Fast Five with Kelli Russell Agodon

Because five questions can lead to endless insight, I'm happy to introduce you to Kelli Russell Agodon. Her poetry collection, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, is easily my favorite book of 2010.

Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of two poetry books, and is editor of Crab Creek Review. Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room was published this month and is dedicated to "those who write letters to the world."

You can win a free copy of this book. Simply post your name in the comments section below. The drawing will be held on Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010.  

I was delighted to see that many of these poems — and the book title — were influenced by your stay at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon, which is very near where I live. Which came first, the poem-letters, or the Emily Dickinson Room?

The poem-letters. I had been working on the collection for about two years when I stayed in the Emily Dickinson Room at the Sylvia Beach Hotel on a writing retreat with friends. It was in that room where I realized what I was writing about and was able to focus my collection and begin to write the poems that were missing. The title poem, “Letter from the Emily Dickinson Room” was written in that corner hotel room looking out at the Oregon coast realizing how much I craved calmness.

How would you describe your writing style?

If you’re asking about my style as in my method or process then my writing style is to write as many poems as I can and revise the ones I like best.  (And to try not to over-revise, something I’m quite good at.  I have killed many a poem by over-revising it and sucking out all of its energy and every spark.)

If you’re asking about my writing style as in characteristics or what is my voice or distinct form and/traits, then my writing style is conversational, sometimes surreal, sometimes narrative, sometimes humorous, usually accessible and with a dash of darkness for kicks.

Or maybe my writing style is glasses plus casual Fridays and black boots.

What is your favorite poem in this collection? Why?

Great question!  I like having to think about this as my easy answer would be, “They are all my favorites…”  But if I have to narrow it down to one, I’d say, Questions at Heaven’s Gate is probably my favorite because it was an underdog poem that I stood up for.  When my manuscript was accepted, I received some great advice on edits and suggestions on what poems to take out to make the collection stronger. This was one of the poems that was on the suggested “remove list.”

I remember feeling a deep gut instinct inside me that said: This poems needs to be in the collection.  On a personal level, this is very deeply an autobiographical poem about my father’s death and who he was, and in a certain way, how I’ve dealt with it (imagining him speaking with God, etc.). I love that I had to speak up for this poem and was glad I did.  I think it’s my favorite because it was almost not included.

Questions at Heaven's Gate (an excerpt)

I
When my father meets God
he says, Let me introduce myself . . .

When my father meets God
he says, Am I too early? Too late?

When my father meets God
he says, Do you serve drinks here?

When my father meets God
he says, It was easier not to believe.

When my father meets God
he says, I can see my house from up here.

When my father meets God
there is only the sound of my father
falling.

When my father meets God
he says, I can breathe again.

When my father meets God
rain returns to the city.

As an editor of a literary journal choosing from hundreds of poems to publish, what do you love? What do you loathe? 

I love poems that surprise me (and not in that shocking, swearing, taboo words/subjects way), but in fresh language, new images and putting the extraordinary into the ordinary. Anyone can write a poem about a shocking topic and have it stand out because it’s about a tragic occurrence or because of the nature of the subject, but I’m interested in writers who can write about a shopping trip, the forest, an experience in a way that connects me and makes me stop and pay attention.

There’s little I loathe beside people being unkind or poor manners. There’s more to love in poetry than to dislike.

I’m a collector of words and have my students collect words, too. What are your favorite words?

Hipsway, lollygagging, inky, salsa, penlight, oaf, shenanigans, tangle, moth, humdrum, hipbones, madronas, whiplash, bamboozle, numbskull, foxtrot, and prayer (though not necessarily in that order).

My least favorite word is filibuster. 

To win Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, add your name and contact info in the comments section below by Friday, Oct. 22nd. Feeling shy? Email me!:  dcm@drewmyron.com

Your name will be entered in a random drawing. The winner will be announced on Saturday, October 23, 2010. 

Thankful Thursday: Sister-Friend

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things.

Today I am grateful for my sister. 

It's not enough that she is raising six kids (three of which she and her husband adopted) and has, over the years, been foster mom to three other youngsters.

Now she offers even more inspiration: My sister Cindi has lost 75 pounds — steadily, healthfully — and has become what she haltingly calls a "real runner."

