yes. It will not be a "smut novel."

Support your local poet(s); a teeny tiny rant

Today I am going off the rails a bit to complain. I don't like to do this, but sometimes one must.  A complaint can sometimes seem like (or be) whining. I am not a whiner. But I do think I want to speak out.

I am what I like to think of as a poet's poet. I have been told this by not just a few people. I support poetry in many ways, not the least of which is buying poetry books, either for my personal library or for giving away to others or to public libraries and schools. I attend readings and book launches whenever I can. I particularly like to buy directly from poets at readings and book launches. If I cannot do this, I order them from publishers or find them in bookstores.

I think this is what ought to happen — because unlike someone with a film, a novel, or a memoir, poets do not get huge sales for their books even when they do sell them, unless they have the good luck to become nationally known. Even at readings, it is rare for poets to sell many books. There is interest in reading poetry, just not so much in buying it. I have noticed a phenomenon that is, frankly, quite disturbing. Some people attend readings and go up to speak with the poet afterward, but instead of buying the book from the poet, they will ask the poet to email a copy of a poem or provide a printed copy of that "special poem I loved so much which brought me to tears." I'd love to have a copy for my sister whose ..... can you send it to me?  I am amazed that some people think poems ought to be free, where they would never assume a novelist would give away a chapter. I've considered putting out a tip jar at readings, the way musical groups do at cafés and coffee houses. Suggested donation, $5. Maybe a "free" poem for your donation. By the way, at my readings I always have a door prize or two, usually one of my books.

We who write work very hard at our craft. To poets, every word is critical: right word, right place. Writing poems is not a matter of taking nice sentences and breaking them into lines (or it shouldn't be that). Poems are mirrors. They are magic boxes. They are clues and answers to the riddle that is humanity. So we who write them are careful. We know that the wrong word can change everything. It is a big responsibility. We FEEL that responsibility when we write.  The truth of the matter is that most poets are the starving artists we hear about in clichés. No, I am not starving. I am fortunate to be supported by a loving husband who is happy to feed me, and then some.

I am a writer, an artist. This is not a hobby. It is something for which I attended school, for which I earned two degrees. I am a professional. So are all of us who write and make books.

So if you have a book, I will buy it. If you hold a reading or a book launch, I will do my best to attend if I am in town where you are holding your event. I will buy your books there too.

OK, I am done now. I will keep this short because I have to dash off to get my free root canal.

365/365, a discipline

Today my chat with you is about discipline. No, not the "go to your room until you can tell me why you did that" kind of discipline. I'm referring to the kind where you set up a challenge for yourself to accomplish a task that will create a habit, bust you out of a locked door (artistically), or set yourself on a course to completion of a project. My project was to be 365/365.

For me, the discipline came sneaking in where I had not expected it. November is typically a writing month challenge. You've seen them: NaNoWriMo etc. November National Writing Month. I've taken a stab at these every couple years, to no good end. You see, I am easily distracted. Very easily. I'd write for a couple days and then remember a particular project and shift to that, or I'd start writing and the watercolors would call my name and I'd go paint. I realized a long time ago that I am scattery and random in my artistic practice. Ever hear that one needs to work 10,000 hours to be good at something? Yeah. But do those hours have to be in any kind of a time frame? How about spread out over 50 years? UGH. I am sure that is not the way it is supposed to go.

I want to be a great poet. Not just a good enough poet. Not even a very good poet. I want to leave something on this planet that might survive my mortality. Big goal, yes? Achievable? Maybe or maybe not. But isn't it about the journey rather than the destination?

My dear husband once said to me only a handful of poets ever really make it big. I won't go into how mad that made me other than to say that I was thinking why can't I be in that handful? NOTE: we worked out later why that statement hurt and why he ought to NEVER say such a limiting thing to me again. Love the guy. He is very supportive. I probably got overly sensitive when he said it. Happens.  But one good thing came from that incident as it haunted me like a crazy relative with an axe. I became more determined. I wanted to keep going.

In October of 2012, with the NaNoWriMo challenge on the horizon, I decided to go for it. But, as I am a fairly stubborn person, I wanted to do it my own way. So I set out to create my own prompts. I wrote a month's worth and put them into a file on my computer. I had difficulty writing just 30 prompts. I like to write them for the workshops I offer, a kind of nerdy hobby you might say. So for giggles I wrote a few more, then several more. I had over 60 more before the tv show I was watching had ended.  I knew I'd have use for the "leftovers" later. I began my writing project precisely on November 1, 2012.  A poem a day for 30 days.  Oh, and I decided not to veer off course by changing the prompts I had already devised. No matter what. Stay the course exactly as it was plotted. This was to change ever so slightly, but more on that later.

Once November was winding down, me chugging right along with a poem (draft of course) every day, it occurred to me that I might not be done yet. Maybe I would write into December, finish up the year. Good. Had prompts I could use. At the end of December, the 30th to be exact, I recalled that the writing the final poem of December fit nicely in with another discipline I have done for 18 years: write the final poem of the year on New Year's Eve and the first poem of the next year on New Year's Day (another story for another blog post).  I was already going to write one on January 1st. What the hell; why not just keep going. Do the thing for a whole year. Thus my 365/365 discipline was underway.

