It's Winter Solstice today, the shortest day and longest night of the year. Many people reflect at the end of the year in preparation for New Year's and New Year's goals, I'm sure. Because my birthday was the day before yesterday, I get a double whammy each year. So I've been reflecting on this past year and its blessings, which have been varied and plentiful on many fronts, especially my editing and my health, I feel very lucky to say. But what I want to focus on here is writing.
During this reflection time, I have felt this strong urge to engage with my writing, especially revising and getting stuff out. I've definitely put my own writing on the back burner, for good reason, for the last several months. But now I feel this. . .how to describe it. . .determination, demand, this fire in my belly to write, send things out, get this poetry project done. Though I have all sorts of ideas about blogging regularly and learning how to write reviews and doing all sorts of new things, I've decided that I absolutely must not sign up for any writing-related projects until my Holy Land poems are revised into their third draft. This is my winter project and when I emerge from the dark cold, so will this draft. Even if people are not clamoring for my poems, this collection must get done, even if it never sees the light of day publishing-wise. Writing is a pact of honor with myself; when I don't write or send stuff out or check in with myself as a writer, I let myself down, I get down on myself, I spin myself into this old familiar dustdevil, questioning whether I am indeed a writer and beating myself up for all I haven't accomplished. Well, I AM a writer. (Duh. Or I wouldn't have that drive at all.) Even if no one else cares, I must write what is mine to write and get my work out there.
Last year around this time, I had set myself the goal of 200 submissions in order to get really brave and keep myself engaged with writing and sending stuff out. I have sent out 140 poetry submissions so far. I have also sent out a number of job applications and resumes for specific editing projects--so many, I didn't count them. I'm sure if I went through my email for the year, I would count at least 60 job and editing project applications, some of which I did get, but many of which I didn't. I've gotten pretty brave. I no longer worry when I'm not chosen for an editing project (unlike earlier this year when I was pretty upset about not doing well on an editing sample). I'm pretty sure I met the 200 submission goal as well as the underlying point of the goal.
I don't know yet whether I'll set another like it for this year. 150 poetry submissions? I also got and unprecedented (in my career) six poetry acceptances this year, including getting featured in Lunch Ticket's Summer/Fall 2019 issue! So that was terrific!
So it's been a fabulous year in many ways. Considering how much has changed since this time later, I am excited about what might be true a year from now. But if I get to the end of 2020 and I still don't have much more to show for my poetry project, I am not going to be very happy. So I don't want to lose track of writing even when it can't be my top priority. I have this idea that I should show up as a writer, asking what that looks like each day so that each day it can be different and fit into what else is happening. The downside of this is then writing itself doesn't become an unthinking habit that I just do each day. For a long time this year, I wrote in the morning so it became the automatic thing I did after morning pages. But then I didn't like how long it took me to get to editing, which I needed to make more time for. Asking myself what writing looks like today means I have to consciously think about that and figure it out each day, which might be great in that I'll feel like a writer and might be awful because then it's this extra weight I put on myself each day without the benefit of a habit to slip into. I don't know. I may set myself other goals to help me on my way to getting this project done. But 3rd draft in 2020! It's going to happen!
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Getting Out of My Own Way to Blog!
I have been wanting to blog. I'm not sure why. But I want to. So, finally, instead of trying to mentally figure out whether it's a good idea or what I should write about or strategize it in some way or figure out why, I've decided to just go with it. When I just go with things--even when I don't understand them--things usually turn out okay.
Here's another thing I've decided to go with: I really love the Conference on Poetry and Teaching at the Frost Place. I wanted to go last year, but then I went back and forth and back and forth about it and ultimately decided not to go and applied to something else instead because I'm not teaching anymore (except my son) and so what's the point of going to a conference full of teachers? The point is I want to go and I love the people and last time (already a couple years ago!) I came home totally inspired for two weeks! I remember I thudded back to earth after only because things were so difficult at work. Now that I edit at home, which I love, maybe that high would last even longer. Anyway, I want to go and feel drawn to going, and I am going to get out of my own way and go! Why do I stand there with my arms crossed in front of the idling car of my own heartfelt desires?
