Anthology as appetizer

When you are away, most of what happens to me happens in the supermarket. I like it. I wouldn't like it all the time, but sometimes I love to let myself go to seed, live unwashed, uncombed. I read in the sun on our unmade bed, eavesdrop, go to the Grand Union several times a day.

— Martha Bergland, from An Embarrassment of Ordinary Riches, a story appearing in the anthology Love Stories for the Rest of Us. 

I've grown to love anthologies — collections of essays, stories or poems by a variety of writers, typically organized around a theme.  I like to taste the flavors of many writers in one place without the commitment to just one. An anthology is an appetizer.

For example, in  Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave I found Caroline Leavitt and Kaui Hart Hemmings. I liked their short stories so much, I raced to find their novels. The Descendants, by Hemmings, turned out  to be one of my favorite books.

 

 

 And The Pacific Northwest Reader is a wonderful surprise of essays about the upper left corner of the United States. The collection is reminscent of the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s, and each essay is crafted not by professional writers but by independent booksellers and librarians. As a bonus, a portion of book sales go to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. The Great Lakes Reader is also available now, and other regional volumes are in the works.

In Feed Me: Writers Dish About Food, Eating, Weight, and Body Image, I discovered Lisa Romeo. I now faithfully read her blog each week.  

 

 

 

Poetry, too, produces some great anthologies. I'm loving The Poets Guide to the  Birds, both for its unique theme and for its breadth of writers. The collection includes work from 137 poets, and includes big names (Ted Kooser, Naomi Shihab Nye) and lesser known but no  less talented poets (Linda Zimmerman, Keith Ratzlaff).


Anthologies are the first taste of a reader's feast.  In fact,
while reading Winter Wren by Sally Green, I wondered, before I had even finished the poem, how I could get more.

     

Winner's Circle

Attention! Attention! I'm very happy to announce the winners of the
one-of-a-kind book journals created by Ex Libris Anonymous

And the winners are . . . 

Lisa Carter

Julia F.

Molly 

Cosmos Cami 

Kelli Russull Agodon 

Tara 

Is this you? If so, zip me an email with your mailing address. Reach me at dcm@drewmyron.com. 

This was a fun giveaway, and I enjoyed visited the websites and blogs of so many interesting writers and artists. Thanks for reading, writing and participating in this creative life with me.

And many thanks to Jacob Deatherage, the mastermind giving old books second life. He generously donated six journals to give-away. Give him a gander at www.bookjournals.com

 Write on! 


Wine, flowers, and a book?

On the rare occasion in which I am invited to dinner, I always take a bottle of wine. Sometimes flowers. (I've read that you should never take flowers as it creates more work for the host. I disagree. I love to get flowers. And really, how hard is it to fill a vase with water and plop 'em in?)

As much as I like wine, I like to shake routine.  And so, I've been giving books! 

I enjoy the process of considering my favorite books and then matching those to what I think my host may enjoy — Do I choose funny? thoughtful? irreverent? mainstream? I'm not sure I hit the mark — or that my hosts wouldn't rather have wine — but it's fun to try. 

A few of my favorite hostess book-gifts are: 

How Not to Act Old by Pamela Redmond Satran

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I'd like to expand my offerings (I once took my own book, a painting/poetry collaboration, but that felt self-promoting and weird). What books do you suggest? If I was invited to your home for dinner, what book would you like me to bring? 

 

The road in


It is not what you write or what you produce as you write that is important.

It is what happens to you while you are writing that is important.

It is who you become while you are writing that is important.

— Louise DeSalvo
 

Well, that takes some pressure off.

After last week's writing retreat, I'm picking through the ruins of my journal, searching for nuggets of promise. This is the mix of hope and dread; I felt so 'in-the-moment' while writing and later, upon rereading, time and distance diminish the heat and my words seem flat and routine. Does this happen to you, too? 

I am heartened by DeSalvo's sentiment of process over results. I also find perspective from Candice Crossley, whom I met at the retreat. Using Lonesome Pine Special, a poem by Charles Wright, as our prompt, we lifted his line: 

The road in is always longer than the road out, 
Even if it's the same road. . .

