Off the wall, out of the book, into the world

. . . Poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them . . .

— Naomi Shihab Nye
from Valentine for Ernest Mann

Poetry isn’t hiding anymore. Isn’t gathering dust in tomes of required reading (all those heavy Norton Anthologies breaking the backs of beleaguered students). Isn’t sitting in the back row, waiting for National Poetry Month when it can, albeit briefly, dance and sing and mean more than iambic this-and-that.

Poetry has a new gig. It’s bold and creative and — gasp! — commercial. Poetry sells, and that’s not so bad.

I’m heartened by recent marketing efforts that play with words and invite poetry to the creative party.

• Microsoft’s newest ad campaign features bold Blackout Poems seen in two-page spreads in dozens of national magazines this month. The form (sometimes called ‘found poetry’) has recently gained a loyal following, due in large part to the work of Texas writer and designer Austin Kleon. See his work here.

• Grey Goose Vodka is getting a word groove, too, with a full-page ad presenting a poetic toast:

A Toast

To the future
To hope
To home
To family
To good friends
To peace
To love
To a great year
To good times
To mistletoe
To seeing you soon
To all of us
To the two of us
To tonight
To last night
To a few days off
To new beginnings
To memories
To 2008
To 2009

• Even Safeway is going poetic. In many stores, the floral department is now clearly marked with large letters declaring Poetry in Bloom.

Wallflower no more, poetry is out, loud and proud. Have you found poetry in unexpected places, from unexpected people? What poems are playing near you?

Moxie, pluck, grit

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

— e.e. cummings

Savor & Share

Poetry opportunities, they call. So much to create and explore. These ones are so good, I’ve got to share:

Judyth Hill – my first poetry instructor and favorite role model – is leading a two-day poetry workshop in Mexico next month. Don’t miss this. The author of six books of poetry, Judyth has been aptly described as "energy with skin.” That’s no overstatement. Her creative energy, combined with her expansive writing career (poet, teacher, baker, food writer), invites and encourages liberation, invigoration and celebration.

Poetry Writing: The Sweet Ecology of Manuscripts
Feb. 23 - 24, 2009
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
More details here.

• • •

On another note, and closer to home (well, my home, anyway), Declaration Editing seeks an intern to lend a hand with Four and Twenty, its short form poetry journal. The internship is unpaid, but the lucky helper gets to, among many things, sort through poetry submissions. (It’s the voyeur in me that goes giddy at the chance to sneak peeks at the work of others). And, best of all, thanks to our widening world of email and such, you can intern from the comfort of your own home. So Jetsons!

Go here for more.

• • •

Speaking of home — and the increasing ease of laptop living — now you can take part in a writing workshop without getting out of bed. Poetry for the People email class starts March 11.

In this six-week class, Portland poet Sage Cohen offers six lessons with six assignments completed in six weeks. The class is designed to boost and support writers of all levels and experience. I took this class last year and it provided much-needed focus and structure.

Get going, go here.

Where were you?

Where were you when the world gained hope and beamed with pride?

Yesterday, during the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama, I was in an airport terminal, huddled around a small tv with low volume and a cutting glare. A small band of us were waiting for a plane but fixed to the image of a man, and a moment, who made history while easing us from a painful past.

The concourse was hushed as the 44th president took the oath and addressed the crowd in a speech that carried the power of poetry.

The flight was on time and I rushed my way to a window seat, missing Elizabeth Alexander’s Inaugural Poem. Did you catch it? Did the words sing to you?

Alexander is just the fourth poet to read at a presidential inauguration, and she joins poets Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and Miller Williams. That Obama chose to include poetry on the momentous day speaks of a man, and a leader, who values the arts and the creative inspiration words can bring.

Praise Song for the Day

Elizabeth Alexander

A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.


Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Kaylin, who are you?

God Says Yes to Me

Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
And she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
And she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
Or not wear nail polish
And she said honey
She calls me that sometimes
She said you can do just exactly
What you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it okay even if I don't paragraph
My letters
Sweetcakes God said
Who knows where she picked that up
What I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes


I ran across this poem a few years ago In the Palm of your Hand, a poetry workbook by Steve Kowit (1995, Tilbury House Publishers).

Since then, I've shared it with many friends and writers, and have seen it posted on numerous websites and blogs. It's a great poem, full of sass and insight, but I have yet to discover additional work or information about its author Kaylin Haught.

In this age of Google and Facebook and instant knowledge of anything, anytime, I want more. Who is Haught? Do you know Haught? Has she other great poems? Kaylin, are you out there?

Bright ribbon unspooling

When the poetry is working, it doesn't feel so much that I'm crafting it as that it's presenting itself. Of course it's not often like this, but it has been -- the bright ribbon of the poem unspooling in my mind and waiting while my fingers fasten it to the paper. I've had that. God, I've had that.

— Beth Ann Fennelly


I’ve had it, too. Not lately. Not now. Instead, I have this:

Things to do

to avoid writing when writing — or the ability to write anything smart, clever, insightful or real— seems impossible, unbearable, improbable:

Check email. But don’t respond. To respond means you are engaged and engagement reveals the charade of writing.