I've been reading Dahlia Ravikovitch's poems in the wonderful translation by Chana Bloch (my dear departed teacher) and Chana Kronfeld. I've been reading in small sips during my always-too-short poetry time in the morning, and I'm almost done. Most days, I've been copying out one of her poems, a practice I learned at the Conference on Poetry and Teaching that I had actually been doing for scholarship for years (copying out important quotes so I could really see each word). Now, I'm using my scholarly practices for poetry and trying not to berate myself for not having done it earlier. Since I'm almost done with Dahlia, I have to figure out what I'm going to read and copy out next. I'm also partway through a bunch of books--some about poetry, about writing, about other stuff (like the history of France, since my son is now learning French, and he loves history and I can find no histories of France for children). Also, I have this feeling like I should be deep in a novel just now, but I'm at a loss about what I want to read. So far, there are lots of things I feel I ought to read, but nothing that's grabbed me. I always have a list of things I feel I should read as research for my collection of Israel-Palestine poems, but it's often emotionally difficult to read that material and not at all the deep plunge into another world and escape that reading can be. So I'm waiting until something wonderful inspires me to curl up under a blanket and read, ignoring everyone and everything. My logical side wonders when I'd fit that in anyway because what I really need to do is edit.
It's been incredibly cold. It feels like winter came early this year. We had a snowstorm on Monday that downed some power lines in the village we live outside of; luckily, we have a wood burning stove and a small generator, so we weren't too cold. Right after the power came back on, the Internet went out, and we haven't had home Internet since. I joined the 21st century and got a Smartphone yesterday purely for the mobile hotspot, which is how I'm online now. My son had a bad cold with a cough, which worried me a great deal with the cold but he's on the mend now. Today, he is happy and shiny, excited for a wonderful relaxer day.
Today, I'm going to edit and have a lovely day with my family, probably going to one of our local libraries to check out even more books, some on France to complement my son's studies, and a book I need for fact-checking for editing.
I love editing. I didn't realize I would love it so much, especially literary editing. I feel so blessed it found me.
Have a lovely day!
Here's another thing I've decided to go with: I really love the Conference on Poetry and Teaching at the Frost Place. I wanted to go last year, but then I went back and forth and back and forth about it and ultimately decided not to go and applied to something else instead because I'm not teaching anymore (except my son) and so what's the point of going to a conference full of teachers? The point is I want to go and I love the people and last time (already a couple years ago!) I came home totally inspired for two weeks! I remember I thudded back to earth after only because things were so difficult at work. Now that I edit at home, which I love, maybe that high would last even longer. Anyway, I want to go and feel drawn to going, and I am going to get out of my own way and go! Why do I stand there with my arms crossed in front of the idling car of my own heartfelt desires?
I've been reading Dahlia Ravikovitch's poems in the wonderful translation by Chana Bloch (my dear departed teacher) and Chana Kronfeld. I've been reading in small sips during my always-too-short poetry time in the morning, and I'm almost done. Most days, I've been copying out one of her poems, a practice I learned at the Conference on Poetry and Teaching that I had actually been doing for scholarship for years (copying out important quotes so I could really see each word). Now, I'm using my scholarly practices for poetry and trying not to berate myself for not having done it earlier. Since I'm almost done with Dahlia, I have to figure out what I'm going to read and copy out next. I'm also partway through a bunch of books--some about poetry, about writing, about other stuff (like the history of France, since my son is now learning French, and he loves history and I can find no histories of France for children). Also, I have this feeling like I should be deep in a novel just now, but I'm at a loss about what I want to read. So far, there are lots of things I feel I ought to read, but nothing that's grabbed me. I always have a list of things I feel I should read as research for my collection of Israel-Palestine poems, but it's often emotionally difficult to read that material and not at all the deep plunge into another world and escape that reading can be. So I'm waiting until something wonderful inspires me to curl up under a blanket and read, ignoring everyone and everything. My logical side wonders when I'd fit that in anyway because what I really need to do is edit.
It's been incredibly cold. It feels like winter came early this year. We had a snowstorm on Monday that downed some power lines in the village we live outside of; luckily, we have a wood burning stove and a small generator, so we weren't too cold. Right after the power came back on, the Internet went out, and we haven't had home Internet since. I joined the 21st century and got a Smartphone yesterday purely for the mobile hotspot, which is how I'm online now. My son had a bad cold with a cough, which worried me a great deal with the cold but he's on the mend now. Today, he is happy and shiny, excited for a wonderful relaxer day.
Today, I'm going to edit and have a lovely day with my family, probably going to one of our local libraries to check out even more books, some on France to complement my son's studies, and a book I need for fact-checking for editing.
I love editing. I didn't realize I would love it so much, especially literary editing. I feel so blessed it found me.
Have a lovely day!
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Finishing Black Crow Dress
Oh! I finished Roxane Beth Johnson's Black Crow Dress this morning (I try to start my day with poetry), and there are such beautiful images and lines, I must share them.
