Telling

I’m not a fan of the memoir. All that disclosure. All that self-absorbed recall. In this age of tell-all and tell it well, my tastes seem woefully out of step.

When it comes to reading for pleasure (and what other kind of reading is there, really?), I want my books full of characters and tone, and a plot that offers discovery, even a painfully beautiful reckoning. I don’t go for the light stuff (too often) but I don’t want real life – the memoir -- to intrude on my mental adventure.

So it is with great surprise that I find myself immersed in Telling, A Memoir of Rape and Recovery by Patricia Weaver Francisco.

It is painful and searing and so beautifully written that I read it in almost one sitting. I only put the book down so I could step away to breathe. When the book was published in 1999, it was hailed as sad and wise, with writing both lyrical and electrifying.

Days before I turned the first page, I circled the book with apprehension, afraid to dive into such sorrow. But in just the first chapter, I was clinging to a life raft of pain, my knuckles worn and grateful. Weaver Francisco said she wrote this book for “the men and women who are friends and spouses and fathers and sisters of rape survivors. It's a terribly difficult position to be in. Most of us have no idea what happens to a woman afterward, what to expect or what a survivor might need. We don't even know what questions to ask.”

I still don’t know. But I feel closer to the conversation now. With Telling, a heavy door has opened just enough to offer a slice of thin light.

You Reading This . . .

What took me so long to find William Stafford?

He is an Oregon icon, a Pacific Northwest treasure, and a prolific writer respected on a national scale (said to have written a poem each day, for decades). He passed away in 1993 but he left us with nearly 50 books of poetry and thousands of poems.

Here's one of my favorites:

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

— William Stafford
From The Way It Is
Graywolf Press, St. Paul, 1998

Forecast

 

So many of the swell things in life — friendship and love, to name the most profound — succeed in a spirit of collaboration. Created by a blend of ideas and enthusiasm, the best combinations are rooted in trust, adventure and play.


And creative play is at the heart of Forecast, an unusual word-art collaboration that combines my poetry with 12 brilliant interpretive paintings by Tracy Weil.

 

For Forecast, I used my obsession with daily horoscopes as a launching point to craft “horoscope poems,” a form that — like a forecast — directs and suggests. Complementing the poems are Weil's lively, abstract works. In a style that’s been termed “Dr. Seuss meets Van Gogh,” Weil paints imagined landscapes where realism and surrealism meet in a colorful world both playful and profound.

It’s been called a quirky concept, and indeed, Forecast is inventive and unconventional. And it carries a spirit of play that punctuates every Tracy Weil + Drew Myron collaboration.

As close friends and creative cohorts for over 20 years, we’ve generated numerous joint projects, from handmade books, to group shows, gallery readings and more. We revel in the creative process: the zing of a brainstorm, the aha! of ideas, the mystery of execution, and the complete joy and relief of expression.

And now we invite you to join in the fun!

Forecast
Featuring horoscope-inspired poems by Drew Myron
and interpretive abstract paintings by Tracy Weil

Opening Party on Friday, Sept 26 from 6-9pm
+ a Word-Art Workshop on Saturday, Sept 27 from 10am-noon
Show runs September 26 – November 16, 2008

Weilworks Gallery
3611 Chestnut Place
Denver, Colorado 80216
303.308.9345
www.weilworks.com

 

 

Letters written, sent, savored

To say what letters contain is impossible. Did you ever touch your tongue to a metal surface in winter — how it felt not to get a letter is easier to say . . . In a letter both reader and writer discover an ideal image of themselves, short blinding passages are all it takes.

- Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband


Is there anything better than a letter – for both writer and reader? I've always loved correspondence, the handwritten kind that takes time to unfurl.

I wrote my first letter to my grandparents who lived three states -- and a world -- away. I was 6, and I would dictate to my mother what I wanted to say. I would then copy her version onto my own paper, in my own hand. My grandma always responded right away (and my grandpa, too, with his own short postscript), and even included primitive, playful drawings of the Washington farm where they raised my father.

As I got older, penpals joined my address book. They were bookish, earnest girls like me, who lived in places I'd never been: Wisconsin and Texas and other exotic locales. No deep friendships formed, but I was happy to write cheery letters on specially purchased stationery. I was even happier to receive a letter in return.

How are you? I am fine.
Do you live by the ocean? Do you have a brother?
I have a dog we call George, but her real name is Georgina.

