What's in your pocket?

Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day!

Today, you are officially encouraged to carry a poem, share a poem, write a poem, recite a poem . . . live your poem. It's one of my favorite 'holidays' — rivaling my love of May Day (the all but forgotten act of secretly leaving a clutch of flowers at a neighbor's door). 

Here's the poem I'll be carrying today:

A Great Need

Out
of a great need
we are all holding hands
and climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
the terrain around here
is
far too
dangerous
for
that.

— Hafiz

 

What poem will you carry and share? 

 

In praise of process

This morning over coffee, my husband and I worry over his mother's health.

One thread leads to another and mothers are on my mind. 

Washing dishes, I think of my mother and how her voice, when she telephoned, strained for light. I've heard the same searching tone in a friend lately. Her mother passed away and her days have turned slow and dark. Last year, another friend lost her mother abruptly.

At the kitchen counter, I wipe up crumbs and jot a line. Fold laundry, jot another. I feel the zing of ideas swirling, words forming. The physical act of writing, combined with the mental and emotional rush of words, creates an adrenalin faith. Words rise and bubble, catch air, gasp for more, multiply.

I don't know if a poem will arise from these disconnected places but I am forever grateful for the process, for the reverent way words form an altar of hope.

 

Poetry of Place

 

In a poem one can use the sense of place as an anchor for larger concerns, as a link between narrow details and global realities. Location is where we start from.  

- Maxine Kumin

 

Robert Michael Pyle

Charles Goodrich

Penelope Scambly Schott

With the publication of Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, I am thrilled and honored to be in the company of these and other noted Pacific Northwest poets.

And I especially appreciate the focus editors Bill Siverly and Michael McDowell bring to their twice-yearly journal. In a world papered with publications, Windfall remains unique by emphasizing poetry "written in the Pacific Northwest and which is attentive to the relationships between people and the landscapes in which we live."

My poem has found a home in the Spring 2010 issue.  

A Shape Half Gone

It's been a year since I came to this beach, where
where we gathered as sisters, spread blankets and limbs
across warm sand and let the strained sun lull us
while the girls dug trenches, climbed rocks, found
shells the shape of hearts.

A year since I spoke the word, knowing
now how rape divides all time and banter, each
of us sliced by the severity of its cut.

You find heart-shaped stones at every turn.
From walks you return full, love spilling
from hands and pockets.

When I admire the rocks arranged on the mantel
you're surprised I have not found the same.
But they're everywhere, you say.

And I think of fall leaves fading,
the moon crescent against ebb tide.
Everything half gone, while you see plenty.

When I married, the pastor asked me to repeat
"In plenty and in one."
Of course, I thought, but my husband said,
"In plenty and in want."

Is there a difference?

Last year on this beach, I wasn't looking for
rock solid love, wasn't searching for a shape
to contain.

Instead, your daughter found a heart-shaped shell.
In its center, a perfect hole. No crack or ripple
but smooth, as if just born.

- Drew Myron 


One Word

image from PostSecret.comOne word changed my day.

Miss. 

As in, Thank you for shopping with us, Miss.

Note the absence of the word Ma'am. Last week I nearly leaned across the counter and kissed the pimply-faced young man who had the kindness and good training to call me — a 40-plus woman — Miss instead of Ma'am. 

It takes so little to warm my heart. 

 

The one that got away

 

It was puppy love in that we both loved your puppy more than each other.

 

Missed chances. Young crushes. Old regrets. Who hasn't felt the "What if?" or the "Why not?" of a former flame?

Andy Selsberg understands the pull of old love. He's compiled a collection of messages people have written to former flames and objects of affection — all anonymously. Dear Old Love lets us ruminate in the touching, funny, spiteful and sometimes sad sloppiness of the "ones that got away."

Much like Six Word Memoirs and PostSecret, Dear Old Love is a crazy, desperate blend of heartbreak and hilarity.

 

 

Draw down to book drawing

The 2010 Poetry Book Giveaway is in full swing! We're halfway through National Poetry Month, and halfway to the drawing to win books. Have you entered? 

Fifty (yes 50!) blogger-writers are taking part in the Poetry Book Giveaway, created by poet Kelli Russell Agodon at Book of Kells. Each blogger will give away two books of poetry — one of their own, and one of their favorites. 

Enter here to win:
1. Forecast - A word-art collaboration with paintings by Tracy Weil and poems by Drew Myron (me!) 

2. The Real Warnings - poems by Rhett Ismeman Trull

To enter:
1. Write a comment below by May 1, 2010. Include your name and contact info (so I can reach you if you win).