As I dig through the muck of my journal, Candice's response offers me much-needed perspective:

There is no arriving
There is only the going

You can fashion a beautiful writing
And drop it on the side
You have not come to the end
Of that small perfect poem
You will find another . . . 

That is not the last dark stand of trees
Or burst of flowers
Or glorious vista
The horizon is always there in front of you
And you will never reach it
You will only move towards it

— Candice Crossley
excerpted from The road in is always longer than the road out. 

 

Thankful Thursday: Writing at Menucha

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause of appreciation. Because gratitude begets appreciation begets joy, I offer thanks.

This week I am thankful for Creative Arts Community. CAC offers residential art workshops at Menucha, a historic estate located 20 minutes east of Portland,  in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. 

With the good fortune of time and opportunity, I recently spent a week in the company of painters, potters, sculptures — and seven writers enrolled in a workshop led by poet Ann Staley.

"Refuge" was our theme, and Staley, a kind and generous instructor, led an intense dive into essays, poems, words and ideas. We were equal parts saturated and invigorated as our group was quickly knitted together in laughter, tears, wine and encouragement. With a focus on generating new work, we spent day and night reading and writing and writing and writing. Nestled among wooded trails and soft rolling grass, we were at play in an adult version of summer camp. 

After a week immersed in creative community, I am grateful to feel awash with words, and to swim again in possibility.

This poem (inspired by a line from workshop colleague Tom Tucker, in a phrase exchange) served as both prayer and praise — and is best read aloud:  

Make Alive Again the Magic of Art and Word 

An Invocation
 

Bring back the joy 

Make words easy, effortless

Let them float across the page

 

Let sadness cease 

as the vehicle for art 

Let art rise as a 

messenger of joy

 

Let the music of the day 

be heard

and called

and cooed

 

Let my steps be light

an invocation

a benediction

a psalm 


Let me hear again

Let me here

Make me

Wake me

 

Help me set aside 

tricks and cues

clever plays

tricks of phrase

 

Make alive again

words 

placed together

strung along

passed and pleased

 

Make the magic 

rise and slip

sleight of hand

graceful steps

 

Let the mystery

of art   stutter

stop

start again

 

like a child 

dressed in shoes too big

a wand in hand

Let the magic of art

 

fill every blank page 

 

- Drew Myron 

 

 

Win! Old books. New life.

You've heard me prattle on about 
Ex Libris Anonymous
— my very favorite journal company — and now, just when I think I can't be any more in love, my heart grows another chamber. 

Jacob Storm Deatherage, the creative genius who turns vintage books into one-of-a-kind journals, is not only innovative but generous, too.  He's sent me SIX fabulous journals to give away.

I'm spreading the book journal love. 

To win one of these wonderful book journals, simply add your name in the comment section below. On Friday, August 27, 2010, I'll place all names in a hat and randomly pick six winners.  Winning is that easy  — and I'll pay the postage. Not only will you get a free journal, but you'll also receive real, handwritten mail in your old-fashioned mailbox. It's a double win, really.

What will you do with your journal? Sketch, paint, collage? Write songs, poems, stories, confessions? Just think, this journal could enhance your joy, feed your spirit, and change your life!

The possibilities begin NOW!    

 

Thankful Thursday: Alone

Lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless  

— Tanya Davis, from "How to Be Alone"

I've been scratching for gratitude this week. Appreciation lies just beneath the surface of everyday life, I know, but these gray days have me a bit listless and worn. Today a friend shared a video-poem that gave me a jolt of joy, and suddenly — as though infused with sunshine and Diet Coke — I've got some bounce back.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am happy to share a poem-performance-illustration-song by Canadian writer/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis and filmmaker Andrea Dorfman.  

Thankful Thursday is a weekly accounting of gratitude. Each week, I share my appreciation for the big things, such as life and love, the small things, such as bok choy and books, and all sorts of people, places and things inbetween.

