Thankful Thursday: In a pause

A friend emails me a poem each week, along with a one-page background on the poet, which she researches and writes. She's not a poet (she says) but she appreciates poetry.

She sends a mixed bag of poets I know and don't. This week a Latino poet. Last month a New Zealander. I'm always learning.

I know there are organizations that provide this same service, but I like thinking of this one person — whom I've met only once and briefly — each week thoughtfully choosing a poem and sharing its story with me and others. I like that one poem, lovingly shared by one person, can tie us all together in a poetic pause. 

Thank you Vicki.

This Week's Poem  (No. 382):

In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes

in a Tex-Mex restaurant. His co-workers,
unable to utter his name, renamed him Jalapeño.

If I ask for a goldfish, he spits a glob of phlegm
into a jar of water. The silver letters

on his black belt spell Sangrón. Once, borracho,
at dinner, he said: Jesus wasn’t a snowman.

Arriba Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed
into a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States.

Frijolero. Greaser. In Tucson he branded
cattle. He slept in a stable. The horse blankets

oddly fragrant: wood smoke, lilac. He’s an illegal.
I’m an Illegal-American. Once, in a grove

of saguaro, at dusk, I slept next to him. I woke
with his thumb in my mouth. ¿No qué no

tronabas, pistolita? He learned English
by listening to the radio. The first four words

he memorized: In God We Trust. The fifth:
Percolate. Again and again I borrow his clothes.

He calls me Scarecrow. In Oregon he picked apples.
Braeburn. Jonagold. Cameo. Nightly,

to entertain his cuates, around a campfire,
he strummed a guitarra, sang corridos. Arriba

Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed into
a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States.

Greaser. Beaner. Once, borracho, at breakfast,
he said: The heart can only be broken

once, like a window. ¡No mames! His favorite
belt buckle: an águila perched on a nopal.

If he laughs out loud, his hands tremble.
Bugs Bunny wants to deport him. César Chávez

wants to deport him. When I walk through
the desert, I wear his shirt. The gaze of the moon

stitches the buttons of his shirt to my skin.
The snake hisses. The snake is torn.

- Eduardo C. Corral

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things (and poems). Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?


3 Things That Make a Writing Class Shine

I need more structure in my writing life, I recently admitted to a friend. I'm not getting to the page often enough.

Her suggestion? Take a writing class.

She's right.

After a summer of leading writing workshops -- from a two-hour session to a five-day camp -- it's time I fill my own well. As I've mentioned before, a writing class gives you permission to focus on your creative life, and provides structure, too. Once I've signed up and paid, my lazy habits typically take a back seat to a sense of purpose and a desire to get my money's worth.

As I search for a class in this back-to-school season, I'm mulling just how to avoid the eh and get to the excellent ? Combining my experience as both instructor and student, I offer a few suggestions (and encourage you to share your ideas, too):

Three Things That Make for a Great Writing Class

1.
Size matters.

No less than five students, and no more than 12. That's my preference. I like the intimacy a small group provides. Some writers gravitate to a grander scale, preferring to observe and fade into a larger group. But I like up-close and personal. I want time to write and share. Small classes, I find, allow more in-depth exchange.

2.
Great writers are not necessarily great teachers.

Some of my best teachers are not my favorite writers. They're excellent writers, to be sure, but not necessarily matched to my writing style. While it's important to learn from accomplished, respected, professional writers, don't be wooed by big names and bestsellers. Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. I've gained the most valuable skills from lesser known writers whose writing is least like my own.

3. 
Balance, in all things.

A great teacher offers a balance of personal and professional interaction, along with an equitable blend of writing time to discussion time. Students don't want to endure long monologues. We wanna write! (yes, we're self-centered). A great teacher will also balance warm encouragement with clear direction, and lively discussion with focused lessons and sincere feedback.

 

In a really good workshop, I sometimes feel I've stumbled upon a rare experience, and the class is a beautiful alchemy that no rules can explain. Have you felt this, too? Perhaps it's the mix of personalities, or the timing, or the alignment of planets. There is a mystery, an intriguing combination, that makes a class shine.

What do you think? What's your most memorable writing class, and what made it great?

 

Thankful Thursday: Anticipation

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places and things that bring gratitude and joy.