Later, letter opportunities increased: my best friend moved out-of-state, a boyfriend went to college, I moved across the country. I was jubiliant with the possibilites, but aware that my fondness for letters carried the melancholy themes of loss and change. After all, correspondence is created in absence. With each departure, there is sadness at the parting but happiness in the possibility that deeper selves might emerge across messy pages of real feeling.

But it's too much to ask, really. Letter writers are rare.

For over 30 years, my grandma and I regularly exchanged letters, until she died two years ago at the age of 95. My post office box is empty now but my email box is full. Though I'm grateful for any form of genuine connection, it's just not the same.

I miss letters, the way they slow time to invite thoughtful reflection for both writer and reader. I'm looking for gentle gestures these days, the curve of letters, the slope of a signature, the cross-out in mid-thought. Letters are tender reminders that feeling is first, just as e.e cummings says. One must pause, read, and then read beyond.

In a letter, writer and reader share a special language. In each envelope, we seal a message unsaid: I look for you in the pages, and see my own reflection, too.

Wordle

There’s no end to the treasures to be found while trawling the web. My latest discovery (thanks to Portland writer Michelle V. Rafter) is Wordle, a website that generates “word clouds” from text you provide, or — as I tried, at right — words lifted from your blog entries. You can then tweak the results by altering fonts, layouts and color schemes.

I know, what will they think of next? As if I didn’t have plenty of procrastination techniques to keep me from the actual work of meeting deadlines and writing responsibilities. Still, this is fun.


And free.

And creative.

And because I love words, I consider it my job to spend a minute (or 10) indulging in somewhat mindless, art-ish, literate fun. Don’t you?

Sandra says

“I think it’s important for writers to teach — not so that we sow more and harvest more writers, but for the real reason we write — we write to save lives, our own and the lives of others. I think we should be of service, teaching or doing something in the community to put our writing to use.”

- Sandra Cisneros, excerpt from The Writer’s Chronicle, Summer 2006.
Cisneros is the author of The House on Mango Street, and numerous other novels and poetry collections.

Write On!

Pens are poised and journal pages are fresh. Let the writing groups begin!


It’s the season of alarm clocks and cafeteria surprises. Lockers and gossip and a few classes in between. I’m revved up for a year of student writing, and happy to expand activities to the young set, students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade.

The Waldport Community Learning Center, Seashore Family Literacy and I have teamed up to offer three great writing groups and I’m looking for eager kids and adult volunteers. No writing experience necessary. Just a love of reading, writing, and the magic that happens when you put pen to page.

Here’s the lineup:

Happy Hour — for Young Readers & Writers
(3rd, 4th, 5th grade)
Meets Wednesdays, 4:30 to 5:30pm
Literacy gets fun in this hour of structured reading & writing games, one-on-one reading, library visits, and storybook tales. This group is offered through the 21st Century After-School Program. Parents may register students when completing school registration forms, or by calling Melaia Kilduff, Center coordinator, 563-3476.

The Writing Club – for middle school students
(6th, 7th, 8th grade)
A fun and engaging way for students to explore creative writing through writing games, walking field trips, word-art crafts, poetry and prose.
Meets Thursdays, 4 to 5:30pm
This group is offered through the 21st Century After-School Program. Parents may register students when completing school registration forms, or by calling Melaia Kilduff, Center coordinator, 563-3476.

Young Writers Group – for high school students
(9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade)
Students generate fresh poetry and prose during this free, weekly dose of revved-up writing practice. In this supportive setting, young writers share their work with the group, and enjoy feedback from adult mentors.
Meets Thursdays, 6 to 8pm (includes dinner)
This group is offered by Seashore Family Literacy. Students may register by calling Drew Myron, instructor, 547-3757. Class is limited to 12 students.

Collaboration. Combination. Crossover.

Call it what you want. I just know I like it. It’s fresh and invigorating and blooming all over: the cross-pollination of art and life. Art and politics. Art and poetry. Art in the everyday.


I love it.

We don’t live vacuum-sealed lives, with clear divisions between topics and concerns, passions and hopes. Why should art? Or poetry? Or politics? I say, take it out of the courthouses, the museums, the academic books. Blast poetry across busses and airplanes, write it across sidewalks and on grocery store floors. Wrap buildings in color, landscapes in cloth (e.g. Christo). Blend words and art and ideas together. Explore the push and pull of emotion and movement, reason and whimsy. Let it get messy and interesting and fun.

