Postcard Poem: In the vineyard

earth offers

because nature is flush
mahogany vines hang heavy
against a wide blue sky

the day spreads a feast just for us  
says         yes   now

drink the mystery
of cedar and soil

taste the dark gloss
of plump summer fruit

know the terrain
of this generous world

- drew myron

 

Could you stop writing?

Immediately a kind of cocoon began to form around my deepest self.

 
She gave up writing.

For an entire year, Marjorie Power — a prolific poet with hundreds of published poems and several books —  didn't write. Why? How? Intrigued by this experiment, I asked Marjorie, who just this month concluded her year-long hiatus, to share her experience with us.

 

Thank you, Drew, for asking me to be your guest blogger.  I hope what I say will be of use to others.

For most of my adult life (I'm 63) I've been engaged in writing poetry, submitting it to editors, and seeing much of it published by small presses. I stopped during the second half of my twenties, when my son was little, and have taken occasional breaks since then -- breaks that lasted from a few weeks to a few months. I continued to identify with being a poet until the writing slump or too-busy-to-write period ended.
 
But in the spring of 2010 I began feeling a need to stop writing poems and allow myself not to know whether I'd resume. I chose to take a year to let my psyche empty out, to let life flow through me and beyond without trying to capture it in images. I planned to decide at the end of the year whether to write more poetry, choose a different path, or spend another year floating in limbo. This decision to take a year off came as a relief.  Immediately a kind of cocoon began to form around my deepest self. During the following weeks and months, when voices from the outer world started to provoke confusion or a sense of failure, the cocoon would thicken. I read some poetry, but not much. My reading consisted mostly of magazines and works of fiction.
 
What preceded my decision was a sense of exhaustion and isolation. These feelings had two sources.
 
First, my husband and I have moved two times since his formal retirement in 2004, first to Yachats, Oregon (on the central Oregon Coast) and then inland (75 miles) to Corvallis. Apart from the physical aspect, the second move proved more challenging. This was a surprise, since we didn't go very far from Yachats. The challenge came in finding new friends and even potential friends, despite many interesting things to do. It became clear why retired people who move often choose communities designed specifically for retirement. We had not done that, either time, though Yachats does have a strong appeal to a certain kind of retiree.
 
And as a publishing poet, I felt way out on a limb. My publishing record consists of several hundred poems in journals and anthologies, plus seven collections that vary in length from 21 to 58 pages. I never became an academic nor did I transition gracefully to using the internet for promoting my work.  (During this past year I did begin posting poems as "notes" on Facebook.  I still don't have a website, though I may, in time.)  I've never been a performance poet or a slam poet. I've been a featured reader in various venues and enjoyed that, as has the audience. And while there are lots of writers, including lots of poets, in Corvallis, I couldn't seem to find square one when it came to making connections that might lead to reading opportunities. In January I did give a reading up in Olympia, Washington, where I lived for twenty years.
 
Since beginning my year off, I've given the soul energy necessary for creating poems to another aspect of life. I have been deliberately building new friendships among neighbors and others, including myself, in my new community. Treating oneself as a friend is different than being narcissistic, or simply maintaining good self esteem. It's active, fun, and rewarding. I keep myself company by knitting, a lifelong hobby, and have completed many beautiful and useful projects. My yarn stash seems a manifestation of the cocoon I mentioned earlier. And I am a member of a delightful knitting group here in town.
 
Another deliberate, quiet pursuit has involved writing: I send out a handwritten letter or note at least once a week. I plan to continue indefinitely. Many such notes go to my young grandtwins in Michigan, since handwritten letters will be extremely uncommon in their future. I have continued submitting unpublished poetry to editors. I've got two full length poetry manuscripts which have received serious attention in contests/open readings, so I continue to enter those, even though one definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing while expecting different results.
 
In early May, right after my year off ended, I attended the Northwest Poets Concord, a gathering of poets in Newport, Oregon. Sometime during the weekend I heard, "Poetry creates silences around things in a world clogged with verbiage." I had forgotten that. I went home and wrote a page long poem. I know others will follow. I will keep knitting in between.
 
