First Line for Today

When I’m trying unsuccessfully to free write my way into a poem or essay, I often end with what I call a “first line for today.”  It’s not intended to go anywhere.  It’s a kind of creative throwaway, a stop.  Here’s a few examples:

• What lies just on the other side of the glass is the life I’ve not chosen

• And what are windows but eyes and overcoats

• It’s a train wreck, this collision of faith and reflection

• Old shoes tell the tale

But once in a while the first line doesn’t want to stop and results in a snatch of writing that leaves me deeply contented:
I sit here enmeshed in my life
            The stirring of books and papers and colored ink
            The breathing of paintings on the wall
            My desk shifts its weight, waiting patiently for my return
            and this chair welcomes me—whispers words
            of invitation to sink into the deep green rainforest
            where inspiration awaits.

Genuine Poetry? Who Decides?

The first time I happened upon a commentary celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of T.S. Eliot’s long poem, “The Waste Land,” there was this quote from the poet:  “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”  I understand why he may have found it necessary to say this.  I, not for want of trying, have never been able to commune with Eliot’s dark, jagged poem, dense with historical, classical and linguistic allusions, much less understand it.  I won’t dispute that it is genuine.  Critics say it is seminal, a watershed, a central work of modernist poetry.  It has endured.

But if I were to offer an example of genuine poetry that communicated to me in advance of (or sometimes in the absence of) understanding, it would be “Omeros,” Derek Walcott’s book-length poem, a retelling of Homer’s ancient Greek sagas set in the Caribbean and laden with cultural and classical references that did not disrupt my engagement with the story or my appreciation of the music of the language.  To my mind, it’s a distinct contrast to Eliot’s.

I don’t claim to be immune to the lure of the obscure. In “Fantasie-Impromtu” I end with these lines:  It only takes one to lift [a child’s spirit] up / and set a rainbow in her hair. It’s a reference to Chopin and “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,” the song based on a lyrical section of his piano piece.  Even I don’t pretend to know how the rainbow metaphor came to me but I’m grateful for it and hope the imagery speaks to readers whether or not they know the music.

Now back to Eliot’s statement.  In my view, there’s no reason to label poetry genuine or—what?—fake?  bad?  I say it either resonates with you or it doesn’t.  Just like music.  Just like a painting, a story.  We all get to decide what art feeds our spirit and delights our senses.

On Poetry Readings

I’ll just say it:  I’m not a fan.  My experience has been that most poets are not effective readers of their own work (spoken word poet-actors excepted).  It’s difficult to appreciate the intricacies  of meaning and sound in a poem after one hearing.  It helps to have a written copy in hand but, even so, you don’t have the opportunity in a live reading to sit and digest what you’ve just been fed.  What I do enjoy is hearing from the poet about how they came to conceive, write, and revise the poem—the story behind its creation.  Then…

…a week or so ago I was leafing through the October issue of The Atlantic and happened upon James Parker’s short essay, “Ode to Being Read To.”  In it, he tells how he fixed his insomnia with whiskey and audiobooks.  He’s picky about his prose (nothing “super-fancy”) and his readers (“The voice I’m listening to should be elevated, but not theatrical”) but discovered that being read to in this way lulls him to sleep.

In recent years, I’ve begun to have the occasional sleepless night.  I’ve tried listening to nature sounds, Native American flute music and guided meditations on YouTube, all to no avail.  Then, scrolling through podcasts one night, I happened upon Poetry Unbound and its host Pádraig Ó Tuama.  I was doubtful about listening to poems in the night (what kinds of poems?  what kinds of readers? would I find myself critiquing them?), but I am so grateful that I gave it a try.  It’s Pádraig Ó Tuama himself who selects and reads the poems in his wonderfully comforting Irish lilt.  In each 15-minute segment, over soothing background music, he reads a poem, offers commentary that illuminates it and then reads it a second time.  I find that I don’t require whiskey as I listen, learn, sink down into the sound and, eventually, sleep.  The perfect poetry reading!

How to Write a Sunflower

I’ve only done it once before—no twice—this thing called ekphrasis—writing visual art.  The first time I was inspired by Chardin’s 18th century painting titled “The Attentive Nurse.”  A long ago memory floated to the surface when I happened upon it in a coffee table book.  I decided to go to the National Gallery to see it in person. The canvas was much smaller than I’d expected but still captivating.  The poem I wrote in response hinged on the boiled egg the nurse in the portrait had prepared for her (unseen) patient and a memorable incident in my own professional life involving an implacable patient and what he considered an over-cooked egg on his breakfast tray.

