Tricks: For Kids, Artists, Poets . . .

Writing in books feels liberating, and can lead to strange literary discoveries.

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Trick Dog is a charming book published in 1923 by an author with an equally charming name:  Laura Lee Hope. Produced from 1916 to 1931, the Bunny Brown books show young protagonists in adventures at the circus, carnival, seaside, and other delightful settings.

But, alas, the charm is shortlived. There is no Laura Lee Hope. It’s a pseudonym.

Like the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew series, the Bunny Brown books were written by a stable of  writers that were part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. 

But wait! Is this common knowledge and I’m just now seeing the truth of my childhood faves? Is this the early dawn of AI, or just another case of unappreciated writers?

But no matter, the books live on.

Now, many of the vintage books are repurposed into modern journals. I love this re-use!

My favorite place to buy these creative remakes is Ex Libris Anonymous, a one-many operation based in Oregon and run by entrepreneur Jacob Storm Deatherage (another great name!). Like his vintage books, Jacob is charming and delightful, and with each order he often includes a kind and chatty note, along with ephemera found within book pages:  a grocery list, notes to self, an odd doodle.

Taking the re-use principle one step further, I turned the Bunny Brown pages into a series of erasure poems. In the spirit of use what you have — reduce, recycle, re-use. Who knows what you’ll make!

Chapter 1

Help

the empty feeling.

Shout for an

answer.

The Trick, 21

Dance a waltz.

Clap in delight.

Look smart.

Teach the trick of pretending.

Trick, 17

Time and love

is the only way to get through

the circus.

Trick, 19

Call the morning open

and lift a wish to be kind.

I know we can — for a moment.

 * * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Thankful Thursday: You

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more.

Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy, and joy leads to more appreciation. In this powerful loop, as we look for small daily pleasures our perspective shifts, and our attitude, too.

* * *

The other day, I stumbled upon, “You, If No One Else,” and it felt like the poem had found me when I needed it most. The poem, by Tino Villanueva, was published in 1994 and experienced a resurgence in recent years.

You know how it goes when time and circumstance meet in synchronicity: you make a new friend, read a good book, find a great poem. In the 1990s, the buzz phrase was, There are no accidents. (“Visualize Whirled Peas” was also a popular at the time).

It’s still hokey, but kinda true.

* * *

Because so much seems bad, I’ve been looking for the good.

Along with everyday annoyances (greedy corporations, grocery prices, health care hoops, people without empathy . . . ), politics are sinking my spirit and sapping my strength. I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying to see the good.

And then I found this nugget:

“If I want to have loving feelings (instead of doom, judgment and paranoia) I just have to do loving things.” — Anne Lamott

Oof, there you go. Simple and true.

* * *

The other day, while pacing the crossroad of overwhelm and despair, it struck me that no one was going to save me.

Most of us come to this realization early in life. As young adults it dawns on us that a parent or teacher or “person in charge” is not marching in to save the day.

So we grasp and grow and become increasingly self-sufficient. We accomplish, achieve, and feel the power of can-do. We learn this early and then repeat, repeat, repeat.

But some of us (me) get lazy. We rely on a partner, a friend, someone with knowledge, access, or power, to take care of business, to make things right.

But I have to keep learning the work of self-sufficiency, to dust off and walk away from wallow and tears. The message is pressing and clear: we have to get out of the self to feel the power of self.

* * *

Anne is right, and so is Tino.

It’s up to you and you and you, which is to say me, you, us.

Be the change. Remember that one?

Still true.

* * *

This tough-love talk has been brought to you (and me) by Thankful Thursday.

Today I am thankful for poems and people who urge me into action.

What are you thankful for today?

Good Books Lately + Suggestions

Always and again, books come to the rescue. In these trying days, reading is comfort, companion, distraction, and escape.

Here are a few of my recent favorites:

NONFICTION

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss

The ephemera of making — journal entries, napkin doodles, snapshots, sketches — is combined with conversations that get to the heart of art in this beautiful book featuring a series of interviews with artists of all kinds.