Two months ago she ran her first 5k, and last month completed her first duathalon. This is shocking! Cindi never ran, never even walked fast. She and I were sportless children, happy to hang out, watch Brady Bunch, and eat Capn' Crunch. 

Now she runs four to five miles each day. All her life, she has struggled with weight, gaining and losing the same dreadful pounds. Those of us who battle our bodies are well versed in the "eat less, move more" mantra. Knowing how to lose weight is the easy part. The real challenge is moving the body and changing the mind — day after day after day.

Even with this dramatic turnaround, Cindi is bashful about her success. "Oh, I've got a long way to go," she says, dismissing my praise. "This is the hardest thing I've ever done," she adds,  forgetting (or unfettered by) the burden of youngsters demanding everything her heart can give.

The weight loss is not just about fitting into the skinny jeans. Cindi is modeling good health for her family. At her daughter's grade school, she's active in the running club (while the other mothers walk and chat, Cindi runs).  And for her first 5k, she and her 12 year-old trained and raced together. 

Most important, she has finally put herself first. Sometimes that's the hardest part, she says. To let go of guilt. To feel worthy of time and effort when family needs press for attention.

"Today, instead of eating the box of chocolates, I went for a run," she says after a stressful day. "The old me would have ate like crazy. Today I chose to work out. I think I'm making progress."

More than progress, I say. Cindi is nourishing mind and body in the best possible way, and inspiring others (me!) to do the same. On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for Cindi, my sister and friend.

 How about you?  What are you thankful for today?

 

A few good things

Empire State Building, photograph by Thomas Hawk, appearing on tinywords.com

My head is full of assorted goodies. Let me share a few with you:

Tiny Words
Clean, spare design and strong work makes this website stand out from the crush of touchy-feely poetry choices. At Tiny Words, each season offers a new theme, and this fall the emphasis is on urban haiku. Bring on the city grit!

The Writer's Almanac
Free is my favorite word (along with frugal, bargain and betwixt). Everyday, The Writer's Almanac, a Garrison Keillor project, emails me a fresh poem for free. Some I love. Some I don't. But like fishing, a day of bad poems beats no poems at all.

Spirit First Poetry Contest
In 2010, its inaugural year, this contest received 750 poems from 42 states and 23 countries. It's back again — with cash prizes. Even better, there's no entry fee. That's what they call nothing to lose.

 

 

You'll kill.

Got a reading this weekend? Just in time — this nugget of advice from Lorin Stein, editor of the Paris Review:

It’s not your job to be ingratiating. Leave that to lounge singers. I find it embarrassing when a poet tries to be liked, or explain what he or she was thinking when she wrote blah-blah-blah. Patter is just a distraction—an apology.

My advice: Memorize the poems you plan to read. Anything spoken by heart commands attention. Bring the poems with you, so you can consult them if need be—but really, the way to win an audience over is to get up there, say your poems in a loud, clear voice, face out. Then say thank-you and get off stage.

You’ll kill.


Thankful Thursday: In Waiting

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things.

My head and heart feel a bit brittle this week. I am waiting to chip, waiting to feel the appreciation buried a bit too deep. In the meantime, I am thankful for:

• Letters
The world is full of paper. 
Write to me.

— Agha Shahid Ali from "Stationery"

I love long, complicated, searching-the-heart letters. In a pinch, an email or Facebook message will appease. But really, I pine for pen on paper, words folded to fit an envelope that travels miles to find me.

• Kindness
On a hotel marquee I find wise words:
Be kind to unkind people, they need it the most.

And that reminds me of one of my favorite poems. I am thankful to have favorite poems, and to share them with others, who may (in a letter ?) say, Yes, I feel that way, too. And then suddenly, we are not alone, not brittle, waiting.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

— Naomi Shihab Nye
from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems



Roll Film. Raise Spirits.

A scene from Mad Hot Ballroom

Where do you teach?

I’m not a teacher, I mumble. I'm more of an encourager. 

I don’t have a teaching background. Until I stepped into an old schoolroom in Waldport, Oregon, I never even liked children. I wasn’t looking to teach or to share hard-won personal experience. I was just showing up as a volunteer, meeting with a group of teenagers who were writing poems and stories and hanging out.

That was six years ago. I now lead four writing groups, and have grown to love the kids at Seashore Family Literacy.