Today, I am thankful for the eager, uneasy wait of good things — around the corner, down the street, at the next bend, even into the next week. Something good is surely ahead.*

What are you thankful for today?

* pssst -- Have I mentioned how much I love letters?
Please, don't be shy:
Post Office Box 914
Yachats, Oregon 97498


Poetry in (Unexpected) Public Places


I spent the weekend with poets — not at a writing workshop, a reading, or a sprawling literary conference, but at the Denver County Fair.

Yes, a county fair. We read poems on the Farm & Garden Stage, surrounded by blue-ribbon pies and clucking chickens (also zombies and drag queens). Now in its second year, the Denver County Fair was created by my favorite artist (Tracy Weil) and event guru (Dana Cain) as a modern interpretation of the traditional fair. It's a super-charged mix of country living and urban crazy.

And the event, I'm happy to note, includes a poetry contest. Ribbons and a cash prize are awarded to poems on the theme of agriculture, food, gardens and farms.

On Sunday afternoon, a vigorous audience leaned in to hear poets read their work. A few steps away, poems were displayed on pegboards, sharing space with top tomatoes and pretty preserves.

After ribbons were awarded, hands shaked, and applause faded, the stage was cleared and prepped for the next event: a how-to-make compost demonstration. It seemed a fitting follow.

Finding poetry in unexpected places is a great reminder that art lives in the nooks and crannies of our busy, often complicated, lives. Next to chickens, before the compost, and all through the harvest.

The 2012 Denver County Fair First Place, Blue Ribbon Poem:

What We Make
for Frederick H. Stitt

This is a very old recipe.
The kind your hands know
better than your head.

Take the zucchini
from the fridge. Think of your job,
of your husband working late,

of your father
who fell last week,
more than a thousand miles away.

Think of the bruises that blossomed,
black then green, on his forehead,
across the span of his ribs.

Grate the zucchini.
You will need three cups
and one of mozzarella.

Break three glorious
lop-sided, orange-yolked eggs
and think now of your father

as the young man turned from the camera,
modeling suits in a catalogue—
his frame that broad and fine.

Add flour, oil, salt and pepper,
loads of fresh basil, baking powder.
Let the onion do its worst.

Think of your dog,
his sturdy joints
going stiff,

even his wag an ache,
and how he goes to his leash
still, every time, in a lather.

Mix and load into a butter-greased, 
8” pan. Think of the rich flesh and rough stones
of peach season,

which is right now every morning
bursting the day open
in your mouth. This is August.

Bake a while at 350˚.
It will rise. It will fall. It will mingle
with fresh tomatoes and Romano.

Think. It will be delicious.
And then, one bite at a time,
it will be gone.

- Kathryn T.S. Bass

 

Thankful Thursday: Sun is just the start

 

1.
Sun.

2.
Sun on a lake.

3.
Sun on a lake in summer.

4.
Sun on a lake in summer, and swimming.

5.
Sun on a lake in summer, and swimming, immersed in the quiet of water lapping against boat.

6.
Sun on a lake in summer, and swimming, and I am immersed in the quiet of water lapping against boat, and later I turn pages of a good book and feel the need to do nothing more than absorb heat, water, and stillness -- and feel a fullness only gratitude can bring.

 

Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things.

What are you thankful for today?

 

Thankful Thursday: Instead

Appreciation, my horoscope demands.

Later, this song turns up. I hit Shuffle; my iPod declares Genius. The song plays again.

Everything is sign. So, I give in. On this Thankful Thursday, I share with you my (unofficial and unrelenting) theme song: 

Instead

Madeleine Peyroux

Instead of feelin' bad, be glad you've got somewhere to go
Instead of feelin' sad, be happy you're not all alone
Instead of feelin' low, get high on everything that you love
Instead of wastin' time, feel good 'bout what you're dreamin' of.

Instead of tryin' to win something you never understood
Just play the game you know, eventually you'll love her good
It's silly to pretend that you have something you don't own
Just let her be your woman and you'll be her man.

Instead of feelin' broke, buck up and get yourself in the black
Instead of losin' hope, touch up the things that feel out of whack
Instead of bein' old, be young because you know you are
Instead of feelin' cold, let sunshine into your heart.