Discipline of any kind requires a certain amount of stamina. It means one has to keep going in all kinds of emotional weather. There is no day off for going to the beach or even for being down with a bad cold. One must be self-pushing. Oh dear. Could I? Would I?

I said yes.

Thus was my year-long discipline born. Yikes.

I decided to fine-tune. I wanted the prompts to speak to me as if freshly baked. I did not want to be aware of what the prompts were before I got to them. So, time had to be spent putting together a year of prompts. Cue me sitting in front of the tv, watching favorite shows as I created prompts. Multi-tasker is what I am. After all, I raised a flock of kids.  I divided the prompts into months, then weeks. I numbered them within each week, Days 1-7.  I created a folder and filled it, ready to keep going. It didn't take long however for me to decide to veer a bit from the never change a prompt no matter what plan. December 2012 bought an event that shook me right to the core of myself as a human being, as a mother, as a poet. Evil walked into a school in Connecticut and took the lives of children and teachers and staff. Evil walked right in and did that. I don't remember what my original prompt was for that day. I just know it was too much to write about something else. My poem, Lessons From First Grade, was the poem I wrote instead.

Lessons From First Grade

In the front row, a boy fidgeting 

with the buttons on his shirt. 

His mother lets him do them on his own

because it’s what mothers do

for their first grader sons. He hears

a sound and looks up to see a shadow:

Is it his dad coming home early? His

cousin bringing cookies for the party?

A loud noise. All the buttons 

pop off his shirt as he falls to the floor.

— and no time to call for his mother.

— for the children of Newtown, CT

I broke my promise to myself for these broken children. How could I not?

One thing we learn from undertaking such a discipline as this one, is that we poets, writers, artists of all kinds have the rare opportunity to stop and look carefully at the world, then render it in ways that help others see what we are seeing. We hold up a mirror and ask the world to look, to see what we see.

After the Newtown poem was written, I could hardly go on. Once I became aware that there was going to be no reckoning on behalf of these children in terms of changes to our laws, to our mechanisms of protecting the most vulnerable among us, I became sadder and more deeply afraid for what we might become as a world.

I was not ready to continue writing. But I had to.

The only other time during the year's discipline that I veered from the plan came in spring of 2013, four months after Newtown. A pair of crazy men decided to create death and havoc at the running of the  Boston Marathon. Evil walked the route of the marathon and turned a beautiful day of sunshine into a rain of metal, killing and maiming runners and spectators. This was not supposed to happen, but Evil knows no bounds. Of course the day's prompt had to be replaced. I had to do something. Mirror, world: how do you look as you gaze into it?

Marathon

Birds of spring swoop in low and land.

Runners gasping, sucking for breath

don’t think they’re in a race with death,

know nothing of the evil plan

of someone on this festive day.

Boston town, where patriots stood

their ground for freedom’s cause of good,

bloodied, cleft by terror’s sway.

Birds of prey, of metal pieces,

spew death and mayhem in the crowd

as two sharp blasts report out loud.

Helpers run straight into the fracus.

They give quick aid to everyone,

risking all to aid the dying,

staunching wounds, comforting crying

kids looking for their dads or moms.

Guardian angels overhead

watch with woe o’er the grisly scene.

With haloed heads bent low, they keen

a dirge for all the newly dead.

Heaven opens reluctant gates

to welcome those newly arrived.

Those whose bodies did not survive

an act of terror and of hate.

As darkness falls to darkest night

the city birds forget their flight

but perch the tops of wrecked remains,

a cordoned street of blood and brains

spilled out in such a gruesome deed,

its evil such an awful breed

which glories in its brutal ways

on such a happy peaceful day.

Once more, Evil had to be called out. What kind of discipline can we find to change things?

The next day, I resumed writing to the proscribed prompts with a gusto. I seem to have gained strength from weakness. I finished the project on October 31, 2013.  I was not even tired.

After the disciplined writing was at an end, I wondered what would become of these prompts and their resulting poems. Each month, week, day had taught me something about writing, about myself as a poet, and about the world around me. I had to share. But I needed time and distance from the poems to gain perspective. So, printed out and put into file folders (as well as in folders on my computer), they sat.  Occasionally I'd dig out a folder and read a bit.

I knew the poems were not quite finished, needed editing and revising. A few months ago, I got busy with them again, folder by folder, week by week, day by day. I began putting the prompts together into a manuscript, along with comments and sample poems. Maybe someone else would like to have the prompts, and a little insight from my discipline.  Just maybe this was worth publishing.  I decided to go for it. I decided that there also needs to be somewhere for people to read ALL the poems I had written in that year of discipline. 365 prompts and 365 poems. BIG book.

Perhaps there is another way. What about two books, companions to one anther, to be sold separately in case the reader only wants one or the other. Still, what publisher would want to take on such a project?
Time will tell. At this point, I have completed both. I have a cover and a title. Not sure if I am going to send it out or if I will publish as an eBook. At any rate, here is the cover.

The art work is my own, done in the late 80s. It is a digital drawing, Bird Heart.

Enough from me for today. I need to do laundry and call about getting my revised web site hosted. April is coming and it needs to be ready to roll out then. No time like the present. After all, I am a disciplined person, right?

Tomorrow? hmmmm