Maybe we’re all teachers. Some of us step up, some hang back, and some know their role from the get-go.  I've realized there is no one way to teach or reach, and I'm inspired by those who connect with the lost and forgotten.

And I’m inspired by films that make me want to be more, do more.

Need a bit of inspiration, or just uplifting entertainment? Try a few of my favorite reach-n-teach films:

The Hobart Shakespeareans
This documentary follows Rafe Esquith, a passionate teacher who inspires his Central Los Angeles students to love and embrace Shakespeare, Mark Twain, math, history and more. (Esquith's  book, Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire, is also excellent).

Mad Hot Ballroom
Ballroom dancing goes from lame to cool for a group of New York City students in this insightful documentary, which follows a group of 11-year-olds as they learn to dance old-school styles including the merengue, rumba, tango, foxtrot and swing. (I love this film. It's the only movie in which I openly cheered in a crowded theatre).

Paper Clips
Rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education. Struggling to grasp the concept of six million Holocaust victims, students collect six million paper clips to better understand the enormity of the calamity.

Freedom Writers
Hilary Swank stars in this drama based on real-life California teacher Erin Gruwell's unorthodox methods. To break the cycle of violence and despair that threatens their futures, she has students keep journals, and apply history's lessons, to their troubled lives. While the story gets the Hollywood treatment, the overall message is worth the sometimes sappy vibe.

I'm always looking for great films. What have I missed? Please share your favorites.


On Sunday


God

Maybe you’re a verb, or some
lost part of speech
that would let us talk sense
instead of monkey-screech

when we try to explain you
to our loved ones and ourselves
when we most need to.
Who knows why someone dies

in the thick of happiness,
his true love finally found,
the world showing success
as if the world were only a cloud

that floated in a dream
above a perfect day?
Are you also dreaming our words?
Give us something to say.

— Michael Ryan

Thankful Thursday: Wine Words

Wine is poetry in a bottle.

For years I've rolled my eyes at the adage, but now I am delighted to see poetry not just in the bottle but on the bottle.

On their next: wine, King Estate Winery in Eugene, Oregon, offers a fabulous label and a creative back-of-the-bottle poem:

next:  2008 oregon pinot noir

next: is a statement
next: is a question
next: reminds us that
we always stand
at a crossroads,
that we are all poets,
all philosophers,
the makers and keepers
of our own dreams,
that we might bring wine to our friends
that we might share both
wine and words together,
folded into a moment
on the edge of the next.

The poem shows no author, and I am perpetually curious:  Is this the work of an ad agency? (and, if so, how do I get this gig?) Or a poem via a sister, who has a friend, who has a neighbor that is a poet?

I couldn't bear to appreciate the poem (especially those last two lines) and not know its author. A quick bit of sleuthing solved the mystery. The poem was written by Ed King, founder and CEO of King Estate Winery.

Turns out Ed likes to read and write poems, and he often supports nonprofit organizations that publish and promote poetry and the arts.

I'll drink to that! Hooray to top-down creativity! Power and poems to the people!

 

This message has been brought to you by Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things. Are you a Thankful Thursday writer? Is so, let me know. I'd love to share your gratitude with others. Please visit these other Thankful Thursday writers:

Kelli Russell Agodon

Susan Rich

 

Send me a postcard


Crater Lake National Park in Oregon

The world is full of words. Lately, I'm leaning to less. Inspired by haiku, tanka, and Lisa Janice Cohen, I wrote these postcard poems.


Driving Along the Umpqua

wind swirls memory as

river light shines to

disolve pain so

gnawing

sadness

can

sink

 

Crater Lake at 7,000 feet

deepest

bluest

distant

water without sound

 

Heading Back

miles to go

heavy-hearted

your hand in mine

all the way home

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Pick and pluck

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Call it what you will; I dub it Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things.

I am grateful for the sunny hour I spent with youngsters in the garden. Seashore Family Literacy's after-school programs are back in session and I am happy to be immersed in lively minds and tender hearts.

Yesterday brought a glow of autumn sun and willing spirits. We began our session, as we often do, by picking poems from bulletin board pockets. Can we take more, they asked, more than one?

As if poems were candy, we filled our hands and headed to the garden. Large rocks made for perfect poetry seats as we read to ourselves and to each other. Much to our delight, two girls chose the same poem: Praying by Mary Oliver.