From famous to not-so-known, this hefty, beautiful book is a treasure (and a great gift for your creative friends). My favorite sections shine light on writers (of course): Marie Howe, Louise Glück, George Saunders, Suzan-Lori Parks, to name a few.

If you like this, try:

You Are An Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation by Sarah Urist Green

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp

My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennie Capó Crucet

In this slim book of personal essays, Jennine Capó Crucet, the daughter of Cuban refugees, shares the ways in which she finds herself a stranger in the country where she was born. Examining the political and personal challenges of identity, Crucet writes with candor, humor, and power.

I want to give this book to everyone I know.

If you like this, try:

Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennie Capó Crucet

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Wade

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey

I don't even play tennis — and I loved this book.

Okay, I do play pickleball, and that’s why I picked up this self-help classic. I quickly realized that the mental game is the real game in just about any pursuit.

Written in the 1970s, this treasure holds up across the years because it is clear, direct, and practical.

If you like this, try:

Inner Skiing by Timothy Gallwey

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Everybody Needs A Rock by Byrd Baylor with illustrations by Peter Parnall

Like a good rock, this 1974 children’s book is whimsical in its simplicity. Byrd Baylor’s straightforward prose, combined with striking earth-tone sketches, creates a charming meditation on nature and attention.

Byrd Baylor was called “the voice of the desert and its people.” She lived to age 97, off-the-grid in Arizona, and spent years protecting nature and wildlife, and assisting migrants as they crossed the Mexico border. Read more, here.

FICTION

FICTION

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

I don’t know how I missed this odd little gem when it debuted in 2010. But I’m so glad I found it, by chance at the library, proving again the value of our public institutions.

Writer Aimee Bender writes with tenderness and nuance for — not just flavor — but feelings. She gets in there, deep and perceptive, with a twist of quirk.

If you like this book, try:

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl

The Adults by Alison Espach

Asking for Love by Roxana Robinson

My mission continues: to read everything written by Roxana Robinson! This book of short stories is packed with tender, evocative, and intimate slices of life. Robinson masterfully explores the inner worlds of ordinary people.

If you like this, try:

Leaving, a novel by Roxana Robinson

The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson

They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey

Your Turn: What are you reading, and what should I read next?

What I Wish I Had Known

Lake Hattie, Wyoming

What I Wish I Had Known

 — for David

Whenever I think of that September,

I see the world in amber.

Well, not the world but

the lake. Late summer,

a September that was

still hot and the lake still cold.

A season of heat and high mountain wind

followed by days of mirror calm.

Across the water, vetch turns

the hillside into autumn plum

and geese honk across a wide quiet sky.

Butter, we say, when

 the lake is smooth as glass

and our skis glide easily along the surface.

It’s always water I remember.

It’s always too cold, but after the jump

 we call it refreshing.

I was young then

though I felt old. I had failed to shape

a career out of shaky confidence,

a marriage from exhaustion.

Have we always been tired?

Even then, the days were full and

we felt too many steps behind.  

I recall this now with some sort of whimsy.

The glass is dusty, the view distorted.

Time turns routine to ritual, mistake into lesson.  

I wish I would have known

that every small thing was just that: small.

A disagreement is not a parting. And sadness,

though pressing, will not erase you.

Doubt does.

But you keep walking.

Some days a crawl, some a skip.

You just keep going.

Whenever I walk into September,

I see you and me:  the icy plunge

in late summer heat —

the pierce of pain

the jolt of relief and

our sudden easy joy.

— Drew Myron

Thankful Thursday: Curiosity & Care

Viva Poesia! a handmade postcard & poem from Renee Gionet of Portland, Oregon.

AFTER a steady stream of arrivals, my mailbox is now empty.

I just completed the annual Poetry Postcard Fest, an organized commitment to write and mail poems on postcards to 32 strangers. Now in its 18th year, the event drew nearly 500 participants from nine countries and 46 U.S. states.

A postcard leaves little room to ramble. Every word counts and writing in the short form sharpens your skills — and fast.

Organizers urge participants to write spontaneous poems. This, they emphasize, is not the time to peacock your best work but an opportunity to write fresh and explore. 

