The good find

The beauty of life’s good finds — a great bargain, a good book, a perfect café — is, of course, the thrill of the find.

The internet, with all its complicated connections leading down dark alleys of data, encourages the wonderfully imperfect art of stumbling. For example, the other day I finished Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It’s one of those fascinating reads that leaves you sated with a good story, uniquely told, and fascinated with the details. Frankly, as so often happens, I wanted more.

Longing led to Google. Once there, I skipped through a verdant field of daisy-chain connections. Junot Diaz led to Julia Alvarez (another writer raised in the Dominican Republic), which led to a commencement speech she gave at the University of Vermont, which led to a wonderful passage from writer Seamus Heaney:

History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

— from The Cure at Troy,
a play written by Seamus Heaney

In my wandering, I stopped here at Heaney. He seemed to say it all, and just when I needed it. And that’s all — and everything — a good find brings.

Heavy-hearted, ballot-ready

It’s the season of division. I’ve been here before and each time I arrive weary and bedraggled. With only a few weeks until the election, we have parsed and dissected every issue and idea, every offhand remark, every canned refrain. There’s not much left to examine, and so the tone turns divisive and ugly. And I turn inward.


I’ve reached the point in which I can no longer discuss the candidates. Not with friends. Not with family. Not even with the young writers I mentor, many who are voting for the first time.

The other night, during the weekly gathering of the Young Writers Group, I inadvertently entered the political waters. It was a jolt and a disappointment.

It began when one teen — not yet voting age — proudly showed me her Obama button. The girl standing next to her — also not yet voting age — showed her displeasure with a sneer and a sigh.

The three teens in our group who can vote, when pressed for their opinions, said they wouldn’t. They didn’t care. Politics didn’t matter. They didn’t know who to pick.

“I guess I’ll just talk to my friends and see who they want me to vote for,” said one young woman.

“Oh, I don’t really like politics and that kind of thing,” shrugged a young man.

I entered, then, with a bellow.

“Do you like to breathe clean air?” I asked. “Do you like to come here for the Young Writers Group? Because these things in your life are affected by politics. Decisions are made on your behalf. Funding for this organization, for schools, for parks, for this city. These things are decided by elected officials that you can put in place.”

The subject quickly turned, as it often does with a roomful of teens, and we reclaimed our normal — and less volatile — routine of writing and laughter.

My friend Auburn McCanta, who writes for the HuffingtonPost, recently penned a piece that touches on the inability to reach those we love. Its sentiment echoes what I experience with many of the teens I know whose minds and opinions are so young, yet so fixed.

In these last days of the election season, I won’t change your vote. You won’t change mine. I will not spar as sport. I will not debate in passing. There’s no apathy in my silence. It is simply fatigue.

Trying to Pray

This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes and think of water.

— James Wright
from The Branch Will Not Break

Sunny side on dark days

Who believes in horoscopes?

Sure, they’re fun and fascinating. I read at least three forecasts each morning. It’s not so much for direction but for entertainment value. The what-if, the fresh fiction, the potential a few lines can deliver.

Yesterday’s horoscope was such a lift that I needed just a half-cup of coffee to get a hitch in my giddy-up. (I don’t know who comes up with these idioms but I like to sprinkle them about in happy moderation. I mean, who doesn’t love to say She’s the bee’s knees, or He melts my butter, or That dog don’t hunt).

But back to the forecast. It’s a gem. Who wouldn’t be happy with this?

You may discover a new way of seeing who you are as the Full Moon activates your 2nd House of Core Beliefs. There's no need to hang out in the dark shadows today; walk on the sunny side of the street and let your positive thoughts set the tone for the days ahead.

And, indeed, the day was bright: A dear friend pulled through surgery strong and healed. A young woman offered sincere thanks for guidance and help. A teen girl opened her heart and shared a poem. And my mailbox brimmed with both a package of goodies and a handwritten note.

So, today, I’ve decided to stick with yesterday’s horoscope. I’m living it all week long.

While stocks crash and soar and dive again. While death penalty appeals are denied. While jobs are lost and families flounder. While bills rise and money sinks. While politics reach a screaming pitch. While nothing seems to make much sense, I will walk on the sunny side, setting the tone for days ahead.

