Finding the Writer Within

I had the opportunity to attend the second in the series called Finding the Writer Within at the Woodford County Library. George Ella Lyon gave a talk/reading followed by a workshop about writing in the voice of a child or adolescent. George Ella, an accomplished and beloved writer, is also a generous and compelling teacher.

One of the exercises was responding to a set of questions asked to draw out memories and details from our younger selves. I was surprised at the responses these questions elicited, and I was reminded that the interview process is a wonderful tool to gain access to information, about ourselves as well as fictional characters.

Finding the Writer Within continues through July, when each month a prominent local author will present a public lecture and a workshop about a topic important to them.

Weather Report

Steady rain today. Family and friends in Wisconsin report snow. For them, the poem "Snow" by Naomi Shihab Nye. Here you will find an interview with Nye, in which she says:

Number one: Read, Read, and then Read some more. Always Read. Find the voices that speak most to YOU. This is your pleasure and blessing, as well as responsibility!

It is crucial to make one's own writing circle – friends, either close or far, with whom you trade work and discuss it – as a kind of support system, place-of-conversation and energy. Find those people, even a few, with whom you can share and discuss your works – then do it. Keep the papers flowing among you. Work does not get into the world by itself. We must help it.

...

There is so much goodness happening in the world of writing today. And there is plenty of ROOM and appetite for new writers. I think there always was. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Attend all the readings you can, and get involved in giving some, if you like to do that. Be part of your own writing community. Often the first step in doing this is simply to let yourself become identified as One Who Cares About Writing!

Thoughts on the Hawthorn

Saturday I had the pleasure of attending a workshop presented by George Ella Lyon. I'm still digesting the material (perhaps more on the writing and discussion later). In the morning she shared a book called The Wisdom of Trees: Mysteries, Magic, and Medicine by Jane Gifford, which is based around the Celtic Ogham Alphabet and which attributes a tree to each moon of the year (a tree zodiac, if you will).

After the workshop, I did some brief searches about this intriguing idea. Here and here are two links that provide additional information. My point is not to focus on whether the Celtic tree calendar is based in truth or myth, but rather to consider the power of trees and our connection to them. My birth tree is the hawthorn, and there just happens to be one in my front yard. For the last two years a mockingbird has nested there. The hawthorn offers small white flowers in May and red, berry-like fruit through the winter.

I'm trying to figure out what is so special about a tree, aside from the obvious--that it gives food, shelter, oxygen--and I think, for me, it might be its physical presence, how it is rooted in the earth, grounded, sturdy, and at the same time reaching skyward, growing up and out, claiming the surrounding space. It is a model for how I'd like to live my life, connected to the past while being fully present in this moment.

The Gift of Community

This week I had the pleasure of attending the last fundraising event this year for the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. Once again, words seem inadequate to describe how this place has contributed to my development as a writer.

The building itself is magical, not to mention the people who staff it and volunteer. Some of the Carnegie Center's offerings include writing, computer, and language classes; tutoring, youth, and family programs; and exhibits, readings, and other special events.

While I may never feel completely at home in Kentucky, the flickering moments of belonging I have experienced have been among members of the region's unique writing community, most of whom I met through the Carnegie Center. Community--a sense of belonging--is one of the Carnegie Center's greatest gifts. It is as if an orb weaver crafted an intricate web, and written into the center of the web is the Carnegie Center, all the silken strands radiating from that center.

You can read the Carnegie Center's blog here.

Carnegie Center in the News

The Herald Leader had an article today about the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. Read about it. Celebrate it. Support it.

Drink from Your Own Well

William Stafford, from Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation:

Kierkegaard said, "Drink from your own well." And I like that, taking it to mean that each of us has an individual source for our best work, and that to reach deliberately elsewhere is to neglect something essential in our writing.

So when I get up in the morning and settle down to write, I do not reach for what is timely or in style, but for something that suggests itself to me right at the moment. It can be any trivial word or even syllable, or a sound from the trees outside, or what day it is, or that the sun is about to come up--anything. And sometimes I feel that the more trivial it seems the better, for with nothing to live up to I can relax and catch onto a current within me.

Reflecting on the Week

I have been tired (as I'm sure those around me have been too) of hearing myself complain that I haven't had time to write in recent weeks. The word that frequently escaped was balance, how I've been trying to learn how to balance the work I need to do (i.e., what I'm being paid to do), the work of daily life (you know it...laundry, dishes, yard work, phone calls, etc.), and the work I need to do (i.e., my own writing). The latter is what has been compromised. It's what always gets compromised when there are time constraints and responsibilities. Notice the complaint sneaking in.

So this week I tried a new approach. I woke one to two hours earlier than normal to write. I would probably classify as a night person, certainly not an early morning person by choice, so this was tough for me. But it worked. I resisted the urge to ignore the alarm. I pushed myself from the warm bed (surely one of the Sirens in inanimate form). I went to my favorite chair in the office. I wrote. I wrote until the time I normally wake up. It doesn't matter what I wrote; some of it is garbage, some has promise. But I am satisfied, as if a craving has been fulfilled.

I'm toying with the idea of staying up an hour or two later instead of rising earlier as perhaps that would be more in line with my body's natural rhythms. But there is something I really like about writing first thing in the morning. The mind is in the perfect state for writing...a complicated blend of foggy and clear, blurred by the dreamworld and unspoiled by the noise of the real world. This state of mind allowed me to write without judgment. Moreover, I liked writing in the dark that comes with this time of year, with only light from an adjacent room--quite congruous with the early morning quiet.