Instead of acting crazy chasin' things that make you mad
Keep your heart ahead, it'll lead you back to what you have
With every step you're closer to the place you need to be
It's up to you to let her love you sweetly.

Instead of feelin' bad be glad you've got someone to love
Instead of feelin' sad, be happy there's a god above
Instead of feelin' low, remember you're never on your own
Instead of feelin sad, be happy that she's there at home
She's waitin' for you by the phone
So be glad that she is all your own!

Get happy
She's waitin' for you by the telephone.
So get back home!

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places and things that bring gratitude and joy. What are you thankful for today?

 

Lines that bring me back

  For the lonely, the bridge is a seam
  between two skies.

- Julia B. Levine
excerpt from Golden Gate


It's heartbreaking some days, the beauty of language.

I have walked away, away from words. Between productivity and creativity, a division is made and I have lived in an urgency to get this done and that started. Everything is a checklist to the next set of things undone things, people untended.

Deep in the fog of work and chores, I have wasted days. Still, words stirred, called to me. Come back, they urged.

 

  The birds move like ballet dancers in the air
  but sound like truckers at a roadside bar.

- Debra Smith
from Terns flock to Everett paper mill after it closes

 

Today, I woke again, startled. After days of numb, I am drawn to an evocative line, a catchy phrase, the whirl of words. How had I missed them? How I had missed them!


  Silence can be a plan
  rigorously executed

  the blueprint to a life

  It is a presence
  it has a history     a form

  Do not confuse it
  with any kind of absence

- Adrienne Rich
excerpt from Cartographies of Silence

 

 What words call you? What lines or phrases draw you in, bring you back to yourself?

 

Thankful Thursday: Small Change

A wave sloshes toward me, clear, carrying, apparently, nothing. No shell, no seaweed strand, no color-glisten I can see. It spreads its froth out along the sand, sinks, and seems to retreat. The beach looks unchanged, though I know now not to trust that appearance. If there is such a thing as transformation, perhaps the smaller manifestation is often the more reliable. Perhaps if we're lucky, we might salvage the small or unrecognizable as an agent of perception, the thing that prompts the imagination to focus and funnel, to be the lime door we might occasionally walk through, the trigger, finally, to some larger question.

- Barbara Hurd
from Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shifts
and What Remains

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places and things that bring gratitude and joy.

Today, I am thankful for the words of others — those dense, deep ideas that trigger my heart and stir my mind.

What are you thankful for today?

 

Try This: Five Things

It's been a string of busy days, allowing little rest and even less reflection. My writing life needs some feeding. Yours, too?

Between errands, work and household chores, there's sometimes little room for creative life. A few of my friends show great discipline by writing in life's tight spaces: in the waiting room, on the ball field, in the dark of dawn. I'm not (yet) so determined.

But last night, restless with the void of my own written words, I squeezed in a brief, before-bed writing session — and it felt great!

As inspiration I turned to Twenty Things Morning Reveals, a keen example of acute observation, in Kathleen Dean Moore's book Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature. 

I used her example — but I started small, with just five things. I found the more I wrote, the more I wanted to keep writing (Isn't this usually the case, and why do I need constant reminder of this fact?).

Six Things Today Revealed

1. At 7am, low tide, light shines on mossy rock, turning the beach into a beautiful green glow.

2. A sunny summer morning on the Oregon Coast feels like a crisp Colorado autumn. Is everything something else, a trigger for days long passed?

3. A clutch of foxglove line my path. Life is lush, always growing.

4. Rain draws near, grows heavy, stretches my fear.

5. Momentum matters. Once I begin — making, doing, being — it's easy to keep going.

6. The moon is a butter-yellow crescent, a sideways smile, a comma. Can I carry this pause into my sleep? Can I slow every memory into a soft, steady dream?


Try This: Write your own Ten Things (or two, five, twenty, or more). This prompt is a great exercise in observation. Tell me how it works for you. Or, even better, share your results in the Comments Section below.

 

Thankful Thursday: Lush & Lively

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

What are you thankful for today?

Sitka Center - photo by Khlo BratengWhen the mysterious mix of vulnerability and willingness blend, a writing workshop is transformed from routine to really fantastic.