Postcards: La Cathédrale from Diana Herrera of Washington; Pantone from Scarlett Watters of Colorado; Candle breath and shadows from Madison Hutson of Louisiana.

La Cathédrale - a postcard poem from Diana Herrera.

MANY of my poems were real clunkers — as first drafts tend to be — and I was initially embarrassed to share my rough work with others. But once I gave myself permission to stumble, I loosened and let the process become one of exploration and discovery. 

“That most of the poems I received were awful was beside the point,” says organizer Paul Nelson. “That most people were trying, were making themselves vulnerable and were learning little by little how to be in the moment and let the language itself have its say, was a victory.”

I looked forward to the daily writing practice. The bonus was receiving postcards and poems — in careful hand, in sloppy scrawl, with stamps, postmarks, and the fray of miles traveled. Cards arrived from Washington, Oregon, North Carolina, Louisiana, California, Canada . . . Nearly every day a new voice arrived —each unique, fresh, and willing.

New Yorker, a postcard and poem from Karyn Gloden of North Carolina.

AS the stack of postcards grew, I felt a thread connecting me to people I didn’t even know. We’re making things, I marveled, separately but together!

And just as I thought things couldn’t get better, I received unsolicited postcards from friends. They saw my enthusiasm for the project and joined in! (Thank you Dave, Candice, Fred & Carol).

Postcard penpals brighten the world.

IN this, I am reminded how little it takes to shift my mood, my perspective, my day. Maybe a postcard is just a thin piece of paper and a passing wave. But it’s also a small, great gift, sent with intention.

As postcard poet E. Tan wrote to me:

Here’s to curiosity and care today.

 
* * *

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

What are you thankful for today?

 
* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Fast Five with Kate Gray

photo by Jean Rosenbaum

“Writing in community is my kind of church.”

— Kate Gray

Welcome to Fast Five, an occasional series in which I ask my favorite writers five questions as a way to open the door to know more.

Kate Gray is author of the novel, What We Carry; as well as two poetry chapbooks and two full-length collections: For Every Girl, published in 2019, and Another Sunset We Survive, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award.

For 25 years she worked as a writing instructor at Clackamas Community College in Oregon. She continues to encourage writers in individual and group settings — from correctional facilities to online writing salons where she serves as volunteer, collaborator, and coach.

She and her partner live in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

“What do I love to do? Write. Talk about writing. Dive into writing with others,” says Kate. “I’ve witnessed writing transform people, open them like time-lapse photographs of blossoms.”

1.
Why write?

Writing is resistance. At a young age a teacher gave me a journal with the following quote in it:

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” 

I believe fiercely in this e.e. cummings quote, and for me, writing has always been my way to discover myself, grow, connect with others, create healing, community, and grace. Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to write and to resist the silencing, lies, denial, and destruction. We need the voices of love, joy, memory, the voiceless, the ones who sing in wind and water. We must write a new world.

2.
What do you enjoy about writing in community? How does this fill you?

Writing in community is my kind of church. I experience a collective effervescence, a communion with the sacred, and a sense of powers beyond ourselves. I’ve written in many, many different environments, from American Legion Posts to burlesque halls to Oxford University to monasteries.

When volunteering for Write Around Portland in Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, I heard the writers tell me they experienced the only quiet time they had in their week while we were writing. Think about that . . . They heard a clock tick only eight minutes a week.

During the time we had together over eight weeks, they also experienced a trust some had never had before, because we didn’t criticize or shame. We held up to the light what was good even if they couldn’t see it. They learned to see and value other women’s stories, and some learned to value their own. Being a part of their gaining empathy, trust, and confidence was so powerful for me that it was a big reason I decided to retire from academia.

3.
What’s the best — or worst — writing advice you’ve received?

One of the worst things a coach once did was monetize what she thought my unfinished manuscript would sell for. My dreams became tied to money rather than good storytelling.

One of the best lessons came from Ron Carlson, the fiction writer, who described his sons climbing one of the bunkers in a state park on the Oregon Coast. One son lifted up a hatch and shouted, “Dad, don’t you just love not knowing where you’re going to go?” and he jumped into the dark (and didn’t hurt himself).