Will you join me? Please share your Thankful Thursday thoughts in the comment section below, or on your very own blog, facebook page, twitter account, school locker, bathroom mirror . . .  

 

Bookish Inspiration

What is the best
writing book or advice
you have ever read or received? 

Looking for fresh ideas and inspiration, I recently quizzed my writer-friends with the above question. The responses rushed in. I now have a stack of new material to absorb — and to share:

 Rick Campbell  Florida poet, professor, director of Anhinga Press, and author of Dixmont, suggests:

The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo

"Specifically, I like the idea about the triggering subject giving way to the true subject of the poem," notes Campbell.

 

 Sage Cohen  Portland Oregon poet, teacher, and author of Writing the Life Poetic, suggests:

Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

"A mix of spiritual, practical and inspirational, this book helped me find my way into a sustainable writing practice," says Cohen. 

 

 Judyth Hill  Mexico-based poet, teacher, and owner of Simple Choice Farm Artist Retreat, shares this advice:

"I hosted a gathering of college poets to meet Joshua Beckman,  a wild-eyed young poet who wrote 20-page poems," explains Hill. "One student asked Joshua if he ever had times he didn’t write while he waited for inspiration. He made the greatest reply I ever heard: I have found that writing is the best way . . . to wait!"


 Mark Thalman  Oregon poet, teacher, and author of Catching the Limitoffers this suggestion for beginning writers:

The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser

"Write about what is uniquely yours and out of that world which only you can create, stake out your territory," advises Thalman.

 

 Kate Maloy  Oregon Coast fiction writer, and author of Every Last Cuckoo, suggests: 

 

The Anatomy of Story by John Turby

"Written for screenwriters, so differences need to be kept in mind, but still the best I've seen for novelists as well," says Maloy. "Very detailed and specific about every body part of a story — space/time, premise, key structural steps, character, moral argument, and much more. Excellent writing (or just thinking) exercises." 

 

 Sean Nevin  Poet, author of Oblivio Gate, and director of Arizona State University's Young Writers Program, suggests:

The Unemployed Fortune-Teller by Charles Simic — for essays 

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield — for quick inspiration 

 

 Ce Rosenow  Oregon poet, author of Pacific, and publisher of Mountains and Rivers Press, suggests:

Tribe: Meditations of a Haiku Poet by Vincent Tripi

(Note: This book is out of print and difficult to find but worth the search)

 

 Rhett Iseman Trull  North Carolina poet, and author of The Real Warnings, suggests:

The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo 

 

I hope these books and ideas ignite your creative life. Have I missed any of your favorites? Let me know!  

 

Never underestimate the power of sun

It's been a sunless summer on the Oregon Coast. It's the coldest summer on record, with fixed, gray skies and 6o degree days. 

On this rugged edge, we rarely need sunscreen. Sweatshirts and fleece are the year-round uniform. 

The Summer Writing & Adventure Camp endured a good share of gloom last week. Now in its fourth year, the one-week camp for middle school students combines writing with outdoor adventures to help youngsters see, experience and express their world in new ways.

This year, students hiked the temperate rainforest at Cape Perpetua, kayaked the Alsea Bay, and battled a blustery wind across the Alsea Bay Bridge. Clamming was cancelled because it was too cold (52 degrees) to bear the combination of cold air and cold water. Our beach walk was abandoned, too.

The kayak trip on Thursday, however, would not, could not, be cancelled. It was the carrot of the week. One boy showed up Monday in his gear, ready to go (four days too soon). And many of the kids admitted they didn't really like to write but really wanted to kayak

On Thursday morning, the sky spit rain. The thermometer dropped. But the kids were still ready and eager. I added layers of clothing, and supplied extra coats. One young camper told me, "I never expect it to be sunny so I'm never disappointed." 

But I am not so wise. Even after six years of coastal living, I still expect a summer season. I spent much of last week seeking divine intervention. And in the critical hours — as our hapless group launched from the shore and paddled against wind and current across the Alsea Bay — the sun shined when we needed it most. 