That’s just what a group of Denver artists have done with Dems Do Denver. To celebrate the Democratic National Convention in Denver (August 25 – 28, 2008), a handful of notable Denver artists have created donkey-themed, limited edition political buttons. The collectibles are just $4, with 10 percent of the proceeds going to the Denver National Convention Host Committee. (My faves are by Tracy Weil and Hadley Hooper.)

These aren’t the staid buttons of the past. It's politics retooled to reflect today’s willingness to try new things. With these buttons, and in many artful collaborations, there is a suggestion of hope, a willingness to see things in a new light.

Though really quite simple, these crossovers have the power to make real and tangible change. Art invigorates the soul, strengthens the mind and helps generate other art forms. Ideas are born and an audience grows. A momentum feeds movement and, ultimately — hopefully — a greater good.

And all that for just four bucks.

In the everyday

Poetry lives in the everyday, I tell my young students. In what you feel, what you see, and what you say. They want to be poetic, and so they’ll use words like regret and sorrow. They’ll force rhymes and take a brooding tone. At just 10 to 13 years old, they believe — like many adults — that poetry is a string of forlorn verse.

But I take the Naomi Shihab Nye perspective. Nye, an Arab-American poet living in Texas, has been called “a champion of the literature of encouragement and heart” (by William Stafford, another great poet and an Oregon icon).

Nye believes poetry resides in the little things, the big things, and in the ordinary spaces inbetween. In Valentine for Ernest Mann, she writes:

. . . So I'll tell a secret instead:
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 . . .

And so, with Nye as an example, my young charges and I look for poetry in shadows and shoes. We take walks to experience ordinary life with fresh eyes. We gather words and sounds and listen for poetry in traffic and horns, in shouts and silence.

A few weeks ago, I shared Nye’s collection, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls with my 10 year-old niece. Kimberly is a bright and curious girl who loves nature and science. Within 10 minutes of cracking the book, she was inspired to pen her own poem. Now, that’s the poetry spirit!

The sun is high
The moon is low
The day is bright
And the night is cold
The stars are my nightlights
so I don’t get scared
My father said, don’t burn
out the lights
so that is why I
use the sky.

I love this piece. It’s fresh and unaffected. It doesn’t try too hard. Kimberly saw poetry in light and stitched words from the sky — and we can too. When we pay attention and write from everyday experience, we're all poets, at any age.

What does it mean?

How does a poem arrive? Develop? And what does the string of words -- placed this way and that --- mean, anyway?

I don’t know. Again and again, I don’t know.

And sometimes, even as the author, I don’t know what a poem means. Often the tone, the mood, is more important than the meaning. And sometimes meaning surfaces long after the pen rests and the page turns.

I wrote this poem over a year ago, but it is only now — as I experience friends and family in the throes of pain – that I understand what's been said.

Wounds that Bind
for Cindi

The hand that feeds the fire has no recipe.
You don't know what you're fighting so you
fan out      like a surgeon, mend endlessly,
step across hard shadows to stitch the awkward girl
in the corner.

Awake for days, walking through meals,
the moon births new     chaos
You hear lullabies.
You, baby flame, extract conscience
but mandate sedation
You know the price of wide awake.

Words rise

We’re in a bout of sadness. Loss swirls around our house, hits family and friends and turns a breezy summer into a deep, dark season of sorrow.

In the midst of beach vacations and late-night parties, sorrow seeps into happy occasions and my mind worries on the recent string of life-changing events. Just one is devastating enough but this time they come in a clutch, one tragic turn after the next: a young girl raped, a teenager killed, a trio of youngsters taken in a fire, mothers mourning, fathers angry.

In this conflicted season, I am out of words that will assuage events that make no sense, that break rules and wreck lives. And so my mind can only pick words from stilted air, settle on sounds that will describe what my spirit is too heavy too hold.

Words rise, not in a string of sense but in single sounds: tragic, inconsolable, broken. I’m collecting words and applying them like a balm, a gentle rub to every aching thought.

It’s not the direct hit that hurts but the inability to make things better for those I love.

Once, when I was distraught with slow change and my powerlessness to do anything of immediate value, a friend offered a simple solution: Be present, she said.

It seemed so simple. Too simple. But it was the best and most I could offer. I was present. I showed up. I paid attention. It showed dedication and interest. And it worked. And soon, being present turned into being useful.