2. Two names will be chosen in a blind drawing on May 1, 2010. 

3. Winners will be posted here on May 2, 2010. 

There is no entry fee & no trickery. Just free and fabulous books! Enter below, and then visit Book of Kells for links to other book giveaways. 

 

Write, read, buy

Ahhh April, when our minds turn from fools to taxes to poetry.  

It's official: the Academy of American Poets declares April as National Poetry Month.  Here are a few ways I'll mark the occasion:

• Host a Poetry & Prose Reading
It's my party and I'll write if I want to . . . Gear up for a fun (code: not stuffy and dull) reading event on April 24th at 7pm in Yachats, Oregon. Go here for details.

•  Enter the 2010 Poetry Giveaway
Over 30 poetry lovers are giving away books, including me!
Go here to enter my giveaway, and go here for even more. 

• Buy poetry
Sure, we all love Mary Oliver and Billy Collins, but for every ''bestseller" poet there are 100s of little known writers with books eager for your love. Support your local poets (i.e, friends, colleagues, neighbors) and buy their books. 

• Read poems
Toss aside the People magazine and reach for poetry instead. Don't worry about "getting it" or making sense of it, just enjoy the language and ideas. Let words wash over you and see what floats. 

• Write poems
I'm not a big fan of writing regimes. I've done my share of 'you must write' schedules and I tend toward sullen guilt rather than breakthrough art. Still . . . there is much to be said for commitment, and I applaud those who take part in the Write-a-Poem-A-Day-Challenge, or writing groups, or daily word counts. These practices make us accountable. Good writing doesn't just happen — you gotta show up.  

• Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day
My very favorite part of National Poetry Month is Poem in Your Pocket Day. This year it falls on Thursday, April 29th. Go here and get ready! 

How about you?  What are you doing to feed your mind and your writing? How are you making National Poetry Month meaningful?

 

Spring, when our prospects brighten

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. You may have known your neighbor yesterday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or despised him, and despaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first spring morning, re-creating the world, and you meet him at some serene work, and see how it is exhausted and debauched veins expand with still joy and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. There is not only an atmosphere of good will about him, but even a savor of holiness groping for expression, blindly and ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born instinct, and for a short hour the south hillside echoes to no vulgar jest. You see some innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his gnarled rind and try another year's life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant.

 

— Henry David Thoreau, from Walden, “Spring”

Poetry Giveaway 2010

In April, three of my favorite things will converge:
• poetry
• free stuff
• mail 

To celebrate National Poetry Month, a host of writers are sharing their love of poetry — with free poetry books! (Thanks to poet Kelli Agodon for orchestrating this worldwide event). For my part, I am giving away two books to two lucky winners (includes free shipping to anywhere in the world).

How to Win:
• Leave a comment on this post any time before May 1, 2010. 
   Include your name and contact info. 
• On May 1, two winners will be chosen in a random drawing of names. 
• Check back and see if you are a winner!

Win these Books: 

 

• Forecast
A word-art collaboration featuring poems by Drew Myron and interpretive paintings by Tracy Weil. 

 

 

• The Real Warnings, by Rhett Iseman Trull

Winner of the 2008 Anhinga Prize for Poetry, the Real Warnings earned high praise from poet/judge Sheryl St. Germain: “Open this book up anywhere and you'll find a poem of fierce and uncompromising energy and insight . . . I've never read a poet who understands more fully the brutal paradoxes of love and of loving damaged things.”
   
• Enter now!  Good luck and good reading. 

 

 

In Six Words

Life: Chocolate outside, cyanide filling inside.

— Vinnie

Inspired by Smith magazine's Six-Word Memoirs, the (Young) Writers* have embarked on their own short-form descriptions. (As an aside — remember when memoirs were simply autobiographies? Has this form faded? Is everything now memoir?)

The six word form is instant, fun and sometimes profound. I love 'em. (My own six-word memoir graces this website's home page). Here are a few examples from a recent Thursday night writing session:

Be your self
The world is

— Tyler


I love being right, watch out.

— Siri


Heart work
Speak the truth
Always

— Senitila

Have you penned a six-word memoir? If so, share it here!

*(see previous post for more on this unsolved matter)

Pesky punctuation

Is this what they call a 'teachable moment'?

The Young Writers don't want to be young.

Seashore Family Literacy has three writing groups — for ages 9 to 19 — and the teen writers have said they aren't all that young (compared to the nine-year-olds, I suppose this is true). Admittedly, I opened the door to this discussion, and they had a point.