If you let it, writing is like that, an adventure, a path you can follow with endless surprise and delight.

From For Every Girl: New & Selected Poems by Kate Gray

4.
What book (or poem) do you return to again and again?

I return to Robert Frost’s poem, The Star-splitter, to learn to be a good neighbor;

Jimmy Santiago Baca’s I am offering you this poem, to learn gratitude and generosity;

Danez Smith’s a note on the body to learn new ways to love;

Lucille Clifton to know joy,

Joy Harjo to know patience,

Li-Young Lee to know family,

Sharon Hashimoto to understand patriotism,

Brionne Janae to tiptoe toward forgiveness,

and so many others.

5. 
I’m a word collector, and keeping a running list of favorites? What are yours? 

Some favorite words:

murmuration

inchoate

hallelujah

boom.

Excerpt from For Every Girl: New & Selected Poems by Kate Gray

See America

For over a week, I’ve been studying the same image every day and seeing the same thing in new ways.

As in life, the more you see the more you see there is to see. And the more you know the more you realize you do not know.

The above image forms a writing prompt that I’ve returned to day and again.

The first days were pleasant postcard stops: 

Redwoods

If I touch the tree

that touches sky

that touches god,

does that place

sky & tree & god

in me?

_____

And then I looked closer and saw a forest on fire, a world of rot. The poems got dark and worried:

See America —

In its glory

In its gore

In stars & stripes & rally calls

In parched earth and oven heat

In hurricane wind and drowning cities

See America arrested   beaten   deported

In orchards and farms       in fear

In high prices and homeless living

See America in denial      despair

undecided     immobile    on fire

See fever     See futility     See me

Stop. See how the redwood stretches

to reach an endless sky. Can we, though small —

stand tall with this conviction?  

_____

Because every day is a new crisis, the latest poem came unbidden but not unexpected. Chaos is calculated. But voices are rising. Even our local weather reporter is chiming in:

“We are seriously like the frog in the pot of warming water here. Kinda like we are in this nation — the water just gets hotter and hotter,” writes Temira Amelia Lital.

“First we have masked goons refusing to show identification and picking up people (documented and not) off the streets and at the borders and locking them up. Next we have unarmed military in the streets. Next we have armed military in the streets.”

“You might not be noticing this because it's happening bit by bit and isn’t happening to YOU specifically. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. We do not have military in the streets in this country. You should be concerned, whatever political affiliation you hold.”

_____

As the pot boils, political leaders are speaking out:

“I want to speak plainly about the moment that we are in and the actual crisis, not the manufactured one, that we are facing in the city and as a state and as a country,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker this week in response to news that Donald Trump is planning to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago, just as he has in Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

“If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country.”

“This is exactly the type of overreach that our country’s founders warned against. And it’s the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances. What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal, it is unconstitutional. It is un-American.”

_____

Writers (even quiet poets) are urging action:

“Writing is resistance,” says Kate Gray, a novelist/poet.

“Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to write and to resist the silencing, lies, denial, and destruction. We need the voices of love, joy, memory, the voiceless . . . We must write a new world.”

_____

What to do? What to do? I feel the futility.

But awareness is action, and we can read, learn, listen, act.

Start here:

Letters from an American: Heather Cox Richardson
Through daily letters, an historian provides thorough insight of the past that shapes and forms the political present.

Five Things You Can Do: Robert Reich
A professor, writer, and former U.S. Secretary of Labor provides political overviews and practical actions.

The Christian Left: Faith & Social Justice
Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, 
you did not do for me.

_____

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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A New Way to Read My Work

Dear Reader,

First, thank you. Whether you’ve been reading since the early days — since 2008! — or recently subscribed, I’m grateful for your time, attention, and encouragement over the years.

After nearly two decades of blogging, I’ve decided to share my writing on Substack too.

If blogs are so 2005, Substack is very 2025. Well, really, more like 2020; but that’s me — never a diver, always a wader.

Substack is a platform that allows writers to publish and distribute newsletters to subscribers, with free and paid subscription options. 

My newsletter will always be free.

Why Substack?  It’s simple: I want to make it easier for more people to discover my work, and for longtime readers to more easily comment on and share posts.