I'd like to recommend two books, both of which I read this spring: Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce by Peter Clothier, and Beauty, The Invisible Embrace by John O'Donohue.  



Marjorie Power lives with her husband, Max Power, in Corvallis, Oregon.  She is a native of Connecticut and graduate of San Francisco State University.  Her poems appear in journals and anthologies all over the U.S., and in seven small collections.


Random acts of reading

Lately, my acts of literature are passive: reading.

You know that saying? A bad day of fishing is better than no fishing at all. I feel the same about reading. I haven't been enthralled with all of my latest reads, but I'm always happy to engage in the act.

I started two novels that I did my darndest to like but could not press on. I won't mention names because that just seems mean (but catch me in private and I might spill). I also slogged through a book thinking the story would develop, the characters would charm, but to no avail. I felt so played. Maybe it's me. I'm cranky, impatient, hard to please? But the world is full of books, and readers, so maybe it's not always me.

How about you, what are you reading? I'm nosy, and hungry for good books. In fair play, I'll share first:

Rescue
by Anita Shreve
The prolific novelist keeps turning 'em out. And though I have trouble keeping the stories straight, each book keeps me riveted to the page.

 


Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain
by Portia De Rossi
Do we need another memoir from another actress? No, but this was a nice surprise in both quality and content. On a related note, book covers are looking good lately. I love good design, and this cover, and the one above, seem especially evocative.

 

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
by Haruki Murakami
A novelist who runs, or a runner who writes?  Both! This book, chronicling the author's experience running marathons and ultramarathons, is inspiring and exhausting.

 

The Insomniac's Weather Report
by Jessica Goodfellow
These poems are complex and I'm intrigued. I've just begun the book — published last month — and it's clear I'm going to need to read, absorb and circle back.



Your turn. What are you reading, or trying to read?


Thankful Thursday: Yellow shoes & more

It's Thankful Thursday.

Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude.

Sometimes my thankfulness feels small. When all about us is war, illness and natural disaster, my gratitude for sunshine and sorbet feels, well, trite. And, indeed, it is. But I wonder if these times of external crisis are when I need to count my blessings even more. Just as the big events can wear us down, the small things can build us back up.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for:

Yellow Shoes
My sister sent me shoes. It's not even my birthday. In fact, it's her birthday (and I'm late with a gift). I love surprises + shoes + sun. "I know you don't wear bright colors," she said. "But I think you will like them."  And I do (paired with neutrals, of course). I'm thankful for the shoes but I'm most thankful for my thoughtful sister.

A Facebook Intervention
A friend calls me, a bit of mock urgency in her voice. "I'm worried about you," she says. "I'm seeing you all over Facebook. Are you addicted again? Do you need an intervention?" Drat! She's right. I've been here before. And now, again, for a few days (okay, a week), Facebook sucked me back in. I was on a binge of pithy reactions and quick retorts. It was pathetic. I needed air. And as much as I didn't want to admit it, I was glad to be outed.

Anne Herbert
Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. Remember that 1990s-era mantra that was all over car bumpers? Turns out a real person wrote it — Anne Herbert. I don't know where I thought it came from. It arrived before the internet age and as much as I think about words, I never considered the author of those words. And Anne didn't write just one catchy phrase, but dozens, and you can read them here. Next assignment: Discover who wrote Visualize Whirled Peas.

What are you thankful for today? A person, a place, a thing? A story, a song, a poem? What makes your world expand?


Can't you see I'm (not) writing?

A friend recently confided in me.

"I don't write every day," she whispered. "I know you're suppose to."

"I don't either," I replied. Relief washed her face.

For years, I badgered myself into writing regimes. I wrote 500 words a day. I wrote Morning Pages, timed writings, and poems on demand. Like a diet with a strict calorie count, every time I fell short  — and I always, eventually, fell short — I felt worse than when I began. Cue the berating. Let the self-degradation begin.

But I've eased up. I have, in part, Billy Collins to thank.

“I have no work habits whatsoever," says the prolific poet. "I don’t write every day, so often it would be zero hours per day. I kind of hold onto a romantic view. People say in order to be a writer you have to write all the time. The poem will come along when it arrives. I try to be on the lookout for creative opportunities, something that might trigger a poem, but I don’t sit down in the morning and try to commit an act of literature before lunch.”

