Fever, fervor, pressure, pleasure

The writers are aflutter.

It's National Poetry Month, an April of fever, fervor, pressure and pleasure. As part of the celebration, challenges are served: Write a poem each day, read a poem, share a poem, be a poem.

It's like prom for writers. Everyone trying so hard. I'm both dizzy with delight and queasy from overload. In this spirit, the other day I was happy to find Mint Snowball, a collection of paragraphs by Naomi Shihab Nye. 

"I think of these pieces as being simple paragraphs rather than prose poems . . ." she explains. "The paragraph, standing by itself, has a lovely pocket-size quality. It garnishes the page, as mint garnishes a plate. Many people say (foolishly, of course), they don't like poetry, but I've never heard anyone say that they don't like paragraphs. It would be like disliking five-minute increments on the clock."

I Was Thinking of Poems

In the fields our eyes whirled inside a blur of green. Before I
wore glasses I came here. Thought the world was soft at the
far edges for real. Green rim of trees alongside anyone's life.
Stalk. Pod. Tendril. Blossom. On a farm you had time. Your
mind on words. Turned over gently and longly inside your
head. Damp dirt under dry surface.

He said "Rain" or "Easy." Said "String" or "Yellow." A boy
said "Yes sir" but meant "I don't get it." A phrase dangled.
Strip of cloud. Wide angle. Line breaks. Where the asparagus
row turned into the beets.

 - Naomi Shihab Nye, from Mint Snowball

 

Thankful Thursday

Because appreciation increases joy, it's Thankful Thursday. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. Today, I am grateful for:

sunshine

mangoes

the translucence of sauteed onions

clients that appreciate my work (and me)

a sound sleep

thin pillows

thick towels

quietude

nail polish that lasts

nimble fingers

lists

the brilliant simplicity of a manual can-opener

 

Tell me, what are you thankful for today?

 

Thankful Thursday on Friday: Practice

I'm a day late but still thankful.

A few things I appreciate this week:

Creative Kickstarts
Writing, like most endeavors, requires practice. To improve skills you gotta practice (just as in piano, painting, running, baseball, dance . . . ). I like the creative kickstart writing prompts provide. They give me permission to play with words.

A Writing Companion I've Never Met
As children we have imaginary friends. As adults, we get virtual friends. I have a poetry friend. We've never met but I'm pretty sure I'm not making her up. Each week we agree to a writing prompt and then share our work. Week after week, despite the whirl of family, commitments, and mental and emotional blocks, we keep writing. I am grateful for the accountability and encouragement this friendship provides. And it's nice to have a pen-pal again, just like when I was 10.

Newsprint
I love newsprint. The smooth yet toothy texture, the way ink glides over its pulpy surface. For me, the joy of writing is tactile. I like the grip of a pen, the physical act. When writing on newsprint — remember Big Chief tablets? — I feel loose. Words flow.

This week the Poets & Writers prompt (click here to get yours) was to:

Write a poem on a page of today's newspaper, allowing your eye to wander slightly and take in the language on the page, and for your text to overlay the text on the page. If you fix your eye on a specific word or phrase, incorporate it into the composition.

This was fun. Newsprint, like yesterday's paper, feels temporary, and so I didn't feel pressure to write something good. It was enough to let words bubble and move, which led to a wonderful realization: Everything, in life & in writing, is practice.

There now, doesn't that feel better?

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places and things that bring joy. Happiness contracts and expands with our appreciation. Tell me, what are you thankful for today?

 

Before I Die . . .

In an act of creative brilliance, Candy Chang turned the side of an abandoned house in her New Orleans neighborhood into a giant chalkboard where residents can write on the wall and share their hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Before I Die was an instant success. Within days, hundreds of people wrote on the wall and more than a thousand have left messages online.

"It’s a question that has changed me," says Chang, an artist and urban planner, "and I believe the design of our public spaces can better reflect what’s important to us as residents and as human beings."

Your turn. Take some chalk and write your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Unfurl no more

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for fresh words, and weary of the worn-out ones. 

I spend a great deal of time pondering word choices:

- At Seashore Family Literacy, the Word Wall is home to our favorite words.

- With clients, colleagues and friends, I mull pressing issues, such as:  What's another word for quell? or Is there a one syllable word for overwhelmed?