You can continue reading my blog here as you always have. Nothing changes here.

But if you’d prefer to get my writing delivered in an easy-to-read format, or if you’d like to help me reach new readers, you can subscribe here:

• Subscribe on Substack

As always, I’ll publish regularly here on the blog, so please stay here if you’re comfy. I'm simply adding Substack as another access point.

Thank you for reading & writing & making with me.

With respect & appreciation,

Drew

Send Joy

The elegant sweep. A shaky scrawl. Postmark squiggles and fancy stamps.

Getting real mail from a real person is such a treat.

“Send mail to someone you like, miss, admire, appreciate, etc,” says Rob Walker, author of The Art of Noticing. “I am here to tell you that getting fun physical mail is a source of outright joy.”

Yes, yes, yes. I’m nodding in excessive agreement.

I love a long missive spanning pages. Or a spare message squeezed into a tight space.

Consider the humble postcard. It does not lecture or linger, does not stay too long or ask too much. Its beauty is brevity.

I’m deep into a postcard exchange. Poetry Postcard Fest is an annual effort that involves sending a postcard every day for one month. It’s a great writing exercise, but evenmore, it’s a delight to send & receive old-fashioned, human-made correspondence.

This is the promise of a postcard: To see and share, to notice a moment, a thought, idea, a want and wish. To reach out while reaching in. To write by hand, by heart.

Thinking of you.

Wish you were here.

Missing you.

Each day I walk to my mailbox and open joy.

Want to change the world, or just brighten it a bit? Do one small thing that makes a difference: send mail.

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Thankful Thursday: Glide

Steady rain on the river today

and we paddle through the pour.

Calm waters quiet the mind

and I finally feel the glide.

Hush, muted, muffled, tranquil, peaceful . . . I’ve run out of words for quietude, but I never stop looking — for the moment and the telling. This week I am thankful for light rain, a shift in perspective, a gentle river, steady love, and this poem:

Haiku (for you)

love between us is
speech and breath. loving you is
a long river running.

— Sonia Sanchez

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

What are you thankful for today?

 * * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Rest(oration)

What did Clarissa figure out — so many years ago — that I still can’t grasp? I want to feel the shake of joy. I abandon myself to joy. That’s a worthy aspiration.

This week, I abandoned myself to rest.

Not by choice, but by sickness. Nothing serious, though in the throes of minor malaise everything feels serious. Ravaged, wracked and aching, I moped through fatigue, despondence, sadness, and sloth.

I slept for days, the body commanding pace. And lazed on the couch, consuming movie after movie. Swedish! Spanish! German! All the foreign films that usually feel like too much work. But reading subtitles, I’ve found, is an excellent distraction from your aches and pains.

Some favorites:

Familia is set in Baja, Mexico’s wine valley and features a full-bodied, tender depiction of family bonds. Light on action and heavy on dialogue, this 2023 film feels emotionally real. I loved it!

Adolescence is “harrowing but heartfelt” four-part series that follows a family ripped apart when a 13-year-old student is arrested for killing a classmate. The fictionalized story is brought to life by telling details, taut acting, and tight camerawork. It’s intense and captivating.

The Breakthrough is a clever and sensitive Swedish four-part drama based on a book by a journalist and genealogist. Unlike many in the true-crime genre, this taut series avoids exploitation and instead aims the focus on police procedure, technology advances, and humanity.

Any Day Now — I loved this television series when it aired in the late 1990s. The show centers on the friendship of two women, black and white, who grew up in the 1960s. Lorraine Toussaint and Annie Potts star as the lifelong friends who openly explore race in their lives and community. While this show is not available on any streaming platform, a super-fan has uploaded every episode to YouTube, where you can watch for free.

I also caught up on popular culture, watching every season of Hacks (seasoned comedian paired with young writer — loved it!) and White Lotus (I get the appeal; it’s an elevated soap opera in a pampered setting).

In my hazy retreat, I also continued my pursuit of reading every single thing written by Roxana Robinson.

And then, quick as a wink (or a few days slumber) the illness lifted.

I showered, dressed, and returned to the world. My restoration complete.