Summer Writing & Adventure Camp was redeemed! Hope returned.  And I was cheered enough to know that even in the gray, bright spots will still shine. 

How to be a Summer Camp Adventure Writer

Look for skies to part,
clouds to thin,
sun to shine.

Hike a trail.
Touch sitka, alder, fir.
Carry flowers. Lick slugs. 

Share pudding
and small words like
Yes, Please, I will try

Against wind, walk a bridge.
Collect words. Let poetry
blanket, comfort, ignite.  

Paddle a slough. 
Cross a bay. 
Float dreams.  

Listen for heron,
egret, gulls, for the
giggle of troubles lifted.

Reach for words,
my hand,
your heart.  

- Drew Myron

Toss that boring book

At last, I now have permission to stop slogging my way through boring books.

This, from a trusted authority — Seattle writer and librarian Nancy Pearl — makes me feel much better: 

 

Rule of Fifty

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,”  which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books.  

If you’re 50 years of age or younger, give a book 50 pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up.  If you’re over 50, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.  Since that number gets smaller and smaller as we get older and older, our big reward is that when we turn 100, we can judge a book by its cover!

 

Get more 'Pearlisms' from Book Lust, the blog by Nancy Pearl, a librarian hailed as a "rock star among readers" who has an action figure modeled in her likeness (Now that's a power reader!). 

 

Cracker Jacks and other wins

I love winning stuff. 

A few bucks from a lottery scratch ticket.

The toy surprise in the Cracker Jack box. 

A raffle for something I don't even want — a quilt, a side of beef, free tire rotation. 

Even if the 'win' is more luck than skill, my heart trills at the idea of a perk. (I'm the one at Chipolte who stuffs the glass bowl with my business cards.) The luck! The chance! The fate! 

I'm even more pleased when winning is a result of real skill. In an effort to spread the good vibration of winning-hood, I encourage you to enter the following contests (and please note, the prizes are bigger than a burrito):

The Life Poetic iPoem Contest
Submit up to three, unpublished poems that you feel represent the spirit of "the life poetic." Winning poems will be featured on the "Life Poetic" iPhone app that features a poem a day for a year. Additional prizes include free tuition to a poetry class, signed books, and manuscript consultation. Deadline: August 8, 2010
Details here. 

Seven Hills & Penumbra Contests
In their annual contests, Tallahassee Writers Association offers cash prizes and publication. Open to writers of short story, creative nonfiction, children's stories, poetry and haiku. Deadline: August 31, 2010.
Details here. 

Feeling lucky? Find more contests at Practicing Writing, a blog by writer Erika Dreifus. Each week she posts a plethora of leads on Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Lists & Reasons


Reasons for Loving Bellybuttons

Because it is fun to say. 

Because everyone has one. 

Because when I was a baby I liked to play with it. 

Because it is fun to poke. 

Because I like to draw a happy face on it and make it talk. 

 — Kenzie, age 10

 

I have been buzzing about town with a group of lively 10, 11 and 12 year-olds. It's Summer Camp at Seashore Family Literacy and this week we are collecting words, observing life, and writing, writing, writing.

We are never without our journals, and just occasionally without smiles (when, after several hours, exhausted with words, we retreat to solitude and food). 

Today we were lucky to have poet Ann Staley visit us from Corvallis, Oregon, an hour-plus drive from valley to sea. Ann has taught writing and poetry for over 40 years, and she spent the morning leading our group through a variety of poems and prompts.

The driving force of the day was lists (Things I Love), reasons (Reasons for Loving . . .) and instructions (How To . . .). From these lists, we generated pages and pages of poems.  

Just as with gratitude, the more you appreciate, the more you see to appreciate. The Things I Love lists grew from 10 to 20 to more. "It's kinda fun once you get the hang of it," said Kenzie, as she reached 50 items.

For the How-To poems, we were inspired by How to See Deer by Phillip Booth. I was moved by Chrisanda's sweetly direct instructions: 

How to Make a Friend

First, you start by saying

Hi, my name is . . . . 

What's your name? 

Then be nice to them. 