A powerful change occurs as people gather together to write. Time speeds, sometimes slow. The air carries a charge. Even the temperature of the room shifts, mirroring the slight but potent change within us, as if every cell is rearranging to make room for our real selves to emerge.

Twice this week I led workshops with writers — new and seasoned, young and old — who were eager and willing to go deep, and quickly.

At the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, in Neskowin, Oregon, our small group spent the day wandering the unbelievably lush woods, exploring the physical and emotional meaning of place. We were reverent, reflective and relaxed.

A few days later, at a Willamette Writers workshop in Newport, Oregon, I spent the evening with a lively group of women (and one brave man), considering the power of scent. We wrote hard, pens pressed to page, then listened, and laughed, and laughed some more.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am humbled by, and thankful for, the mysterious shift — and for writers who are lush and lively, willing to open and express. 

 

Rules for Writing (and for Life)

From the pages of youth, this Summer Camp student holds the keys to writing, and to life.

You never know how much is heard, or what will stick, but finding this journal page warmed my heart.  A 12-year-old has captured all my favorite writing rules, with her own wonderful emphasis and embellishment:

Ground rules

- Write anything and anything.

- Be kind.

- Take turns talking.

- Be a good -- no great -- listener.

- Play with your words!

 

5 Reasons To Attend a Writing Workshop


The workshop experience is often so much more than learning a particular skill . . . a workshop can change your perspective and transform what you believe is possible.

- Jalene Case
Sitka Center for Art and Ecology

This week I'm gearing up for two workshops:  a one-day workshop at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and an evening session with the Willamette Writers Coast Chapter.

Here's a confession:  I've attended, and led, dozens of workshops — and I still get nervous. As both participant and leader, the inner critic always shows up, saying: You're not good enough, You're not ready, and makes other paralyzing noises.

The good thing is that the minute I begin to write, all worry evaporates.

The other day a friend told me that she had started to write. She was excited but embarrassed. Maybe when I'm no longer a beginner, she said, I'll come to one of your workshops. 

What!?!?, I said. Now is the perfect time.

Here's why:

5 Reasons to Attend a Writing Workshop

1.
We're all beginners

Even if you've written a dozen novels and hundreds of poems, you start over each time you write. A workshop is a great equalizer. You've written a bestseller? Great. You've never written? Great. Let's get together in a spirit of exploration — not to find rules or status, but to discover words, meaning, ourselves.

2.
Give yourself permission

Attending my first writing workshop was a big deal. I drove 5 hours, across two states, to spend a week with a group of people I did not know, for a workshop with a poet I had never even read (I was so new and clueless I didn't realize I should read the instructor's work before class). But none of that mattered; the important thing was that I was giving myself permission to be a poet. I hadn't told anyone I wrote poems, or that I harbored a desire to learn how to write better poems. I say this now with no trace of overstatement: That workshop changed the course of my writing life.

3.
Stretch yourself

If your last poem sounds like your first poem, if your writing group glazes over with the 100th reading of your tired story, it's time to shake things up. Familiarity breeds contempt. Sure, it's cozy here with your bag of tricks, but baggy sweats are also comfy and that's not a look improving anyone's life. A writing workshop is a great place to brush up, get dressed, and find a fresh focus.

4.
Encouragement

Last summer I led a one-day workshop attended by a mix of first-timers and published writers. A few days later I received what I consider a wonderful compliment and a great reason to attend a workshop: 

My husband asked me what I learned. I answered that it wasn't that l learned some tricks to writing, or how best to use my time in order to write, or how to publish. What your workshop provided me was an opportunity to meet other writers and share experiences that helped me assess my own writing — the best kind of springboard to encourage me!

5.
There are no rules, but structure helps

Sitting at home, or at your writing desk, it's easy to find other things to do: fold laundry, wander Facebook, watch Mad Men, snack on a bag of chips. Sometimes everything is just too loosey-goosey. We need rules, structure, deadlines. A writing workshop recalibrates our system, giving us a much-needed nudge to keep ourselves on task and productive.

 

What's your experience?
Do you attend writing workshops? Why? Why not?

 

Love this passage!

Now I think the world is full of tiny, invisible strings we're scarcely aware of, of threaded gossamer so delicate it binds us to people and to places and the nethermost of gestures, to the tiny warblings of living beings, to the musty smell of other rooms. The strings tying us to each other are everywhere. We are connected to others in a spanning web: it is our job not to tear it, to keep it in good repair, even if we cannot see it. 