How about you? How do you rest and restore?

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Small Things: Summer

Small Things: Summer

help me remember

the smell of dewy mornings,

the pull of a distant train,

the air as it turns from

stillness to breeze —

all this longing just

out of reach.

• • •

At the Funeral

in summer heat

old friends gather —

the buzz of history

• • •

Cherries

in the orchard

limbs laden with fruit

we pick joy

— Drew Myron

River Notes

In the Canoe

Set blade,

pull water,

open heart.

In each breath

I find my self.

Paddles up, paddles ready, set, pull.

All together — timing, timing, timing.

I miss a stroke, and then another.

Too long, too short, too fast, too slow.

Set, pull, open — again, again.

Feel your feet, knees,

hips, abs, lats, arms.

Chest open, eyes ahead,

and breathe,

and breathe,

don’t forget

to breathe.

I am one of six in an outrigger canoe.

Blood pumps, mind races.

A roar in my head, though the boat is silent.

A rush in the body, though the canoe is calm.

I huff and puff, lungs against wind,

against current, against body and mind.

Morning light,

clouds to the west,

easy water turns to waves,

white caps coming. And yet,

and yet, there’s a quiet on

this river I can almost reach.

Reach, the caller commands

and my body grows longer.

I am all arms. The mind cuts

chatter to three small words:

reach and pull

reach and pull

reach and pull.

This river is my metaphor and making.

Physically exhausted,

mentally full, emotionally spent.

And yet — like writing and love —

I keep trying.

As if repetition is mastery.

As if desire makes skill.

The canoe is now confessional:

The body is willing but wanting.

Too old, too slow.

Able but not athletic.

Still, here I am,

pulling, reaching,

tired and trying.

This body

holds secrets

in every breath.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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For This Freedom

1.
I’m thinking of change.

How it moves through time but sometimes stops and returns not to what is best but to what it knows. The rotten familiar.

Nearly 100 years ago, Langston Hughes wrote I, Too. The poem appeared in his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, published in 1926.

We think we have traveled, have leaned away from prejudice, have softened our hate. And yet, here we are. Back again, and still, to racial oppression and degradation.

We never left our ugly past.

2.
I love this country and loathe its descent.

Some of us — hopefully many of us —feel what poet James Crews calls an ache “for all the cruelty of this world.”

As the holiday nears, I brace myself for rockets and glare, for the boastful pride that can turn our flag to menace.

3.
“Find your own patriotism,” says writer Rex Huppke. “Speak loudly. Stand strong. And believe you have it in you to make a change.”

When I stand in protest.
When I champion and defend.
When I write these words to you.

I am saying: This is what democracy looks like.

This is the freedom I will celebrate and protect.

Quietly, steadily, without shame.

Thankful Thursday: Scattered Love

Gratitude by Anna Kamieńska, from Astonishments: Selected Poems

I wasn’t looking for gratitude but — like keys, reading glasses, the name of your best friend’s cousin — I found it while searching for something else. I was on the hunt for a book: The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda.

I searched my shelves and all the drawers jammed with misfits things. Deep in the darkness of paperclips, chapstick and old magazines, I found Astonishments by Anna Kamieńska. In a quick flip, the page opened easily to Gratitude.

This is life unfolding at its best: small random discoveries of pleasure.

I was full of thanks like a Sunday alms-box.

I read this poem and rushed into my own list:

Thank you for the cherry orchard laden with sweet globes of joy. Thank you for the lavender bending to the bee. Thank you for good books on long flights. Thank you for headphones that muffle the world. Thank you for asking me anything, everything, nothing at all. Thank you lungs and legs and dogged determination. . .

Gratitude is a scattered homeless love

Yes, exactly. Thank you, Anna.

I never found the Neruda book. I’ve bought and given away this book so many times I’ve lost track. But now I have the chance to buy it again, and fall in love and discovery once more.

Also, don’t you love these titles — Astonishments, The Book of Questions — ? My gratitude grows!

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

 What are you thankful for today?

 * * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Thankful Thursday: Note

Here we are again, already.

It’s Thankful Thursday, a (sorta) weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

What are you thankful for today?