In the garden, in the light, as they stumbled over new words, the 9 and 10 year old voices floated like a song. Just as I thought the reverence could not increase, the youngest girl, in a small voice, said, I like the part where it says pay attention.

We each agreed and wondered how we could pay attention to the world. With journals in hand, we explored the garden's bounty: expanding squash, heavy-headed dahlias, the scent of rosemary as we ran our fingers along what one writer described in her journal as, spiny green spikes reaching like hands.

Another youngster, fueled by the beauty of bleeding hearts, wrote, If there were flowers in my heart I would water them every day with my tears.

On this day, there were no tears. Only flowers to pick. Again, they asked: Can we take more? More than one?

And with gratitude for poetry, gardens and young minds, I said yes.

Praying

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

— Mary Oliver

Mean Disease

My friend is buying baby food for her father.

There are 168 hours in a week, she tells me.

Even with help and hospice, that's a lot of days and nights to live wide awake.

He falls out of bed. He can't chew. It's too much. The nights too dark. The days too long. She cobbles together a routine of helpers and hospice and friends and still there are too many hours with the slow loss.

You never know what you're signing up for. I wouldn't not care for him, she says in a whisper, but Alzheimer's is a mean disease.

I wish I didn't know today is World Alzheimer's Day. I wish September 21st meant nothing. But increasingly — enough to make a day of it — more of us know about this mean disease.

Here are the sobering facts:

- One in two people over the age of 80 have Alzheimer's.

- People as young as 40 have been diagnosed with the disease.

- Someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s every 70 seconds.

My grandpa, Bart Myron, a wheat farmer, lived for decades with an eroding brain. He was one of the 5.3 million people who suffer — whose families suffer — with Alzheimer's. On this day I wanted never to know, I think of him, and my friend's father, and the increasing numbers of us walking through long days and sleepless nights, living with this mean disease.

Erosion

Who knows how

the mind files memory?

 
missing pieces, your

history, this life, lies

three states to the south --

 
lost rusted cars, bindweed

decay in the sun

 
wild geese fight winds

that rattle shingles, shake doors

 
your vacant eyes sort

through weeds, neglect

 
memory somersaults

lands against antelope

bones blanched in desert heat --

 
futile to search for data:

the face of a son, the hand of the wife

price of wheat, words   

any words to rise, rescue us

 
from this wait

this long silent loss.


- Drew Myron

This poem appears in Beyond Forgetting,  an award-winning collection of poetry and short prose about Alzheimer’s disease written by 100 contemporary writers — doctors, nurses, social workers, hospice workers, daughters, sons, wives, and husbands — whose lives have been touched by the disease. Through the transformative power of poetry, their words enable the reader to move “beyond forgetting,” beyond the stereotypical portrayal of Alzheimer’s disease to honor and affirm the dignity of those afflicted. To read sample poems, see a schedule of upcoming readings, or purchase a book, visit www.beyondforgettingbook.com.


 

 

Carrying a Ladder

We are always
really carrying
a ladder, but it’s
invisible. We
only know
something’s
the matter:
something precious
crashes; easy doors
prove impassable.
Or, in the body,
there’s too much
swing or off-
center gravity.
And, in the mind,
a drunken capacity,
access to out-of-range
apples. As though
one had a way to climb
out of the damage
and apology.


— Kay Ryan



Thankful Thursday: Lips, Sun, Run

It's Thankful Thursday!

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things that bring joy.

This week, I am thankful for:

Lipstick
From the department store or drug store, I love them all. Lipstick brightens my face and my mood. Such simple pleasure for such little effort.

Sun
On the Oregon Coast, admitting that I hunger for sun, dread grey, and struggle through rain brands me a spineless outsider (even though I was born in Portland!).  But I can't hide, fake, or pretend any longer: Sun makes me happy, gives me pep, gets me out of bed, out of my head, and into life. I am thankful for the two days of summer — i.e., blue sky, full sun, 70 degrees — we had last week.

Run
I never imagined my weak lungs could carry my thick legs out of the house, down the hill, to the beach and back. As a severe asthmatic with a missing half lung, I am beyond grateful that my body and mind have colluded to allow me to run. Thank you, lungs, for expanding just enough to give me breath and hope.