Pollyanna? Sure. But what, really, is the alternative?

Poetry & the Postman

Poetry, letters and movies are a few of my favorite things so my heart was lifted when the three came together this weekend in one fabulous, forgotten film: Il Postino.


Set on a remote Italian island, Il Postino is the fictional story of a tender-hearted mailman whose life is transformed by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who offers lessons on love, life and poetry.

I’d seen the movie before — in 1996 when it was first released and hailed by audiences and critics alike — but I had forgotten the details of the quiet tale. So, it was a wonderful surprise to enjoy the film again a dozen years later, and from a fresh, poetry-loving perspective.

I won’t give away the details. It’s too much of a gem to let the magic loose. Just find it, watch it, and see your own ordinary life anew.

Poetry

Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age . . . poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, not silence,
but from a street it called me,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among raging fires
or returning alone,
there it was, without a face,
and it touched me.

I didn't know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind.
Something knocked in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first, faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing;
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
the darkness perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire, and flowers,
the overpowering night, the universe.

And I, tiny being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose with the wind.

Scratch (more) words. Make (more) art.

This is how it goes: You crack open a door to discovery and find an even larger room aglow with delights.


And so, in my fascination for altered books, I found Karen Hatzigeorgiou, an artist creating contemporary art in the form of altered books and collage. To say her work is stunning is an understatement. It’s a wonderful balance of color and meaning, image and substance. I could sing her praises for paragraphs but I will direct you to the real thing instead: http://karenswhimsy.com.

I am especially inspired by The Art of Happiness. In the poet/artist’s hand, the 1935 book, of the same title, became a tool for emotional exploration. The result is a work-in-progress journal of touching color, collage and ‘found poetry.' (Page 18 is shown above).

“The Art of Happiness is sometimes a book of sadness, disillusionment, and discontent,” explains Karen. “Still, it's important to note that it is also a book with an underlying current of optimism. And in that way, it has become much more of an altered book journal than I ever intended.”

Scratch Words, Make Art

I’m hot off the heels of Forecast, the collaborative painting-poetry exhibition at Weilworks Gallery in Denver, and riding the joy of word-art creations. In fact, I now see creative collaborations at every turn, and I couldn’t be happier.


My latest discovery was found at a website dedicated to Altered Books (I found this site through StumbleUpon, another wonderful creation. More on that in another post).

The site showcases visual poetry created by artists and writers who have blended forms by scribbling, painting and scratching through books. From a process of word elimination, poetry and art emerge. It’s clever, creative and fun.

Here’s the Idea: Cut the bindings off books found at used bookstores or thrift stores. Find poems in the pages by the process of obliteration. Put pages in the mail and send them around the world. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Many of these pages have been turned into books. Some into pages circling the globe. Still others are works of art, suitable for framing. The possibilities are endless, and I can’t wait to start!

The piece at right, Doubletake Poem 2, is by Donna Kuhn, a California artist.

Feed My Mind: Read!

I’m hungry for books. Banned Books Week is approaching and I am not-so-subtly hoarding good reads to sustain me through the painful reality that others want to keep me – and you – from reading what we choose.

I honestly can’t imagine a life without the books that supported and fed me along the path of childhood, adolescence and into ever-changing adulthood. Can you?

My list of favorite books is always evolving. Here’s a few I love lately:

Ditch-tender by Julia Levine
A stunning poetry collection that is both spare and rich. The California psychotherapist-slash-poet writes in a deep but accessible style that pierces and punctures all the right places.

Dixmont, by Rick Campbell
This Florida poet and professor (and director of Anhinga Press) is a master of the poetic narrative. His latest collection (named after the asylum where his mother once lived) is a great offering of tender insight and wry humor that examines the everyday motions of marriage, parenting, baseball and more.

Torch, by Cheryl Strayed
For her debut novel, the Portland, Oregon writer penned a tugging story of loss. This is a can’t-put-down-book that brought me to tears, and it was chosen as a 2007 "Everybody Reads - Portland" selection.

What are you reading? Let’s celebrate Banned Books Week with a feast of words & ideas that make life rich, ripe and meaningful.

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.