Research poems. Look for the William Stafford poem you heard while listening to someone else’s more interesting conversation. Go to Google and discover, a half hour later, that the poem has no online home. You must buy the entire book. Contemplate an order. Recall your credit card balance. Rethink your instinct. Go back to search of poem. Read others, but quickly because you are supposed to be writing.

Go to Facebook. See if your ‘friends’ are doing anything you don’t know about, want to know about, slightly care about. Berate yourself for indulging in trivial distractions.

Hear other poets. Listen to readings of little-known poets in little-known places and wish it were you. Remember that they spent hours writing and reading and writing more. Look at your empty page. Compare and despair.

Eat. Reconsider breakfast. Cereal. And a spoonful of peanut butter. And a Diet Coke.

While wiping the kitchen counter, remember the load of jeans in the washer, the whites in the dryer. Fold the towels. Consider the stack of shirts to iron. Walk away.

Feel the pressure of a New Year. Revisit the vow to write more and eat less. Recognize the luxury of time. Kick yourself for wanting, wasting, complaining.

Turn off computer, or just the email. For one full day — okay, one hour.

Check email one last time.

Pick up pen. Don’t think. Forget and forgive, all you are, all you want to be.

— Drew Myron

To love, to try

Is love enough,
Or can you love some more?

— Michael Franti and Spearhead
Is love enough? from Yell Fire!

Traveling along Hwy 101 with the ocean at my side, I always crank the sound on this song. Twice a week, I drive to Seashore Family Literacy to share the joys of reading and writing with giddy grade-school girls, awkward middle school kids, and searching adolescents.

Is love enough
Or can you love some more?
It goes on and on and on and
on and on for a thousand years
What language are your tears?

We meet in the Writing Studio — not a classroom — and I don’t consider myself a ‘teacher.' Something more occurs. A fellow volunteer says he is haunted by the kids and I may be, too. Each session I go home full, holding words, struggles, sorrows and joys. My mind works every name and conversation in a sort of prayer, the way you worry a small stone in your palm until you know every contour and angle, every thin crack.

Genuine sharing stretches and marks your heart. Love isn’t enough. You feel capable of more.

The other day an ad caught my eye. January is National Mentoring Month and to promote its campaign ServiceNation.org wisely used an excerpt from a speech Barack Obama made last summer:

We need your service, right now, in this moment— our moment— in history. I’m not going to tell you what your role should be; that’s for you to discover. But I am going to ask you to play your part; ask you to stand up; ask you to put your foot firmly into the current of history.

Volunteer work is not just about giving. The emphasis on service is only part of the story. It’s not what I can contribute but what I get in return, time after time, week after week.

Like life, not every volunteer moment is stellar. The movies get it wrong, with the cliche of the man in the soup line who beams a toothless smile, or the child who masters reading and all turns well in her world. Some days are that great, and everyone goes home happy.

But most of the time, real change is slow and quiet. Often my efforts seem small and futile but I still go home satisfied that I am a small part in a bigger world. I have value and purpose, and I am capable of love.

It’s that simple, and that profound.

When the song asks Can you love some more? I eagerly agree to try.

Last light

I’ve never cared much for the hubalub of New Year’s Eve. The forced cheer wears me out. So, last week it was with vigor that I embraced a new sort of new year celebration.

A small group of us drove three hours south along the Oregon Coast to arrive at Cape Blanco — the most western point of the contiguous U.S — where we watched the sun set on 2008. In essence, we were the first to see the last sunset.

As the sun slipped in and out of a scattered winter haze, we sipped champagne, burned sage, sang songs, took photos, walked the lighthouse grounds, and recited bits of poetry and prose. It was the perfect marker of ends and beginnings -- and wonderfully free of false joy.

Cape Blanco on December 31 at 4:53pm

Drew Myron

On this last day
we stand on the edge of earth
and study the horizon for last light
From this western perch a rolling edge
swallows and surrounds

We spread our arms as the
smallest bird extends its wings
and despite its size
shoulders a trust that
hurts amassed will soften with time
that each day is fuller than the last
that everything flies and forgives

Wind presses memory
cups an ear to the thin wall of hope
answers every loud cry
every sudden turn
every call into the dark well
Says yes
maybe
wait

In this pale light
we peel the skin
of a new start
vow to say yes
quickly, kindly
We’ll talk less
listen more
feel the mark of every heart

As the sun sets
and a faint moon pulls
we dive into all we know
all we do not

all we forget
and forgive
all we hope
to love
to live

More than memory

We are more than what we remember; we are all that we have made.

— Inara Verzemnieks, reporter, writing about the handmade books by artist Shu-Ju Wang.

Shu-Ju Wang, a Portland, Oregon painter and printmaker spent the last year working with four senior citizen women in various stages of memory loss. Together, through conversation, painting, printmaking and collage, they chronicled their lives through artful, evocative artist books. Get the full story here.

Learn more about Shu-Ju Wang here.