I don’t know what to do now with the grief that consumes my family and friends, my heart. I’m standing here, waiting for words and action to rise again.

Sea lions, starfish and silence

Silence.


Simon & Garfunkel sang its praises and Ode magazine devoted an entire issue to its value. As an introvert who has learned to turn ‘on’ when required, I’ve always felt most at home in quiet.

Last week, as I made a mad dash to attend the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference in Seattle (Prizes and Surprises! For all the juicy details, click on Poetry at right) I was reminded of the solace that silence brings.

Mad dash, in this case, meant a two-hour drive to a small airport that took me to a bigger airport that took me to an even bigger airport.

It had been a full week with a houseful of loving, enthusiastic family who were visiting the Oregon Coast for the first time. Our happy band enjoyed a full week of lighthouses, beaches, kayaks, forests, bayfronts, sea lions and starfish.

In the midst of all the fun, I got a bout of the stomach flu and spent 24 hours queasy and weak.

By the time I raced to attend the conference, I was spent. When you live a quiet life — as I now realize I clearly do — it’s not obvious until you experience unquiet.

I often rail that our (the collective our meaning, I suppose, everyone else and sometimes me) fascination with connection has made us chatty but no more connected. Cell phones, email, and yes, even blogs like this, contribute to the white noise of our lives. We’re all talk and not much listen. We’re screaming to be heard.

But when no one listens, the noise level must increase until the racket is just normal. When we are — miraculously — faced with silence, fear takes the place of noise. We don’t know what to do with our minds, so full of banter and chatter. We feel a need to fill the space and so we reach for the ipod, turn to the computer, turn up the tv. It’s too much to hear our own still voice.

And what a loss, this quiet erased.

How did silence become so scary? I’m tempted to say this is a generational issue but that’s too easy a dismissal and inaccurate, too. I know many people my age, and older, who feel edgy in the empty spaces.

Of course, silence is far from empty. Even the quiet is alive with sound — hums and buzzes prevail. Nature, so seemingly serene, is — when you really listen — bursting with sound.

In silence — when the mind is quiet, receptive and at rest — words rise, songs take shape, paintings form. Inspiration is surely rooted in quiet, in a willingness to be, not do.

I am lucky. I have always considered quiet an ally. Just as a cell phone needs a battery charge to take the next call, I need quiet to replenish my mind and body. I need the equilibrium silence provides.

And so, my two-hour drive to the airport was wonderfully silent. No radio or cd. No cell phone. No last-minute plans and worries. I crawled into silence and clung to its comfort.

When I arrived, my head was clear, my body rested, and my enthusiasm restored. Even my voice, when I spoke again, was hesitant and thin, as if it too had needed the rest.

Talk less. Listen more. I’ve always appreciated the sentiment but today I appreciate it even more. When we value the restorative power of silence, we don’t see the adage as an admonition but as a coveted invitation.

Solo, not alone


To travel is better than to arrive.

— Robert Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I had forgotten how much I like solo travel. Something about being alone allows the mind to wander, the heart to open.


Traveling with a spouse or friend allows the thrill of shared experience but traveling solo provides unexpected opportunities to meet ordinary people that, in the right mind, seem especially warm, kind and interesting. I had forgotten the pleasure.

On a recent trip I must have been especially open and receptive because I met people at every turn:

• A woman who worked at Boeing. Thirty years ago she began as a data entry clerk and steadily worked her way up to mechanical engineer. “It’s not hard,” she said, seemingly very humble. “I took classes they offered and they even paid me to go to school.”

• A truck driver and I shared the very narrow, very back row, of a very small plane. Before a knee injury last year, he had worked 17 years transporting goods for FedEx, which required fevered three-day hauls from Chicago to Portland and back again.

• A kind Canadian couple returning from a three-week excursion through Europe. It was late and they had been traveling toward home for 24 hours. Though worn and weary, we talked and laughed for nearly an hour, and they shared with me their English chocolate, a souvenir from their travels.

Earlier in the day, as I grew exasperated with my delayed flight, I met a man suspended in airport limbo.

Since his wife's passing four years ago, he had retired and spent all his time traveling the country to be with his grown children and their youngsters. But on this last trip, his car broke down. A new engine was required. The car was towed home but he was stranded in the airport. One flight was cancelled, another delayed. He was now stuck in the Portland airport for endless hours, far from home.

And because he and I were so chatty, he did not hear his name called for his stand-by flight. He missed the plane but was unbelievably unruffled.