 - Robert Vivian, from The Diginity of Crumbs,
an essay in Cold Snap as Yearning

 

Thankful Thursday: Play (and Write)

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for sunny skies and sunny children.

I'm still in the glow of last week's Summer Writing Adventure Camp. Now in its sixth year, the free camp is offered by Seashore Family Literacy and offers a week of high-energy explorations designed to fuel creative expression.

To inspire writing, our motley group of 12 youngsters (ages 10 to 14), and a sprinkling of intrepid adults, hiked Cape Perpetua, walked the historic Alsea Bay Bridge, traveled by city bus to explore Newport’s working bayfront, and kayaked Alsea Bay and Lint Slough. The video above captures the flavorful mix of exploration, introspection, and just plain fun.

Each year as the Summer Camp begins I feel a mix of worry that turns to wonder that turns to awe. At the end of the week, I always say, "best year ever!"  And I (almost) always mean it. 

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

What are you thankful for today?


Things Writers Do

We're not writing.

We're not writing enough.

We're writing but it's all junk.

The internal critic never stops!
No wonder we're miserable.

To counter this destructive loop, writer Molly Spencer has created Things Poets Do. It serves as a reminder of all she is accomplishing, rather than focusing on the things she has not yet achieved. It's a great mind shift, an excellent list, and I've adapted and expanded it for my own use:

Things Writers Do

1. Read and study a variety of good writing, especially contemporary work.

2. Keep up with the news of the literary world.

3. Draft poems, stories, essays.

4. Do research, legwork, word-work, and notebook-work to nourish the drafting process.

5. Revise work.

6. Connect with other readers, writers and artists.

7. Swap work for critiques.

8. Read Poets & Writers magazine.

9. Attend readings.

10. Give readings.

11. Spread the poems (stories, etc).

12. Read a variety of literary journals.

13. Research places to submit work.

14. Submit work.

15. Attend arts events to support local creativity, and for cross-pollination purposes.

16. Read essays to learn more about specific craft elements; generally, study elements of craft.

17. Attend classes, workshops, retreats, etc.

18. Get enough sleep, healthy food, exercise, and recreation (good self-care).

19. Apply for mentorships, fellowships and grants.

20. Do errands in support of writing (office supplies, post office, etc.)

21. Get editorial experience, if possible.

22. Set goals and track progress toward goals.

23. Celebrate victories, large and small.

24. Get outside myself and give to others (books, time, encouragement).

 

What's on your list? Do any of these things resonate with you? What would you add?

 

Thankful Thursday (on Friday)

Eating Sweets in a Bathroom Stall

The stranger has wet herself. She tips her head close to yours.

You just want to shop, buy vegetables for dinner, some sort of meat. You don’t have time. It’s late, or early, your list is long. You’re wearing the good skirt, the one that skims the waist, slims your legs. But there’s her dress, now sopping. She’s bunching the fabric, trying to hide the accident, and this small dank space smells like a pen of untrained puppies.

You must be an angel, she says.

You’re no angel. You’re removed, mysteriously lifted from the stench of spreading urine. You banter, a light voice over her heavy motorized cart as you hoist her hips and raise the dress from fleshy legs. You’re talking over the shame you both feel.

Will you open this diaper, she asks. You rip the package, and help her in. Her ankles are thick, her socks wet. Where pity, shock or sorrow should be, you feel absence. You wipe her legs, the seat of her cart.

She’s not crying, not yet. But she’s breathing hard as she palms an inhaler, the same kind you carry in your purse. When I get upset, she says, dragging long on a small puff. It's then you crumble. She is you. This will be you. This may already be you.

Everything moves slow in this confessional. It takes four turns to maneuver the cart out of the stall. At the sink, you wash away secrets. At the door, she stops, reaches in her basket, says, Let’s have a snack. You don’t want to eat sweets in a dirty grocery store bathroom.

You feel sick. You hesitate. But it’s all she has to give, so you say, Please let me help you open that. This gesture, this simple fix,
it’s all you have, too.

- Drew Myron

 

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

What are you thankful for today?