NOTE

I’ve been having trouble

starting this note because

the light on the field stretches

to catch a gleam I cannot contain.

Threshed in appreciation, I have less

and less to say. Maybe the language

of gratitude is written in our steps

up a hill, in the mouths of stones

holding our awe.

— Drew Myron

 * * *

The world turns on words.

Thank you for reading & writing.

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• If you are here, reading this now — thank you!

Thankful Thursday: Proof

PROOF

I am drawn to stillness.

Despite weather and distance,

joy prevailed. I enter

a holy space.

— Drew Myron

These are tough days for thankfulness.

As I write, high winds are fueling multiple fires throughout the Columbia River Gorge (where I live). Twenty homes have already burned, and thousands more are threatened.

And it’s only June. And it’s not just here in the Pacific Northwest. And it’s not just fires.

We are living in extreme times.

Our right to peaceful protest has been twisted to appear violent and unlawful. Leaders are literally fanning the flames — by using military as political pawns, by using inflammatory language to ignite a fire — then stepping back to watch us burn.

It’s all so much.

I’m working hard to see beyond my frustration and fear. I’m working hard to find proof that joy prevails.

In that spirit, let’s share. Here's what I've found to appreciate this week:

• The 2025 Poetry Postcard Fest starts next month, and I’m gearing up! I’m making and collecting postcards, and getting excited to write and send short, spontaneous poems to complete strangers. Please join me!

• I read two great books this week: Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, and Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno.

• Happy birthday — this blog is 17 years old! Born June 18, 2008, this space is almost an adult. I introduced the blog as “a quiet place to share a few notes” and it’s still true.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for you. For keeping me accountable, appreciative, and grateful for things big and small. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy, and my joy grows when shared with you.

Thanks for joining me in this dim room with a soft piano.

What are you thankful for today?

___

The world turns on words.

Thank you for reading & writing.

If you’d like to read more, you can subscribe for free.

Try This: Lift & Massage

Things You Cannot See

The day stretches on. The charade apparent.

People place their trust in sky. Weather fills the frame.

“I don’t press the shutter,” the photographer says.

“The image does. And it’s like being gently clobbered.”

Ambitions in half-light create a complete hush.

So much happens before the click.

Sometimes you can see the strain

when breaking through gloom burns too much.

No one says “cheese.”

“See,” they say. “Me,” they say. 

But the command is a fleeting knowledge, and the image a mirror

that stretches time and truth. The stiff smile, a knuckled stare,

the squint against wind as shoulders graze in awkward want —

all is but a moment moving, a photograph catching

the fierce current between seer and seen.

— Drew Myron

This poem is a collage of lines from Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer by Arthur Lubow.

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Is your mind full, your mood sinking, and are you out of words to explain and express? Me too!

When I’m in that vacant space, I turn to books. To read, yes. But also to lift and massage. Much like a collage poem, or a scramble, the lift & massage is a process that involves skimming through a book, jotting down random phrases, rearranging in a way that feels orderly but also unexpected, then massaging — adding, subtracting, changing — each line until it is your own.

The trick is to massage deeply so that the writing is yours, though born from another. Plagarism is bad, attribution is essential.

Basically, the lift provides the first step out of thuddishness and into the mystery of making.

Try more tricks:
Overwrite
Scramble
Wordcatching
Cut Up
Headlines
Where I’m From

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The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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What’s Your Ritual?

Twice this week I’ve been asked, “What’s your ritual?”

It’s a fun question, and a great measure of imagination (or, in my case, limitation). People want to know about the idiosyncratic actions of others. A special pen, a catchy song, a lucky shirt?

What do you do to prepare for writing and life?

Short answer: I don’t light a candle, walk the streets, or breathe deep.

A RITUAL FOR THE SMALL-HEARTED

This is not a recipe, but a ritual. They are sorta the same but ritual has a pinch of magic, while recipe has detailed directions, ingredients you don’t have, and temperature requirements beyond your patience. Like my meals, I keep it simple.

I drink a cup of hot tea, the cliche of writers worldwide. I’m embarrassed to even share this “insider” tip.