In "Clea, Living and Dying," a voice that we've heard throughout the book suddenly shares that she's had many lives, rather than just one. Describing her different lives, she tell us: "Once, a saint: my soul clung to God the way an egg grips its separate parts." I've had a lot of experience with eggs (having had laying chickens and ducks) but I don't think I'll ever look at an egg the same way again.
I didn't mention yesterday that some poems are in the voices of the slaveowning people, rather than the enslaved people themselves. In "Caroline Confronts Tobias Finch," we learn that Tobias, a slaveowner who loved, in his way (which is to say in a brutal, dominating, and demeaning way: is that love?), Caroline, ultimately leaves her to die in the snow. Beyond death, she won't forgive him, which denies both of them their rest. So there's a wonderful turnaround in this poem. Caroline says, "You follow me now, hollering through every season, saying Caroline, let me go." Oh! So smart. Beyond death, the ironic end--no, the eternity--he deserves! Who was it who said that art has something to do with justice? (The quote I'm thinking of but can't quite recall is Yeats, I think? Also, I think, many others have yoked the two together.)
The final poem, "Goodbye to My Favorite Ghost, Clea," is in the poet's voice. Listen to this: "Now, put your hands in the loam, pull damp moss from the earth's scalp--a pillow for your grave." The earth's scalp! Oh! I love images of the earth as a person, as a body. And using scalp is an inventive and different way of doing that because scalp as a word and a thing is not particularly beautiful--it's a harsh word with a history that echoes, at least for me. So perfect. So evocative.
The ending comes full circle, with the ghosts taking their leave and the poet saying goodbye to the ghosts who at the beginning were coming to haunt her. What a wonderful book of poems!
In "Clea, Living and Dying," a voice that we've heard throughout the book suddenly shares that she's had many lives, rather than just one. Describing her different lives, she tell us: "Once, a saint: my soul clung to God the way an egg grips its separate parts." I've had a lot of experience with eggs (having had laying chickens and ducks) but I don't think I'll ever look at an egg the same way again.
I didn't mention yesterday that some poems are in the voices of the slaveowning people, rather than the enslaved people themselves. In "Caroline Confronts Tobias Finch," we learn that Tobias, a slaveowner who loved, in his way (which is to say in a brutal, dominating, and demeaning way: is that love?), Caroline, ultimately leaves her to die in the snow. Beyond death, she won't forgive him, which denies both of them their rest. So there's a wonderful turnaround in this poem. Caroline says, "You follow me now, hollering through every season, saying Caroline, let me go." Oh! So smart. Beyond death, the ironic end--no, the eternity--he deserves! Who was it who said that art has something to do with justice? (The quote I'm thinking of but can't quite recall is Yeats, I think? Also, I think, many others have yoked the two together.)
The final poem, "Goodbye to My Favorite Ghost, Clea," is in the poet's voice. Listen to this: "Now, put your hands in the loam, pull damp moss from the earth's scalp--a pillow for your grave." The earth's scalp! Oh! I love images of the earth as a person, as a body. And using scalp is an inventive and different way of doing that because scalp as a word and a thing is not particularly beautiful--it's a harsh word with a history that echoes, at least for me. So perfect. So evocative.
The ending comes full circle, with the ghosts taking their leave and the poet saying goodbye to the ghosts who at the beginning were coming to haunt her. What a wonderful book of poems!
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Checking in with Poetry and Roxane Beth Johnson's Black Crow Dress
I have been wanting to blog, mostly, I think, because I love another poet's blog and long to do something like it. I can't speak for her purposes, but for me, I'd like to make sure I check in with poetry regularly. While I used to write a little before I got down to work (editing), lately the feeling that I need to rush to get working asap and I don't have time to write or read or work on my own stuff has been reigning. (I know why this panic has set in, but knowing is no help. Deep breaths, deep breaths.) And I've noticed that as I've loosened the grip on my poetry goals (as I feel I've had to for the same reason), I feel some sense of grief. So today, when I'm totally sick with a cold, I thought I'd show up on the blog and tell a little story.