- At home, I often roll out words in random but rhythmic succession, producing an eye-rolling husband who says, We're doing this again?

As much as I love words, I loathe a few, too. The other day I got a two-line email from my mother that reminded me of the love/hate state (of words, not mothers):

Words I am sick of, she wrote, crisis, emergency, disaster, bipartisan.

She's right. From politics to pop culture, we get stuck in word ruts: game-changer, end of the day, sustainable, green, transparent.

Words innocuous in small amounts grow unbearable with repetition: amazing, dude, awesome.

And a flip turn-of-phrase — Seriously, really? — grates in the constant replay. 

In fiction and poetry, once lovely phrases have, with repetition, set me on edge: whorl, unfurl, lavender.

And while I can sling the snark, I take my own arrows, too: I must stop replying to surprising news with Wow!  And I must stop peppering poems with gloomy and gray, and ending with again and again. Perhaps this public airing will remind (read: shame) me into finding fresh words (and stop complaining about the weather).

The world is full of words, let's use more of them!

How about you? What words are you sick of seeing? And what words do you over-use? 


Thankful Thursday

In the wake of of tsunamis, earthquakes, radiation, war  — and, closer to home, rain, wind and gloom — I'm having trouble with joy. Finding it. Holding it.

Yes, I am grateful. Grateful to be spared natural disaster. Grateful that in my world, on the central Oregon coast, the tsunami siren and reverse-911 call was, ultimately, unfounded. I am thankful to be safe, but feeling so comes with realization that too many have perished. My gratitude feels a bit like gloating.

And grateful is not thankful.

Gratitude is counting blessings and a wash of relief. Thankfulness — cousin to gratitude — is light and bright, as in thank you ma'am, and a good day to you, too.  

I am wondering: Where is the light step of joy — thankfulness — in these days colorless and fraught?

Yesterday, engulfed in a list of chores and worrying over an early morning misunderstanding, I ventured out of the house and into the rain. Soaked with frustration, every face I saw — at the post office, in the market, crossing the street — was wearing my same scowl. All of us furrowed, worn, and ready to snap.

I live in a small town. You can't glare or galumph to people you will see again, and likely soon. There's only 600 of us, and if we're all sneering, life gets real miserable real quick.

Still, I couldn't help myself.

As I pulled from the post office parking lot, a woman darted in front of my car. The rain had worsened and the wind was whipping. From her dripping hood, she raised her head, leveled her eyes, and glared.  

Gripping the wheel, I began to glare back — and caught myself. Inexplicably, I offered a smile. Not calculated or smarmy, but instant and without thought. To my great surprise, she smiled back.

Since then, I've been thinking about that moment — and it was less than a moment, really. How, in just a flash, my shoulders eased, my jaw loosened and my mood lightened, and in turn, hers did, too. For an instant we were nothing but grins.

I am thinking how little it takes, this tranquil shift.

 

Love this passage

I wondered how often the future waits on the other side of the wall, knocking very quietly, too politely for us to hear, and I was filled with longing to reach back into my life and inform that unhappy girl: all around her was physical evidence proving her sorrows would end. I wanted to tell her that she would be saved, but not by an act of will: clever Gretel pretending she couldn't tell if the oven was hot and tricking the witch into showing her and shoving the witch in the oven. What would rescue her was time itself and, above all, its inexorability, the utter impossibility of anything ever staying the same.

— from Hansel and Gretel, a story appearing in The Peaceable Kingdom by Francine Prose

Read, run, read

I'm running a 5k — from home!
Will you join me?

Sara Roswell, of Life's a Wheeze, is hosting the Wheezy Virtual 5k. Everyone is invited— from couch slugs to marathon hounds. All breathers and wheezers welcome.

It's simple: On Saturday, March 19, run 3.1 miles, on the treadmill, around your neighborhood, in a park, at the mall, whatever works for you. Before and after the race, check in at Life's a Wheeze.

To get in the groove, I'm taking literary inspiration from running-related reads:

Heartbeat, by Sharon Creech, is the engaging story — told in verse — of 12-year-old Annie, who finds solace in running as the world around her shifts and swirls.  Creech, with a masterful light hand, explores how we become who we are, how we are unique and yet how we are all alike, and to what degree we should conform.