The second time, years later, a vivid abstract by a friend titled “Still Life Illusion” triggered the realization that, as I say in the poem that followed

My landscapes are always peopled.
Clouds, rocks, trees—all have faces.
And not just landscapes—
houses, cars,
doodles, coffee stains,
abstract paintings,
all become, for me
an Ellis Island of the mind…

This time the challenge to write an ekphrastic poem comes from outside.  Marissa Long, the gallery curator at Art Enables with whom I collaborated on my collection Heresies to Live By, asked if I would write a poem inspired by the work of one of its resident artists for a fall event featuring poetry.  I eventually focused on two artists whose paintings drew me in.  Both Dennis and Gary are disabled, largely nonverbal—and gifted.

Dennis’s piece features a field of sunflowers under a blue sky studded with cryptic letters or marks—a hidden message perhaps.  Gary’s is abstract—a collage with thick black coils, 20 or more of them, in what looks like a dark autumnal seedbed.  If the imagination were a place, is this what it would look like?  Hmm.  Have I stumbled upon the first line for Gary’s poem?

While I’m not usually drawn to writing visual art, I do like the melding of forms and the discovery of insights that each offers the other. Right now I’m interested to find out what’s there among Dennis’s sunflowers and what’s happening in Gary’s seedbed.

Only This

I’m reading Rumi again, starting with passages I marked last time around.  I’m reading Wisƚawa Szymborska’s poems, wishing I could hear her voice in the original Polish because I’m drawn to it even in translation.  I’m reading a new Chris Abani collection my friend Al sent me because he’s devoted to poetry and turns down the corners of pages with poems he wants to read again.  I go to these first.  I’m reading all 358 pages of stories and poems in The Examined Life annual because this is a community of writers I am part of and I want to know what’s going on with the other members.  I’m also reading, dictionary in hand, María Dueñas’s novel, El Tiempo Entre Costuras.  Set during the Spanish Civil War, it’s a fascinating read—historical fiction.  I don’t know what it’s called in English.  Translations of titles aren’t always literal, nor do you find yourself in exactly the same story when it’s migrated from one language to another.  I mention this because I believe that the ability to enter another world through its language enriches me as a poet.

Finally, and I admit it, I’m squandering unconscionable stretches of my so-called work time drifting from link to link in Google and YouTube.  I’ve written nothing in recent weeks. Only this.

Rumi says, “A little while alone in your room / will prove more valuable than anything else / that could ever be given you.”  He is wise.  I take him at his word.  But I wonder….

Getting on with it

I have mixed feelings.  My new poetry collection, Heresies to Live By, is back from the printer.  Now the next phase must begin.  Call it getting the word out.  Call it distribution.  Call it daunting.

Make no mistake.  I’m very happy with the book—a wondrous collaboration with Lisa Carey and Wendy Schleicher from Lucid Creative who designed the book and the 12 gifted artists from Art Enables whose work brings the poems to life and adds depth of meaning.  But the purpose of publishing this collection isn’t achieved unless someone receives it.  And that someone has to know about it first.

Nowadays even major publishers leave most of the burden of publicity to their authors.  The book tour (live or virtual), the glossy magazine ads and solicited blurbs and reviews are usually reserved for potential blockbusters, a category in which books of poetry rarely figure.  But for me as author, publisher and distributor of my own work for the past 23 years, the challenge is even greater.  My books are most often sold hand to hand or on consignment to Amazon where, over time, they dribble into the libraries of faithful colleagues and the occasional stranger.

I knew this is how it would be.  I did it in spite of the odds.  Now I pick up my marked up copy of Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch and go to the chapter about the artist’s inner critic, the judging spectre, where I reread this wise counsel:  “The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it.”  Yes.

When the right tune arrives inside you

Some years ago, a poet friend told me about Milkweed Editions, a favorite indie press of hers located in Minnesota.  I decided to check it out.  I went to the website and browsed through titles.  One caught my eye immediately, a poetry collection titled Playing the Black Piano by Bill Holm.  I ordered it.

Why?

I was curious about the kinds of poets Milkweed publishes.

I love music.

I play piano.

I wanted to know what this man had to say about playing the black piano.

In Bill Holm, I discovered a burly white-bearded Minnesotan of Icelandic descent (this last figures in much of his work) who writes in a way that stirred my imagination and quickly engendered a sense of kinship.  His book whetted my appetite for more. I continue to buy and read him.  How his poems and essays have influenced my own music and writing I can’t exactly say, but I hold on to these lines from his poem, “Magnificat.”

It’s a mystery why one
note following another
sometimes makes music,
sometimes breaks the heart,
sometimes not.

Don’t ask the reason…

Listen as long as you can;
sing whenever the right tune
arrives inside you.

I’ve always believed that the poems I’m meant to read will find their way to me and the ones I’m meant to write will, somehow, make their way to those meant to receive them.  Reading Bill Holm, I recognize the mystery in all this.  I honor his reminder to listen—and sing when the right tune arrives inside me.

When do you call it quits?