 Are you thankful? The gratitude movement is growing. Join me in welcoming other Thankful Thursday writers:

Kelli Agodon

Leah Dieterich

 

Reveal. Withhold.

I'm old-school. I grew up drawing distinct lines to divide professional me and personal me.

As a young reporter, I didn't complain about covering a city council meeting that would stretch late in the night and leave little time for a romantic dinner. I didn't talk about my health, my debt, and things that kept me awake. I was a professional and didn't reveal much.

But technology changed me. Facebook, Flicker, Blogs — these forms of communication have blurred the lines between personal and professional and I am not navigating well.

Each day I question How much to reveal? How much to withhold?  In these expanding forms of connection, and these widening circles of 'friends', sometimes it seems we're all trying too hard to be heard. Look at me! Look at me! Is all this sharing just self-promotion in disguise?

Last year, exasperated and overshared, I quit Facebook. I didn't miss it, really, but I did migrate back.

And yesterday, for my husband, on our anniversary, I baked a pie and wrote a poem. I wanted to share  the poem here but all night I tossed and turned and wondered why. Why do I want to share something so personal? Wouldn't doing so diminish the fragile, intimate space where our real lives thrive?

Sometimes on Facebook, when I see photos of babies or airing of struggles, I cringe. It's too much, I think. Keep it safe in that secret place where only you have access to the details of your heart. Other times, I  am greedy for those nuggets of personal information that will give me a glimpse of who you are, what makes your life.

How much to reveal? How much to withhold? The questions press at me more each day.

 

Scissors, Paper, Poem

For years, I've loved Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I've given away copy after copy as a go-to guide for writing practice. With all my ardor, I don't know how I missed Wild Mind, Goldberg's second insightful book on building a writing life.

Thanks to a friend's suggestion, I'm immersed in the book. To both loosen and limber up, sometimes I simply need a nudge. Her suggestion of the Cut Up Poem is the perfect push.

How to Make a Cut-Up:  Take some old poems or journal entries and copy them onto a clean sheet. Cut apart the lines with scissors. Now mix the lines and arrange in a new order. Throw in additional lines from other sources. Play around with them, shifting lines, discarding some and adding others to make your own poem.

"It's good practice," writes Goldberg. "It breaks open the mind."

I agree.  And while I usually let poems settle and breathe before I edit and share, these exercises are so liberating that sharing fresh off-the-pen words feels just as good as writing them.

____

Instead of a letter

What will sustain this scattered joy?
 
This morning I woke to the word remote.

Perhaps you just need permission
for a do-it-yourself dream that will blossom.

Like the drive-in movie theater once novel and grand,
now dusty and sagging on bitten back roads.

Big Macs replaced smokestacks as an icon of American prosperity.

It takes so little to dream. It takes so much to love.

Instead of a letter, you text me, send a smile made of punctuation.

I’ve never needed much.


____

How to Breathe

Here, in my lungs, in the tight narrow space
where breath is taken and given away

I’m trying to learn something about love,
how it gives what cannot be seen

We can’t sense space without light, and
we can’t understand light without shadow and shade

I’m trying to learn something about faith,
like a farmer, a fisher, a lover wounded and waiting

Memories lodge in orchards, platforms, docks
Things we make, break, mark

The natural world has much to teach about order —
not the repetitive and simple sort
but the complexity of how we live
in storm and sun, in ebb and flow

As we move through days,
geometry holds the mind,
faith the heart,
and this land
where it juts, retreats and recovers
shows us how to love in the darkness,
how to breathe

 

These poems were composed from random journal entries, combined with lines extracted from Chambers for a Memory Palace, and Main Street To Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture.

Have you tried a Cut-Up Poem? If not, please do! If yes, please share!

 

Thankful Thursday

Bandon, Oregon - Autumn Walk with Alyssa

It's Thankful Thursday!

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places & things that bring joy.

This week, I am thankful for:

1. Autumn Light (see above)

2. Blackberry pie, made with berries picked along the Yachats River on a sunny afternoon.

3. Barbara Hurd, for writing Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination

The one essential quality of the imagination is that it moves— in wide sweeps, in pinched steps, out to sea, down into the interior. The imagination is polytheistic and polygamist; its groundspring is multiplicity, not singularity. Trying to press a single meaning onto imagery is like asking a river to hold still. It will squirm out of your interpretation, jump its banks, form new rivulets and bayous in its relentless churn toward the open ocean.