Running for the Soul, from Road Runner Sports, is chocked with short, real-life triumphs from runners of all ages and abilities. This slim but powerful book will have you lacing your shoes and raring to run long before you've hit the last page.

I've got a week of reading and training ahead, and I'd love your help. Tell me, What gets your mind and body in the movement mindset?


Pull me from this winter coma

March, you vex me.

You are a tease, a taunt, a passive agressive yes and no and not yet. The only way to get through this passage bridging winter and spring is to eat, drink, nap, and read. It was in the throes of these vices that I found March Afternoon, a poem by Sandy Longhorn. 

Stun me, she writes. Pull me from this winter coma.

Can she call it, or what? 


March Afternoon

Emergency flare of a sun,
                                                      an empty sky.

Wind gusts ruffle the remains of last year's tall grasses —

                         the stand of ornamental pampas
                              and the pond rushes gone brown and dry.

I am talking to the hawk and the horizon when I say:

                                                                   Stun me.
Pull me from this winter coma.
Cleave me open
                           like sod split by the plow.
                                                                             Lay me bare.

The red wasps hang in the air,
                                              dangerous question marks.
                    The sun slides toward the tree line,

collides with a forming cloud —
                                                             a muscular light blooms.

 

— Sandy Longhorn
from Blood Almanac


Life is visceral, and other lessons

1
Be authentic. The most powerful asset you have is your individuality, what makes you unique. It’s time to stop listening to others on what you should do.

2
Work harder than anyone else and you will always benefit from the effort.

3
Get off the computer and connect with real people and culture. Life is visceral.

4
Constantly improve your craft. Make things with your hands. Innovation in thinking is not enough.

5
Travel as much as you can. It is a humbling and inspiring experience to learn just how much you don’t know.

6
Being original is still king, especially in this tech-driven, group-grope world.

7
Try not to work for stupid people or you'll soon become one of them.

8
Instinct and intuition are all-powerful. Learn to trust them.

9
The Golden Rule actually works. Do good.

10
If all else fails, No. 2 is the greatest competitive advantage of any career.


— 10 Lessons for Young Designers
from John C Jay, Executive Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy.
Courtesy of AIGA.

 

Thankful Thursday: Unanswerables

XLIX

When I see the sea once more
will the sea have seen or not seen me?

Why do the waves ask me
the same questions I ask them?

And why do they strike the rock
with so much wasted passion?

Don't they get tired of repeating
their declaration to the sand?

- from The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda

The Book of Questions — a series of 320 questions in 74 poems by Pablo Neruda — has no answers. Instead, these poems nudge us to experience inquiry, not for rational, practical answers but for the sensation of wonder and what-if?

"We may ask our own unanswerable questions, and might come to find reflected in ourselves the world beyond might and sight," explains William O'Daly in the introduction to the poems he translated. "Neruda believed the inner quest was never-ending, that on some level what we learned was forgotten, so that we might learn it again."

On Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for questions that require no answers. For a change, I am content to let the queries dangle unknown, impossible, infinite.

 

We're all strangers here

"Love," Yo enunciates, letting the full force of the word loose in her mouth. She is determined to get over this allergy. She will build immunity to the offending words. She braces herself for a double dose: "Love, love," she says the words quickly. Her face is one itchy valentine. "Amor." Even in Spanish, the word makes a rash erupt on the backs of her hands.

Inside her ribs, her heart is an empty nest.

— from How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez


I've been on a binge of immigrant stories. Not memoirs of displacement, but beautiful fiction inspired and influenced by real-life events and experiences. Some of my favorite novels (and films) are stories that illuminate cultural divides. Perhaps I feel an empathy for those who live jarred between past and present, or maybe it's the sense of alienation I understand — after all, even if we never leave our own country, we're all strangers in a strange land at some point in our lives. Through the eyes of others we can see ourselves, and through our stories we gain a deeper knowledge of one another.

A few of my favorite stranger-in-a-strange land tales:

Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
"A deeply moving story of the men and women who risk everything to cross the Mexican border . . . Succeeds in stealing the front page news and bringing it home to the great American tradition of the social novel."

 

Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal
With great humor and wit, Satyal tells the story of a pre-teen Indian boy with grandiose aspirations.

 

 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Oscar, a first generation Dominican-American teen, "a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd." 

 

 

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
A heartbreaking yet joyful tale about a young girl growing up in a Latino neighborhood of Chicago.