The grade-school group is called the Happy Hour for Young Readers & Writers. The middle school group is the Writing Club. The teens, formerly the Young Writers, don't want to be confused for inexperienced, impressionable youth. After all, they are older and wiser than their younger colleagues. 'Young,' they say, is patronizing (until you are 40, I say, and swoon at anything pore-less and firm). They want to be the Writer's Group. Not teen writers, not young writers. They want the shorthand of Writer's Group. I get it.

But here's the rub: The pesky apostrophe vexes this choice.

Young Writers was easy. A collection of writers, no possession and no need for apostrophe. But how to punctuate Writers Group? Is it Writer's ? Writers' ? or Writers?

Begging of friends, pleas to teachers, and endless Google searches offer no relief. Where's the model? the rule? (I haven't been this muddled since the Farmer's Market debate of 2002 -- Farmers, Farmer's, or Farmers' ?). Instead of a clear answer, I find that I am in a room packed with equally befuddled writers.

For example, here's how others handle the apostrophe:
Pacific Northwest Writers Association
Writer's Market
Tallahassee Writers Association
The Kenyon Review Writers' Workshop
Tin House Summer Writers Workshop
The Alabama Writers' Conclave
Santa Barbara Writers Conference
Oregon Writers' Colony
Writer's Digest . . . . and on it goes

Clearly, I am not alone in this predicament. Can you solve this grammar dilemma? This could be your teachable moment, providing me — and a group of not-so-young writers — with great knowledge, comfort and relief.

Seashore serendipity

You've heard me chatter about my work with Seashore Family Literacy, the nonprofit organization for which I volunteer, lead writing groups, create marketing materials . . .


Well, if you'll indulge me once more, I'm giddy with a wave of serendipity and want to share it with you. Just this week:


• Senitila McKinley, Seashore's founder/director, was featured in the Portland Oregonian.

Go here to read the story about our very own 'Mother Teresa.' (With thanks to writer Lori Tobias and photographer Faith Cathcart).


• We launched the Seashore website, packed with photos, news and events. (With thanks to my longtime friend and colleague Tracy Weil, of Weilworks, for another great word-art-design collaboration) Go here.


• We joined Facebook. Be our 'friend', 'fan' or just take a gander for grins. Go here.


What is a good poem?

Too many writers? Feeling overwhelmed and small?


Tim Green, editor of Rattle, offers encouragement for those dark days of despair:

"The definition of a great poem is really simple: Poems that have the power to effect the lives of some of the people who read them. Every poem we publish doesn’t have to be memorable and moving for everyone — but it has to be memorable or moving for someone, some kind of person who represents a subset of our readership . . . "

Read more here.

Books devoured & delighted

A bounty of books has left me, once again, scattered and satisifed. Rain, shine, winter, spring, I've always an excuse to curl up and read. This week I've devoured an unusual mix:


• Killshot, by Elmore Leonard

Murder with a side of wry (a shout-out to Fred for suggesting this book)


• A Changed Man, by Francine Prose

A clever novel about a white supremacist turnabout.

I've recently discovered Prose (author of Golden Grove, Blue Angel) and am steadily making my way through all her fiction.


• Night of a Thousand Blossoms by Frank Gaspar

Lush, smart, prose-like poetry.

He's got great titles and beautifully orchestrated searches for truth. I love the opening line of this poem:


There Were Footsteps in the Garden


I can’t figure out the earth, everything saying yes and no

at the same time, everything shedding its hair and licking

its teeth and waiting to be eaten. And then there are the

great wings of the galaxies I’m looking at as they shudder

through the wilderness like spirits until they stoop through

my garden of lenses and mirrors. What is the loneliness

of all those shattered islands, what is so lofty, so hungry,

so intelligent, so needy about them? I’m reading in a holy

book about how the color red shifts and retreats in this

sidereal world, as though the stars are trying to hide

their forms from one another, as though they are afraid

of their nakedness─they all race away, and only the distance

grows, only the distraction, as if that were the point. Now

the yard is so quiet I can hear the snails being pulled

through the long grass by some reckless force beyond their

snail imagination. There are sayings now that would help me.

They would be nothing by daylight. The words try to avoid

embarrassment too. How can you blame them? But in

these pure hungers of the night it is another story. Precisely

another story, and then another and another. Oh, there were

footsteps in the Garden, all right. There was a firmament

hung with lights. But that was then. This is now. That’s what

makes me ask for the next story. That’s what makes me curl

in the blanket on the shivering grass and stare outward. That’s

what makes tonight so safe for this one thing I’m trying to say.