I live in a place that doesn't value poetry much. The bigger town east of here decorates their downtown street with paper leaves with poems on them arranged by a dedicated teacher or two in one of the schools during National Poetry Month. The city I used to work in west of here recently had a writer's conference with one workshop on poetry. (I went! It was super-interesting! I'm grateful!) I live about an hour and a half from a wonderful artistic city, but I have a full life here, and it's hard to get there. (Even, long ago, when I lived in Sacramento and went to Mills College in Oakland for my MFA, I still found it hard to drive the 1-1/2 hours one way to events. I missed a Li-Young Lee reading once that way. I missed a poetry reading of a friend of mine earlier this week, but I was sick--my whole family has been sick in the last week--so it is what it is.) Between these two more urban areas with their limited appreciation of poetry, I live in an area where people ask if we're into hunting or fishing or boating because that is what people do here. (No, we live here to get excited every time the sandhill crane comes to visit our pond, stalking the summer-loud frogs, and to marvel and wonder when it takes off, flapping its huge wings over the trees.)
All this makes it even more wonderful when I go to some of the little one-room libraries in the small towns and find wonderful books. My favorite library has few poetry books, mostly just classics. But I needed to go to another library one bright and wonderful Saturday to pick up an editing resource (the doorstop AMA style guide, which I was so grateful to find!) and found Roxane Beth Johnson's wonderful Black Crow Dress, a collection I'd consider a project book focusing on specific enslaved ancestors and their lives and deaths. The poems are wonderful, and I'd quote from them but poetry copyright online is very sticky (I've read), and I don't want to get in trouble. (Does a blog post count as a review, which obviously quotes? Oh, I'm too sick to think that one through.) Many of the poems are strictly in the voices of these enslaved (and some subsequently freed) people, but one thing I really love in this book is that she also speaks as herself haunted by these ancestor ghosts with her home full up with these ghosts and their voices and, sometimes, mischief. (I've often felt haunted by ghosts--for example, if I dream about someone, it's as if something of their essence is with me the whole next day. So I love that Johnson's literalized this in her poems in such rich and beautiful ways.Wow, her images!!!) The ghosts in her house give me a lot to think about as I work very slowly on my own project book that is partly about my dead grandparents, their actions, and our ancestors.
Must go. I'm needed.
I live in a place that doesn't value poetry much. The bigger town east of here decorates their downtown street with paper leaves with poems on them arranged by a dedicated teacher or two in one of the schools during National Poetry Month. The city I used to work in west of here recently had a writer's conference with one workshop on poetry. (I went! It was super-interesting! I'm grateful!) I live about an hour and a half from a wonderful artistic city, but I have a full life here, and it's hard to get there. (Even, long ago, when I lived in Sacramento and went to Mills College in Oakland for my MFA, I still found it hard to drive the 1-1/2 hours one way to events. I missed a Li-Young Lee reading once that way. I missed a poetry reading of a friend of mine earlier this week, but I was sick--my whole family has been sick in the last week--so it is what it is.) Between these two more urban areas with their limited appreciation of poetry, I live in an area where people ask if we're into hunting or fishing or boating because that is what people do here. (No, we live here to get excited every time the sandhill crane comes to visit our pond, stalking the summer-loud frogs, and to marvel and wonder when it takes off, flapping its huge wings over the trees.)
All this makes it even more wonderful when I go to some of the little one-room libraries in the small towns and find wonderful books. My favorite library has few poetry books, mostly just classics. But I needed to go to another library one bright and wonderful Saturday to pick up an editing resource (the doorstop AMA style guide, which I was so grateful to find!) and found Roxane Beth Johnson's wonderful Black Crow Dress, a collection I'd consider a project book focusing on specific enslaved ancestors and their lives and deaths. The poems are wonderful, and I'd quote from them but poetry copyright online is very sticky (I've read), and I don't want to get in trouble. (Does a blog post count as a review, which obviously quotes? Oh, I'm too sick to think that one through.) Many of the poems are strictly in the voices of these enslaved (and some subsequently freed) people, but one thing I really love in this book is that she also speaks as herself haunted by these ancestor ghosts with her home full up with these ghosts and their voices and, sometimes, mischief. (I've often felt haunted by ghosts--for example, if I dream about someone, it's as if something of their essence is with me the whole next day. So I love that Johnson's literalized this in her poems in such rich and beautiful ways.Wow, her images!!!) The ghosts in her house give me a lot to think about as I work very slowly on my own project book that is partly about my dead grandparents, their actions, and our ancestors.
Must go. I'm needed.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Shalom Salaam Wordcloud Draft 2
So here's my wordcloud for draft 2 of my Israel/Palestine poem collection. I especially enjoy the word DRAFT up there because I do have a handful of poems still to draft. So the draft is not as complete as I'd like it to be. But hey, I've got a file with the entire collection so far in it! Celebrate!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)