I should have told you Diet Coke, which is my chemical favorite. Or a shot of tequila. Even now, hours from the sanctioned time for drinking, I can see the amber liquid in the small clear glass. See how it stands eager beside journal and pen? I can taste the burn that shakes me awake.

But no, it’s tea I prepare before writing. A ritual so pedestrian and routine, so ridiculously obvious. And it’s not even a precious age-old routine, or my grandma’s special-blend ritual. It's a recent acquisition — or maybe affectation — lifted from a writer-teacher I don’t even like.

It was January. I was glum. She led class in a whispered plummy British accent that was both clever and cloying.

It was a long winter, a bleak season. I struggled to write. I couldn’t climb out of myself without scratching others. I lashed out silently in a booming voice that did me no good.

“Make a cuppa,” she said the first day of class, encouraging a comfy tone.

Words matter and few things annoy me more than using sammy for sandwich and hubs for husband. “Make a cuppa,” annoyed me right out of the room.

I wanted coffee and frenzy. I wanted to thrash and feel, not settle in for cozy biscuits and warm comfort. Give me snot and tears, eyes rubbed raw and a fever running through the heart. I wanted lightning and shock.     

And then pounding stillness — the way the sky spins after a storm, the wind slows and the world takes a breath. I wanted reset. But not without purging the poison of guilt and grief.

I didn’t know how to get there. Desperate, I turned to that teacher with the forced cheer. Word by word, I swallowed my oozing collection of bitter resistance, lifted my pen, and made a cup of tea.

What’s your ritual?

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Read, Watch, Listen, Learn

Exercise the writing muscle — drew myron

The world is full and I’m always hungry. If we are what we eat, we are also all we absorb: sounds, sights, touch and more. Let’s fill up with good stuff.

Here’s what I’m reading, watching and listening to lately:

WATCH:

Latin History for Morons

I don’t know how I missed this stand-up “comedy” show when it first aired in 2018 — it’s still (or even more) relevant today. Actor John Leguizamo’s special crams 3,000 years of history into a 90-minute one-man show that reveals and corrects the whitewashing of American history. Now playing on Netflix.

LISTEN:

Edna Vazquez - Bésame Mucho

Are you sensing a theme here? I’m (still) learning Spanish and studies show that along with traditional class comprehensible input is an excellent way to further your ability to learn a language. I’m immersing myself in Spanish music, books, and history.

But really, I first heard Edna Vazquez more than five years ago at a Pink Martini concert in Portland, Oregon. Wowza! A powerful voice, full of vigor and passion. I blast her at full emotive volume and try to sing along. Each week I recognize more words, so really I am listening and learning.

And, yes, I am listening to Edna — and all my music — on CDs. Remember those? They’re back! Or, in my case, they never went away. I streamed Spotify for a short while but missed the ability to listen to the arc of a full album. Plus, I am frugal and it pains me to pay for yet another subscription (looking at you, Adobe, Microsoft, Apple TV . . . ). Turns out I’m not alone. I take heart in knowing this guy shares my attachment to 1990s music technology.

READ:

“But the finish or start of a story is often frayed and full of holes, and nothing ever opens or closes where or when we think it does.”

This line, from a short essay by Barbara Hurd, appearing in Brevity, is running through my mind.

Read the brief and beautiful piece here.

Barbara Hurd writes with incredible attention to detail, capturing the turmoil and beauty of both the natural and inner world. My favorite of her many books is Walking the Wrack Line, a collection of essays on what washes ashore. (Her work inspired my own wrack line piece here).

WRITE:

This week I wrote a poem, a letter, and the perpetual grocery list. All because I first wrote with others.

I’m grateful for writing groups, though I’m not really a “team” player. I prefer the solitude of self to the pressure of a crowd, but in a writing group I feel boosted by goodwill. It takes courage to write, to listen, to share. Writing with others is a vulnerable act that requires open heart, open mind, and trust.

And it’s (usually) worth the risk! The more we exercise the muscle, the stronger we get, and the more we want to write. It’s a beautiful circle.

Your turn: What’s filling you up? Books, movies, stories, songs . . . ? I’d love to hear from you. Write to me.