It pains me every time I read about a writer who died leaving unfinished work, a novel in progress or unpublished poems.  Sure, if they are important enough, someone may complete the novel or gather up the poems for a final “complete works,” but it’s not the same.

In contrast, there’s my first and favorite writing workshop leader who said that she had decided to write no more poetry after publishing her latest collection.  I was shocked.  Does a poet just do that?  Shirley Cochrane was in her early 60s.  She lived to be 90.  I’ve just laid my hands on a copy of her last book, long out of print.  Turns out it was published when she was 73 and it contained some new poems.  This matters to me…

…because here I am, ready to publish a late-life collection.  Is now the time to stop writing poems and focus on other interests?  It’s hard to imagine making such a calculation.  In this life, you do the work you’re given to do.  Everyone leaves something unfinished when they die—a woodworking project in the basement, a packet of seeds never planted, final goodbyes unspoken.

It was different when I left my last nursing job.  This was a difficult decision and, yes, I had regrets.  But deep inside I knew it was time.  Like writing, the nursing profession was a calling.  Could it be that nursing was something I did and a poet is something I am?  Not quite.  I believe that I’m called to healing.  Nursing was one way to manifest this.  Poetry is another.  In one of his plays, Alan Bennett has the poet Auden speak about “the habit of art.” (I wrote about this in my notebook entry of September 2015.)  Whether or not I publish poems, I’ll always read, write and observe what’s around me with the sensibility of an artist and compassion of a nurse.  I’ll keep the habit of art.

Acknowledgments

Just now, opening to the Acknowledgments page of a poetry collection by the Black British poet Roger Robinson, I notice that he thanks 41 individuals by name for their “guidance, support and encouragement.”  Yes I counted them.  He goes on to list a number of organizations and collectives with which he’s associated.  Well!  Although Robinson isn’t the only writer to acknowledge colleagues, mentors and family members in this way I was struck by the sheer volume of them in A Portable Paradise.

This makes me wonder if I am an outlier.  I am lucky enough to have a room of my own and I do my writing here, in solitude.  Since my workshop days decades ago, I haven’t ordinarily asked anyone to read and critique my drafts.  I’ve not been part of a writing group nor have I ever opened my legal pad or laptop in a café or on a park bench.  (Okay, once in an auto repair shop.)  And yet, I do feel part of a larger community. 

Since the mid-1990s I’ve been a member of a loose association of nurse writers.  We communicate mostly by email but have joined up to produce occasional workshops and, thanks to the diligence of certain gifted members, a few anthologies.  We value each others’ personal stories and literary contributions to our profession. 

I don’t send out my work on a regular basis but, when I do, I most often choose a publication that has formed a community around it.  Pulse magazine—voices from the heart of medicine comes to my online mailbox and features a poem or story once a week.  The Healing Muse from SUNY Upstate Medical University is an annual of art and literature I have contributed to and read cover to cover.  I’m hopeful about my association with Vita Poetica, a new, DC based collective of artists whose work is informed by a spiritual lens.

Most important is my library of keepers—poetry collections I keep coming back to because they inspire me and  shape my thinking.  Bill Holm, Mary Oliver, Jane Kenyon, William Stafford, Ted Kooser, and Rumi are among them—and of course the collections of work by nurses, physicians and others who address themes that have long been of importance to me.

There is solitude and there is community, a perfect meld for me.

Leaving the Mainstream

Truth be told, I’m not leaving the mainstream.  I left it long ago.  Early on I stepped off a traditional career path for one less traveled.  In time, I left employment for a mosaic of side gigs.  After a disappointing first experience with an established New York book publishing house, I decided that, in the future, I’d be my own publisher. Most recently I’ve allowed the muse to have her way and take my writing in new directions.

Right now I’m splashing about happily in my small side stream preparing to publish another poetry collection.  The title came to me years ago.  I’ve selected the poems and arranged them in three sections.  I have an introduction and short bio in draft.  As always, graphic designer Lisa Carey is onboard to design the book and guide the printing.  I’m collaborating with Art Enables (www.art-enables.org) in D.C. to incorporate work by their artists.  Plans to get a Library of Congress Control Number, ISBN and barcode are in process.  The price and print run (small, I’ve learned my lesson) are pretty much set.  Publicity, as always, will be an interesting challenge but I have a few ideas beyond Amazon.com and a family-and-friends launch party. 

It’s such a pleasure to create the whole package in a way that reflects my vision.  It’s not profitable mind you.  In fact it will likely cost more money than I hope to recoup.  But that’s not the point.  When you cook an elaborate dinner for your family, craft a special quilt for a new baby, build a bookcase for a friend or perform music you’ve labored to learn, if you’re like me, you’re not doing it to make a profit or a reputation so much as offering your gift to those for whom it’s meant. This project is something that’s in me to do.  I know those for whom it’s meant.  And I look forward to presenting it sometime next year.