4. Cashmere sweaters

5. Lou Grant, the late 1970s television show that shaped my desire to become a newspaper reporter. The cable reruns, featuring fictional news staffers Billie, Rossi and Animal, still delight me. Do kids still grow up wanting to be reporters? In our new media age, does journalism still shine?

6. Garlic simmering in a pasta sauce.

7. Sharpie - Industrial Super Permanent Ink - Marker

In unexpected places

Corvallis, Oregon

The Thing Not to Forget

Stepping outside, you neglect
once again to drop your jaw
and lift your face, flower-like,
to the great blue beauty, to launch yourself
into the dazzle that is gracing you
with this one more chance not to forget

- Rick Borsten

 

I was so happy to stumble upon this poem. Really, I did stumble. Out of a cafe, into a parking lot and upon this poem. I like the poem as much as I like its placement: in public, above asphalt, in an unexpected place. I love when poems crawl out of books and into the world.

How about you? How and where are you finding poems? 

 

Thankful Thursday: Dandelions

I was "Mrs. Nicholson" today as a volunteer teaching assistant for a summer school group. Made buddies with a little boy who looked and acted like Edmund from The Chronicles of Narnia, a little girl who picked a dandelion for me (and insisted on sitting next to me!), and a helper who painstakingly sorted my cards after calling each word in a rhyming bingo game."

Several years ago "Mrs. Nicholson" was Haylee Travis, a timid teen in a writing group at Seashore Family Literacy, where I am a volunteer mentor. I love seeing these young people grow up, out and into the world — and then give back.

In the online world last week, there was a great deal of discussion about making poetry more inclusive. Collin Kelley, January O'Neil and others opened a lively discussion, asking: How do we set a larger place at the poetry table for those working outside the academy? How do we take the insular and make it open? Some are weary of 'established' poets repeatedly invited to speak and present. There is a call for a greater breadth of representation. 

The blog talk opened many doors. I'm pondering these questions when I hear about Haylee's teaching experience. I'm thinking of the little girl who picked a dandelion for her, and my heart warms because there are so many little girls (and boys) needing a Haylee in their lives. 

And I'm thinking of another student, Hallie, who spent a few weeks as my summer camp assistant. The kids all wanted to read with Hallie, to sit by Hallie, to soak up the love she was willing to give. Now, back at college, she has started a writing group,  patterned in part, she says, on "what we did with the kids."

And I'm thinking of Fred, my very favorite volunteer. At Seashore, he does everything, from reading and writing with kids, to dishing up meals, and tutoring adults. 

This isn't a plug for Seashore Family Literacy. Volunteers are at every turn, and every age, and you don't need an organization to give your time, effort or love. You don't need to go overseas, go broke, or go Zen. Opportunity is everywhere — next door, down the street, around the corner. 

The question buzzing on the blogs has been, "How do we make room at the table . . .?"

But I think a more pressing question is: What are you bringing to the table? 

If we want more representation, more inclusion, and a more vibrant writing community then we must be willing to give time and effort to create what we desire. What are you giving to strengthen your community, and enhance your life and the lives of others?  

Six years ago I moved from Denver, Colorado to a small town on the Oregon Coast. I left friends, family and numerous writing opportunities. When I arrived in my new town (pop. 650) I was hungry for writing companions. Not finding any writing groups, I created my own. I offered monthly writing sessions in my home, serving soup and writing prompts. I didn't wait to be invited; I made my own party. 

After a time, our group — a mix of never-to-very published — wanted to share our work with a larger audience. Again, there was no local reading series. And again, I didn't wait to be invited; I made my own party. Off the Page, an annual poetry & prose event, is now in its fifth year and has broadened to include writers from all over Oregon. 

I share these examples, not to toot my own horn but to urge others to make their way. Seven years ago I was the shy writer in the back of the room. I didn't raise my hand or my voice. I waited to be invited and included (a painful flashback to high school, in which I was never asked to prom). I took the lack of invitations as a lack of acceptance. But at some point, you gotta step up, out and into the world. You have to get in and give.  

And when you do, you just might find a young girl eager to offer dandelion love.