— Chrisanda, age 11

 

Writing with children is almost always invigorating. Today I felt especially grateful for their willingness to try new things and to write about the silly and the sacred — from birth moms, to bellybuttons, to barbecue ribs. 

 

How to Love

Pick a weed

Admire its long stalk and strong pull

Its roots bound to bad soil

to gloom, rain and hard scrabble

 

Find a flower with a delicate bloom

Examine how it 

bends to sun

shakes in wind

How it needs tending and care

water and light

How it needs so much more 

than you can give and

still, and still, it lives

— Drew Myron 

 

Practice makes poems

Between writing groups and summer camps, I'm in the thick of word games and writing practice. 

I love writing exercises. Prompts stretch my creative muscle and rev up my writing. Fortunately, the world is full of writing books. My shelves are lined with inspiration but there's a handful of favorites I turn to again and again. Here are my top picks: 

poemcrazy
by Susan Wooldridge

This book rings with joyful ideas, whimsy and pluck. Best of all, Wooldridge mixes practicality with possibility. I have used her suggestions for years. Kids love creating Word Tickets for the Word Pool. And when my writing feels dulled and lazy, poemcrazy restores my love of words. 

 

 

 

Writing Down the Bones
by Natalie Goldberg

The classic how-to on freewriting. My friend Valerie gave me this book years ago, long before I thought I could or would ever be a 'real' writer, and I am forever grateful to enter the world of wild mind writing. I've bought this book 10 times over because I keep giving it away. 

 

 

 

The Practice of Poetry 
by Robin Behn & Chase Twichell

Packed with writing exercises from poets who teach. I've had the book for years and still haven't worked through all of the prompts. It's been carted through the desert, dropped in the bathtub, and has yellowed in the sun — and still holds its value. And it's not just for poets; Many of the prompts can be easily applied to fiction writing.  

 

What have I missed?
When you need a prompt or a boost, what books lead the way? 

 

Thankful Thursday

Welcome Morning

There is joy 

in all: 

in the hair I brush each morning, 

in the Cannon towel, newly washed, 

that I rub my body with each morning, 

in the chapel of eggs I cook 

each morning, 

in the outcry from the kettle 

that heats my coffee 

each morning, 

in the spoon and the chair 

that cry "hello there, Anne" 

each morning, 

in the godhead of the table 

that I set my silver, plate, cup upon 

each morning.

 

All this is God, 

right here in my pea-green house 

each morning 

and I mean, 

though often forget, 

to give thanks, 

to faint down by the kitchen table 

in a prayer of rejoicing 

as the holy birds at the kitchen window 

peck into their marriage of seeds.

 

So while I think of it, 

let me paint a thank-you on my palm 

for this God, this laughter of the morning, 

lest it go unspoken.

 

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard, 

dies young.

 

Anne Sexton
from The Awful Rowing Toward God
 

Half my life ago, I clung to the confessionals: Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, poets who wrote openly about their struggles with life and the strong pull of death. Like many sad young women, I took Sexton's poem, Wanting to Die, as my own sort of prayer. I traced the lines, knew its terrain as my own:

But suicides have a special language.

Like carpenters they want to know which tools.

They never ask why build

I eventually grew up, and sometimes out, of suicidal contemplations. I grew away, too, from the raw, tell-all quality of confessional poets. I began, instead, to hedge and allude. Where once I was direct, I became vague, my emotional edges blunted. It's an evolution I question daily. 

Is it the nature of age to soften with time? Today when I read Welcome Morning, I find a new Anne Sexton. One, like me, who sees variation in the gray. For this discovery, I am very thankful. 

 

Thankful Thursday: tinywords

Because appreciation increases joy, it's Thankful Thursday. 

What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? Please join me for Thankful Thursday. I'd love to hear what makes you smile. Share yourself —  with a comment below, or with a posting on your blog (please link back to this page so we can share in your thankfulness).

I've found the more I appreciate, the more I see to appreciate. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. Tell me, what makes your world expand? 

