The Written Word Remains

My husband Allen has been working on his autobiography “for the family.”  And just recently I received links to the online version of memoirs my brothers John and Tim have written in response to weekly email prompts from a company called Storyworth that publishes your collection of reminiscences along with photos you provide in “a beautiful keepsake book.” 

Reading these has sent me on a nostalgia trip of my own.  Though I don’t envision writing an autobiography, I have written a lot over the course of my life.  The other day, I started reading at random in one of the small notebooks I’ve kept on and off for the last 30 years.  In one of them, I found a clipping I’d pasted in from a 2001 essay by Michael Dirda in the Washington Post.  In it, he observes that “so much of life passes us by, unappreciated…Then gradually time leaches away the remaining vivaciousness, until we are left with only the faintest of outlines and just a few brightly colored moments, the ones that will flutter through our dying minds.”  He confesses that he hardly remembers anything about the city where he spent four years in graduate school or the classes he took, then goes on to quote the novelist James Salter:  “There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.”

I don’t have the entire Dirda essay, just the last couple of paragraphs on yellowing newsprint, but I’ve been reflecting on the idea of the written word as what remains of our lives. Much of my experience and interior life are embedded (though often disguised or told slant) in the poems, essays and songs I’ve written.  I’m very glad to have these along with the various notebooks, sketchbooks, file folders and yellow pads that have accompanied me through the years.  What will happen to them after my death I have no idea, but I feel confident that some of my published work will survive at least for a while.  More importantly, my writings help me remember and appreciate some of the “brightly colored moments” of my life.

An Honest Solo

A jazz musician I know is speaking admiringly about another player’s solo:  “They’re always honest,” he says.  I’m taken with this observation.  What does it mean exactly?  What is honesty in art?

 I should offer some context here.  Traditional or straight-ahead jazz is improvised music within a structure of phrases and chord changes.  First comes the “head”—the tune as written.  Then the “front man” (or woman) and each “sideman” (or woman) solos, using their artistry, skill and imagination to offer a fresh take, a creative improvisation that adheres to the structure and references the tune.  The performance closes out with a repeat of the tune as written.

 An honest solo, as I’ve come to understand it, means speaking your truth through the medium of your instrument, telling your own story while avoiding imitation and cliché.  It’s not self-serving.  Sometimes, when moved by a solo, a listener will call out, “Tell it, tell it,” an affirmation that encourages the soloist to go deeper.

 I love jazz and find so much in it that influences my writing.  I, too, want my work to be an honest solo.  I want to take up my instrument—my pen—listen for the truth I’ve been given and express it with all the skill and artistry I possess—clean, uncensored, guileless. While I honor the conventions of the art, the story is my own.

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.