 

 

Stubborn Twig by Lauren Kessler
Not a novel, but a true story recounting three generations of Japanese Americans. History is painful and cruel as Kessler shines a light on one family forever changed by the WWII internment camps that forced over 100,000 people into mandatory relocation.

 

 What have I missed? I'd love to hear your suggestions!

 

Common Bowl

Common Bowl Dinner
Warm the body, soothe the soul & make a difference

A benefit for Seashore Family Literacy

Sunday, March 6 at 5pm
at the Waldport Community Learning Center
in Waldport, Oregon
$10 for adults, children 12 and under by donation

Enjoy six soups, salad & bread
Choose your bowl, and take it home, too!

For tickets and info: Seashore Family Literacy, 541-563-7326


Every bowl is a prayer

for Senitila

The Common Bowl replaces the common prayer
and we are no less reverent. Circled and embraced,

we link in a necklace of connection, grasp in the other
a piece of ourselves. She makes bowls, open and wide,

hands crafting from emptiness something out of nothing.
It is not magic this finish both rough and bright, and we are

no less cracked and patched. Peculiar, particular, resilient,
in our need we take turns to weep and shine. We grip the

bowl greedy for more, shamed with want, humbled
in desire, cleansed in the bounty of spirit shared.

- Drew Myron

 

Thankful Thursday: Royal De Luxe

Don't give in to nostalgia. For years it's been my mantra, reminding me that the past rarely glistens, but more often rusts, with time.

I don't wax about the past, and I don't understand the way in which mundane objects and events achieve cult status through the simple process of time. Your first car becomes a symbol of automotive achievement. A favorite childhood toy seeds a dusty adult collection. A young love turns into the one you let get away.

Clearly, I am not a sentimentalist, or a collector. In fact, I am the antithesis of a collector; I am a minimalist. I love vintage clothes and old jazz but I've not worked up a dedicated fixation. This week, however, I am feeling a fondness for the past.

On this Thankful Thursday I am thankful for the gift of a vintage typewriter, a 1950 Royal Quiet De Luxe (and that's no typo; De Luxe is two words, with caps). Though it needs a new ribbon and a bit of oil, the 61-year-old relic still clacks across the page.

I love type as a graphic element, and as a former reporter I appreciate the machine of my profession. When I was a kid, a friend of the family worked the presses at The Denver Post and took me on an insider's tour. I was wide-eyed with the massive production required to bring words to paper, and delighted when he let me take home scraps of the heavy lead type. A few months later, for my 10th birthday, my parents gave me a mimeograph machine, from which I churned out copies of my own newspaper.

After college, for my first paid writing gig, I wrote feature stories for the Durango Herald on my typewriter, albeit an electric. So, I'll admit, I've got a bit of nostalgia wrapped up in the early years of type and press.

Along with memories, this old-but-new-to-me typewriter gift carries emotional weight, too. It is a Valentine's present from my husband.

"He gets you," said a friend when I told her of the gift. She's right, he does. Today I am double thankful — for a vintage typewriter, and for being loved and understood.


It's Thankful Thursday. Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude. What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? Tell me, what makes your world expand?


Off the Page celebrates 5 years

Join us for Off the Page, a celebration of poetry and prose on Friday, April 1 at 7pm in Yachats, on the central Oregon Coast.

The event takes place at the Overleaf Lodge Event Center, located at the north end of town, on Highway 101. Doors open and music starts at 6:30pm. The reading begins at 7pm. Admission is free and open to all ages.

Now in its fifth year, Off the Page is an encouraging celebration of creative expression. Pacific Northwest writers will share their work.

Featured writers include: Khlo Brateng, Brian Hanna, Holly Hughes, Drew Myron, Caitlin Nicholson, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Ann Staley, and singer/songwriter Richard Sharpless.

About the Writers

Khlo Brateng, of South Beach, is an actress, singer, musician and writer. A lover of music and the rhythms of language, she explores poetry, flash fiction and short stories in her chapbook Words Out Loud.

Brian Hanna, of Seal Rock, is an architect who emerged from retirement to design commercial and industrial structures throughout the U.S and Canada.  He is a member of Tuesdays, a weekly writing group, and a volunteer with Seashore Family Literacy’s Young Writers Group.