• • •

Today I am grateful for tinywords. With a clean design, tinywords is an elegantly simple online journal offering a daily dose of micropoetry. Each day a new short poem stands in distilled light. Words, when pared, shine. 

"Poetry is language under compression," explains D.F. Tweney, founder/editor of tinywords, in an online interview. "And there's no more compressed form than the very short poem." 

 

Sharpie Poems

Inspired by Austin Kleon's Newspaper Blackout Poems, and desperate for a creative jolt, I got out the Sharpie and made poems of elimination. 

Have you tried Blackout Poems? They are fun, sometimes easy, and a great way to exercise the poetic muscle. Some poems struggle to make sense while others emerge unexpectedly meaningful. Either way, it's good fun — and better than hours on the couch dazed and glazed over Say Yes to the Dress 

The Lost Voice

After the rain,

friends wanted to hear him sing

In a thrift store, the research began. 

Flipping through vinyl, he learned 

almost anything is worth 25 cents. 

Signs

There may be consequences

Make necessary concessions

Every bump could loom large

You may cling to the past

Move forward

Write your imagination

 

Thankful Thursday: Summer Skirts

It's Thankful Thursday. Let the gratitude begin!

Is there anything better than the summer skirt?

Cotton, linen, silk

A-line, pencil, fitted, flared

Dressed up or knocked down

My love of the flutter-in-the-breeze summer skirt is only matched by my love of the summer sandal, which is only trumped by my favorite place to find these fashionable goods:  the resale shop! 

I'm not new to the resale revolution. My thrifting affinity started in high school (trench coats and men's blazers from Value Village, circa 1980s) and later evolved into vintage sweaters and dresses (from Denver's Barbareeba, circa late 1990s). While my fashion tastes have changed, my frugal ways remain. And the summer skirt — a symbol of carefree, sunshiney days — is always my favorite find. 

In the last few weeks,  I have scored unusually great goods at:

Second Glance, and its little sister store, the Annex, in Corvallis, Oregon
A consignment shop that 'revolves' clothes (rather than resells, a distinction I appreciate for its creative semantics). Hip, funky and fun, Second Glance is geared to the female adult, while the Annex has a steady college-age following. 

Goodwill on 10th, in Portland, Oregon
Described by one shopper as a thrift store for "better heeled bargain hunters." Store managers carefully 'edit' donations and sell gently-used clothes with mid to high-end labels. 

Thank you, resale shops, for being a low-cost purveyor of (affordable & fashionable) summer joy!

 

Writer Revealed: Susan Rich

 

Lately, I am capable of small things.

Peeling an orange.
Drawing a bath.
Throwing the cat's tinsel balls.

Believe me, this is not unhappiness.

Only one question—
why this layering on of abeyance?

Though it is winter inside of me —

  there is also spring and fall.

Yellow tulips in need of planting
root in a basket by the door. 

 

— an excerpt from Letter to the End of the Year
from The Alchemist's Kitchen by Susan Rich

 

An Interview with Susan Rich

Susan Rich is a poet, activist and educator. The author of three poetry collections, her latest book The Alchemist's Kitchen was published in April 2010. She has worked on staff for Amnesty International, as an electoral supervisor in Bosnia Herzegovina, and as a human rights trainer in Gaza and the West Bank. Rich lived in the Republic of Niger, West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, later moving to South Africa to teach at the University of Cape Town on a Fulbright Fellowship. She now lives in Seattle, Washington and teaches at Highline Community College.

In recommending your latest collection of poems, poet Jane Hirshfield praises your “kaleidoscopic curiosity” and your “powerfully kinesthetic language.”  What influences or inspirations led you to poetry, and to your “powerful and compassionate” poems? 

As an undergraduate, I was lucky enough to study with Madeline DeFrees and she introduced me to the work of Carolyn Forche. The Country Between Us was a pivotal book for me. Here was a woman, a young woman, who had traveled outside of the United States to El Salvador and who had come back to write poems concerning things that mattered — life in extremity. I had just returned from two years living outside the United States as well and wanted to believe that I, too, had permission to write about my life.