— Frank Gaspar, from Night of a Thousand Blossoms

Out of the book, into the world

From funerals to sports to valentines, it's been a good week for poetry.

Get poetry out of the books and into the world, is my frequent refrain. Poetry for the people, for the masses, for the everyday. This week, I was happy to see it happen:

• The Opening Ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games featured slam poet Shane Koyczan, who performed We Are More.

• Also at the Ceremonies, singer k.d. lang performed Hallelujah, a song by acclaimed poet-musician Leonard Cohen.

• I attended two funerals this week, and both included touching amounts of poetry. Though the services were full of sorrow, I was heartened by the healing power of words. Shared at our most tender and touching times — from weddings to wakes — poems awaken and soothe as we struggle to make sense of life's turns.

• For Valentine's Day I received several lovely cards filled with poetry. From Hallmark to handmade, I treasure them all.

Is poetry part of your every day? Tell me about it!

Toss the plans

You will be a starlight when you grow up.

When I'm not a writer-for-hire, I'm a writer-for-fun. I lead writing groups for students ages 9 to 19.


Life takes odd turns. Five years ago when I stumbled into "teaching" (not teaching as much as encouraging), I wasn't crazy about children. Teenagers were daunting. Youngsters were alien, and I had no maternal instinct. Today I am as surprised as anyone to realize I have become attached to these energetic, impressionable, loving children. This is the most fulfilling, and emotionally challenging work, I've ever done.


There are three groups and we meet weekly: Happy Hour (for 9 - 11 years), Writing Club (for 12-13 years) and Writer's Group (for 14-19 years). The programs are part of Seashore Family Literacy (a nonprofit organization) and we meet at the Waldport Community Learning Center.


I am a planner by nature. Organized and structured. I make detailed plans for each week — writing prompts, discussions, books to share, poems to read. But this week I was reminded that the best writing sessions are often the ones in which plans are tossed aside.


The other day, the Happy Hour kids rushed into the Writing Studio in a whirl of giddy excitement. As a reward for good behavior, they had been given fortune cookies. They couldn't wait to share their fortunes with the group.

You will find happiness in unexpected places.


Good luck is just around the bend.

Gathered in a circle, we listened intently and dissected each message: What could it mean? What is happiness? What would luck bring?


We were animated with possibility, and wanted more. So we wrote our own fortunes! Pencils flew across pages. Papers were torn and creased into complicated folds. We traded our palm-sized scribbles with enthusiasm and rushed to share them aloud.


It was 10-year-old K. who saw starlight in my future. I can't wait to grow up.





A meal of books

There are worse things than a book binge.

Chocolate, say, with its after-guilt. Or gambling with its high price.

Books are relatively affordable, and it's a good thing because I'm gobbling books to no end.

It started last month with a journey to Powell's Bookstore in Portland. Thanks to a gift card Christmas, I filled two bags in less than an hour.

This week, at Mari's Books in Yachats, I celebrated their newly expanded shop with an armload of purchases.

And then I hit the blogs. One site led to another and . . . Quick as a box of donuts, I gathered poet discoveries —Susan Rich, Alison Stine, Adrian Blevins — and rushed to buy their books. Like a sugar high, I felt giddy with new material. Each phrase engaged, every tangle of words offered layers of meaning and meat. New worlds! New words! I examined, analyzed and gorged.

I align myself with Jeff Gordinier, who confesses to being a poetry shopaholic, declaring that in a world of mass market, big-name publishing, "buying a book of poetry constitutes a gesture of resistance."

"It's a tiny push in the opposite direction," he says, "a pipsqueak of peaceful defiance."

I have no guilt in my reading investments; I'm supporting the underdogs of publishing, writers who toil away with no substantial reward beyond the act of expression.

Still, I'm a realist. Next week, I'll give my wallet a break and hit the library. When I do return to buying, rather than collect books on a shelf I will read and regift, passing along my latest finds to family and friends. Or donate the books to the local library. Good books, like good meals, are best when shared.


How to write a good poem

"I think the most important thing any poet or writer can do to improve his or her odds of writing a good poem of any type is to learn continuously how to pay attention.
Poetry is not about how we feel, of course. It's about how we feel about how we feel. Knowing how we feel about how we feel requires an almost ungodly attentiveness or consciousness— an otherworldly watchfulness and vigilance."

— Adrian Blevins
from How to Write Love Poems