Holly J. Hughes is the editor of the award-winning anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease, and author of Boxing the Compass, a chapbook of poems. She spends summers working as a naturalist in Alaska and winters teaching writing at Edmonds Community College (near Seattle, Washington) where she co-directs the Convergence Writers Series.

Drew Myron, of Yachats, is the creator of Off the Page. With a belief that writing needs to crawl out of the journal and soar into the community, she created the annual event — now in its fiifth year — to showcase local writers and celebrate the power of creative expression.

Caitlin Nicholson, of Newport, has lived on the Oregon Coast nearly all of her 19 years. A graduate of Seashore Family Literacy’s Young Writers Group, she was once a writer of horror stories but poetry now has her heart: “It wasn't until I joined the writers group that I became interested in poetry. And since I started, I can't stop.”

In her first life, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, of Yachats, was a dancer/choreographer. In her second life, at 80, she is an interdisciplinary scholar and philosophy professor at the University of Oregon. She is the author of seven books, and editor of two. Her latest book, Putting Movement Into Your Life: A Beyond Fitness Primer is a lively, engaging tool to help transform everyday habits into vibrant fun.

Ann Staley, of Corvallis, is a poet who has taught for over 40 years, in five Oregon school districts, two community colleges, two public universities and two private ones. She likes nothing better than settling into a circle of strangers, opening her notebook and saying, "Let's do some freewriting for a few minutes before our Introductions. Write about whatever comes to mind. There is only Now followed by Now."

 

Lodging and event space generously provided by the Overleaf Lodge & Fireside Motel.



Thankful Thursday (on Friday)

I am thankful, I am. 

But also quiet and reclusive. Show up, I'm told. Be present. So, here, with a belated Thankful Thursday. I humbly offer a few people / places / things I am grateful for this week:

Butter toffee peanuts
• My go-to treat, second only to tapioca.

The enthusiasm of others
• Thanks to gentle encouragement, I am back in the throes of organizing Off the Page, an annual celebration of poetry & prose. This is the 5th year, and despite its success  — drawing audiences of 30 to 50 each year, in a town of just 600 people — I was about to give it up. I was tired and mopey. Orchestrating the event seemed too much work for too little reward. But just one person, who was interested and eager, changed my mind and put pep in my step. It's a cliche, but really, for the first time I actually believe this platitude: One person can make a difference.

• A friend has written a novel. It's the kind of really good book that left me honored to be among the first to read it. And, the author asked if she could include one of my poems. Her enthusiasm fueled my enthusiasm.  (I'll share more about this touching novel as it gets closer to publication.)

Perseverance
• The more I acknowledge gratitude, the more grateful I feel. That's the beauty of Thankful Thursday. When you name your gratitude, you realize how much more there is to name. I've been reluctant to show up for Thankful Thursday (hence the day late). While I'm an encourager of others, lately my cheers have lost their buoyant tune as I have retreated into winter's matte gray. But perseverance pays, it seems, as I am here and feeling more thankful than when I arrived! 

So, how about you? Are you feeling thankful today?

 

Reasons to hang on

Hey there, sunshine!

Yes, winter is gray and gloomy.
Yes, competition is fierce.
Yes, creating can bear periods of great ache . . . but light shines. In this darkness, a few reasons to hang on:

Lucille Broderson
In her 60s, she picks up a pen, takes a class, and begins to write. And now, at 94, Lucille Broderson publishes a poetry collection that has been hailed as a "magnificent achievement." But You're Wearing a Blue Shirt the Color of the Sky is not chocked with cute little-old-lady poems, but with deep, direct poems on aging, children, husbands, and more.

William Stafford
One of America's most prolific poets, William Stafford wrote more than 50 books in his 79 years — and his first book wasn’t published until he was 46. He kept a daily journal for 50 years, and composed nearly 22,000 poems, of which roughly 3,000 were published. He taught at Lewis and Clark College for 30 years, was Oregon’s Poet Laureate, and earned a National Book Award.

David Biespiel
Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces, by David Biespiel, comes with an all-inclusive invitation: "for writers, artists, musicians, dancers and anyone else who leads a creative life." The book is just $10 (much cheaper than therapy) and offers critical insights into the creative process. It's a quick, lifting read that left me feeling a little less blue, and a lot more eager, about my writing life.