The Alchemist’s Kitchen is a wonderful blend of the everyday and the ethereal, and includes many poems inspired by paintings and photographs. What is your favorite poem in this collection? Why?

Oh dear. My favorite? Isn’t that a bit like asking a parent to choose their favorite child? I can’t do it. But what I can do is choose several favorites with the caveat that these “favorite” categories are fluid.  If you were to ask me tomorrow, the choices I’d make would be different. Given that I am in the throws of planning a reading for tomorrow night, I can focus on poems that are fun to read — that are meant for the air. One of these is “Mr. Myra Wiggins Recalls Their Arrangement.” It’s a persona poem in the voice of Myra Wiggins’ husband. I had never written from a man’s point of view before and I found it oddly liberating. “The 4 O’ Clock News @ House of Sky” is a poem that I like to read aloud. This poem is dedicated to my very dear friend, the poet Kelli Russell Agodon. I wrote it while in Spain but it concerns our friendship and goes off in some strange directions. The most personal poem in the book might be “The Never Born Becomes of Age” and what I like about it is that I did not want to write it, yet it persisted. I like to write poems that I don’t want to write. 

Can you tell us about the title of your book? Where it came from? What it means to you?

The title of this collection came to me far more easily than the titles of either of my past books. I was re-reading Denise Levertov’s New and  Selected Essays – many of which were written I believe — during her time in Seattle. In her essay Biography and the Poet (1992), Levertov  takes up the question of literary biography of poets (and by extension, she expands, all biographies) as to whether we need to know about the drugs and dalliances of the life or if they are “the chaff which the the imagination has discarded.” For the most part, she rallies against being too inquisitive regarding the facts of the poets life. But the essay is balanced with praise for certain biographies such as Walter Jackson Bates Life of Keats, where the biography is in service to the poems or to essays or journal pages some poets had published.  Sometimes, Levertov says, understanding the life of the poet  “one is grateful for a glimpse into the alchemist’s kitchen.” I immediately felt myself drawn to the phrase. 

I’ve re-interpreted Levertov’s original sense of looking at a poet’s memoir or biography being the alchemist’s kitchen to the poems themselves being the material of alchemy — the ordinary objects turned to gold. In researching more on the nature of alchemist– in its original meaning – I learned that Alchemy has a double origin in Greek philosophy and Egyptian texts. That the origins of the word itself is thought to be Arabic. But what fascinated me the most was that the alchemists were not merely interested in turning base metals into gold but that there was a spiritual discipline and that the transformation of metals was secondary to the wisdom that the alchemist would himself attain through their work. One of my favorite quotes by the poet Stanley Kunitz goes like this: “the first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems.” So to answer your question, I’ve used the term “alchemist’s kitchen” as a metaphor for the process of writing poems. That said, I also am a great lover of food — growing it, preparing it, bringing friends together to enjoy it. 

You teach community college students. How do you balance your work teaching and encouraging students with your own writing and book promotion? 

Your question implies that there is balance in my life. Hmm. Most of my own writing happens during the summer, over winter break and on sabbaticals. I think that’s why I’ve embraced the technology of the blog. I began the blog this past November as an experiment. I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed the blogosphere — and I suspect it is because I can maintain a small handhold on my creative life even during term time. My teaching life is also creative, but in a different way. 

Your book was recently published and you’ve embarked on a tour that includes both the traditional (bookstore readings, print interviews, etc) and non-traditional (in-home ‘salon’ readings, virtual readings and interactive readings, etc). Where is your ideal reading?  

My ideal reading? I would like to read in a really wonderful restaurant. A place that uses as much locally grown food as possible and that’s housed in an old building. Maybe the building is made of stone and was once a dance hall or flour mill. After a scrumptious meal and perhaps a bit of live music — while the guests tapped the tops of their crème brulee, I would read my poems. I would read food poems about “glazed florentines and praline hearts” or “tiramisu and lemon tarts.” I’ve read my poems in a variety of venues, but I’m still waiting to be asked to read in a restaurant. I would like that.

To learn more about Susan Rich and her poetry, go here