I noted his admirable attitude and he answered quite matter-of-fact. “When I was 20, I would have been arrrgh,” he said, clenching his fists and knotting his face, “but what are you going to do?”

And, as if the universe was rewarding his calm, he made it on another flight — mine — that departed just a few minutes later.

It’s true that when you see goodness, it’s easier to see more. In turn, it’s increasingly easier to feel happy, and pass it on. It’s simple, yes, but I forget. Solo travel helps me get quiet inside, so my outside can allow.

That night, when I reached my destination, I was buoyant in the conversation and accomplishments of fellow poets and writers. My delight took a new hue. It wasn’t my own happiness I was feeling but the many individual joys given kindly to me throughout the day.

Kick the Critic

The world, and my head, is full of critics.

Big talkers with sandpaper voices that cripple every action with an overwhelming fear of mediocrity. When my inner critic is louder than my mind is bright, I go to the experts:

Natalie Goldberg, who wrote the classic Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, encourages writers to kick their critic to the curb. And indeed, in my copy (circa 1980s) the chapter Trouble with the Editor is dog-eared and nearly every passage is underlined.

Anne Lamott’s self-deprecating wit and tender humor always move me to a place of possibility — and my inner critic rankled enough to go away. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life is her classic how-to book. Fortunately, this ‘manual’ is more humor and heart than step-by-step guide.

But sometimes even the ‘experts’ aren’t enough. To keep my mind encouraged and my spirits lifted, I have this touchstone at easy reach:

Keep the Channel Open

A letter from Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille

There is a vitality, a life force,
a quickening that is translated through
you into action. And because there is only
one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through
any other medium, and it will be lost.
The world will not have it. It is not your
business to determine how good it is,
nor how valuable, nor how it compares
with other expressions. It is your
business to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself
or your work. You have to keep open and aware
directly to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open.

Secrets & Stories

It’s the summer season, and seemingly every publication is touting its Summer Reading Guide. Oprah’s O magazine, Poets & Writers (with a cover photo of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses!). Even the Oregonian has devoted pages and pages to their must-read recommendations.

But I just can’t do it. I’m not feeling lofty or ambitious. The days are long, the sun is shining and my attention span is shorter than my daily horoscope. As much as I really do intend to read Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I’m just not there yet.

Instead, I am obsessed with quick, voyeuristic fixes like these:

• Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure
This beefy collection of six-word memoirs, compiled by Smith magazine, offers a blend of the pithy, sad and inspirational. Dubbed as “America’s haiku," these ultra-short autobiographies are addictive little gems.

Started small, grew, peaked, shrunk, vanished.
- George Saunders

Danced in fields of infinite possibilities.
 -Deepak Chopra

• PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
PostSecret began in 2004 as an art installation project by Frank Warren. It's catapulted into a community art project with numerous book compilations, a thriving website, and its own Wikipedia entry.

The concept is simple but profound: People anonymously decorate postcards and share secrets they have never revealed. More than 200,000 secrets have been collected, ranging from admissions of infidelity and criminal activity to confessions of desires, dreams and embarrassing habits. The artful mini-canvas of a postcard, combined with raw truth, is a compelling — and, at times, heartbreaking — combination.

"I think we all have secrets," Rick Warren said in an interview that appeared on Geek Gestalt, "and I like to imagine us keeping them in a box. Each day we face a choice to bury (them) down deep inside it, or find the box, bring it out in the light, open it up, and share the secrets with the light."

Find Your Place

The book is out!

Find Your Place, a book of poetry and prose from Seashore Family Literacy, has hit bookshelves everywhere — or rather, a couple of libraries, bookstores, and kitchen counters across the central Oregon Coast. But it could be everywhere — and it could be yours!

The 64-page book reflects the work and spirit of the Young Writers Group, a collection of students age 14 to 21 who enjoy writing practice with a supportive vibe. Students and adult volunteers meet every Thursday evening to write together in a place where it is safe to reveal the darker (and occasionally, lighter) side of life.

I’ve been a volunteer with the Young Writers Group for nearly four years. And, I’m grateful to feel I have found my place. I like to say that “poetry saved my life,” and it’s true. But it’s this endearing group of misfits and upstarts that expanded my heart.

Do you want to feed your mind, encourage young authors and celebrate the power of the writing process? Find Your Place is available for just $10. (And all proceeds go to the writing programs at Seashore Family Literacy, a nonprofit organization).