Creative opportunities. Acts of literature.

I like that.

Now, instead of wrangling myself into writing every day, I simply look for creative opportunities to commit acts of literature. And my definition is rather broad. Recent acts include reading (newspapers, books, magazines, blogs, cereal boxes), attending a reading, gathering with literary friends, browsing bookstores, and roosting at libraries.

As a writer-for-hire, I do write everyday. I have clients and deadlines and a love of structure. As a poet, I am consistently battling my "write now" brain with my "write when it feels good" tendency.

Writer Jessica Goodfellow recently provided a much-needed nudge: "Even when you're not writing, you're writing."   

"Sometimes I just have to remember that everything I do is writing," she says. "It may not look like it to anyone else (it doesn't even seem like it to me!), but what I am doing when I'm doing nothing is writing. And when I'm doing something other than writing, somehow that is writing too."

Now that's a writing regime I can put to work.

How about you? Are you writing when you are not writing? Are you commiting acts of literature?

Free. Here. Now.

Free! Free! Free!

I'm a sucker for giveaways. I especially like contests requiring no skill. You, too? Good.

National Poetry Month is winding down — thank goodness, no more of that poem-a-day nonsense (kidding, please don't send me hate mail) — and that means you've got just a few days to win some swag.

Hurry, hurry, don't delay. Get in on this giveaway:

 > The Surprise Package of Good Books
Prepared, packaged & sent especially to you from me (free, hand-written note included!). Win this drawing and I'll send you a delightful medley of books, with the promise of no has-beens, wanna-be's or duds in the bunch.

To win, simply enter your name and email address in the comments section below, or zip me an email at dcm@drewmyron.com, by midnight on Tuesday, May 3. A random drawing will be held and the winner announced on Wednesday, May 4, 2011.

You may wonder: Why is Drew giving away good books, and paying for postage, too?  Out of love, of course. Live long & read! When you give a book, you give joy. And spreading joy is rarely this easy. I gotta strike while the giving is good.

Restless traveler

I am a restless traveler.

Here's my routine:

1. Finish the one mediocre book I have, then natter at my travel partner who is engrossed in a fabulous novel and annoyed at my prattle. 

2. Wear the type off any newspaper, and an assortment of magazines, including, but not limited to, People, O, Elle, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Us Weekly (I didn't buy it. It was left on the chair. Honest), National Geographic (I didn't buy this either but it does balance out the tabloid trash), and in desperation, Popular Mechanics.

3. Inhale snack foods, search for more, and then battle fierce guilt, remorse and bloat over my indulgence.

All this occurs before I board the plane. 

Thank goodness for Newspaper Blackout Poems, a poetic form mastered by Austin Kleon. This process appeals to my scrappy belief that Poetry is everywhere! You just gotta find it.

Got a minute, or hours? Grab a pen and some printed material —  any newspaper or magazine will do. (For added chuckles, use the Sky Mall magazine). Simply highlight, eliminate and create!

In no time at all, the flight attendant will rally travelers with the universal call, Put your seats and tray tables to the upright position. And you'll depart, or perhaps arrive, with the satisfaction of creativity in action.

 

Hedgerows

To restore the soul
perch between an ocean
and a garden.

Follow the dandelions.
Escape the wealth of order.

Follow the miles of trees
and plant
a fresh air solution.

— Drew Myron


What's in your pocket?

It's Poem in Your Pocket Day -- one of my favorite occasions.

The premise is simple:  Select a poem you love and carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, friends, neighbors and strangers (I added the strangers part. The Academy of American Poets, sponsors of this special day, do not officially include strangers in the sharing process, but really, isn't everyone a stranger until they meet the good, pure love of a poem?).

This is a day to savor and share, and I prefer to travel light, with a short but punchy poem. Here's my pick:

And Love Says

And love
says

"I will take care of you,"

To everything that is
near.

- Hafiz
translated by Daniel Ladinsky
 The Gift, poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master

 

What poem is in your pocket?

 

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?