Will I be able to keep this practice? Time will tell. At least this week I'm not tired of hearing myself complain. I'm just tired.

No Praise, No Blame

After reading Sherry's recent posts about William Stafford, I decided it was time to read his collections about writing poetry. The library only had Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation so that's the one I'm reading. Turns out it is what I need to be reading right now. Stafford championed process over product. What Stafford espoused is summarized nicely in this statement of his:

A writer must write the bad poems in order to approach the good ones--finicky ways will dry up the sources.

Essentially the idea is to lower one's standards. Although I've heard (and tried to practice) this advice fairly regularly in my writing career, it still seems foreign to me (shall I say, un-American?). We are trained to set goals, make progress, achieve, have something outward to show for our labor (i.e., publications, awards for the writer). Certainly goals serve a purpose, but it is good to remember a writer is someone who writes, not someone who publishes, not even someone who writes well necessarily. By lowering or removing expectations (and as a result, nixxing those pesky, shaming, blaming voices when expectations aren't met), the writer writes for the sake of writing, for the sake of language and interaction with the language. Anything that might result from the writing process, say a finished product or publication, is just gravy.

On the flip side of "no blame" during the creative process is "no praise," no criticism or judgment of any sort. I've practiced this in the earliest stages of writing. This freedom from judgment is a critical component of Writing Practice, which in other circles is called free-writing or pre-writing. Whether in a group or alone, I have learned to turn off some of the censors/editors during the first stages of writing. However as drafts progress, as I become more committed to a piece, the internal editor becomes louder, more insistent, either drawing smiley faces or circling flaws in red ink. Okay, the editorial process cannot be shrugged entirely; sometimes I need to hear from the internal editor that I'm on the right track or that such and such construction is awkward. But I think the later stages of writing--at least sometimes--could benefit from a no praise/no blame philosophy and the open dialog with language it encourages. As simple as applying the philosophy, right (insert smiley face followed by #@##&!)?

Wisconsin Book Festival

The Wisconsin Book Festival starts today in Madison. This is a terrific tradition, a five-day conversation about reading, writing, and books. This year's theme is Changing Places.

Spice of Life

While making dinner the other night, I was searching online for information on spices, which brought me to the Enspicelopedia. From allspice to white pepper, this online resource provides a description, uses, origin, and folklore for various spices and herbs. I especially like the folklore section (must be the writer in me). Did you know that Romans believed cinnamon's fragrance sacred and burned it at funerals? Or that the name parsley comes from the Greek word petros, meaning stone, because the plant was often found growing among rocks?

I think my delight in finding the site stems from my love of reference books...dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias. From early on, I've loved scanning reference books (and in recent years, online sites), looking for something but not knowing what. Maybe it's the brevity of the entries or the fact you can open the book to any page (hmm...sort of like poetry). Maybe it's simply my admitted love of lists.

Often when I need to jump-start a poem--whether looking for a hook to start a new poem or fresh insight to feed the revision process--I'll head to the dictionary or encyclopedia. Getting to the root of a word or event or thing clarifies the word/event/thing. Such research frequently cracks open the poem. Although I've been doing this for a while, I'm still surprised that by studying the elementary aspects of something, I can find a way to grow the poem into something quite complex and multi-layered. But life is filled with those pleasant incongruities.

Purpose

A thought that inevitably surfaces when you are a poet is why...that is, why write poetry? With so many people who write poetry and so few who read it, I sometimes wonder why should I add to the surplus of this medium?

Sherry Chandler wrote a post related to this recently and what struck me most was this:

If, like the monks who pray at Gethsemane to restore balance to the world, I choose to spend my life as an obscure poet, nourishing my own human spirit and with luck a few readers’, then who is to say that is not a worthy thing to do, whether or not I leave an individual mark on the world at large.

Of course! Why I never thought of it this way before, I don't know, given my Catholic upbringing and its orders of secluded nuns. Absolutely, the world needs the sisters (and the secular) who live and work within our communities, but as much of a critic as I can be, I also (need to) believe that the world also needs those secluded nuns sending forth their silent prayers.

On a related note, this weekend my Netflix adventure was disc one of Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, the long-ago PBS series where Bill Moyers interviewed Campbell, the now-late legendary thinker and teacher. I'm still digesting their discussion and hope to write more about it, but for now I'll focus on the part related to this post. Campbell suggests the artist's function is the mythologization of her environment. This turns everything upside-down for me, in a very good way. For far too long, I've looked at myth as something of the past, something unchangeable. But here's a directive that I, as an artist, am responsible for creating new myths. And, as Campbell points out, the world is in desperate need of new myths that meet the needs of our contemporary society.

Campbell also likens the poet to the shaman of primitive societies, for both share a unique connection to the universe and act as intermediary between the visible world and its invisible plane.

Now, let me be clear, I'm not suggesting I have shaman-esque capabilities or the sanctity of secluded nuns, but Campbell's message and Sherry's post came at one of those times when I was feeling frustrated with the limitations of a poet, the only real role I've felt "called" to do. I guess I'm saying I take my messages of affirmation any way I can get them.

The Love Letter. A Dying Art?

I came across this article about love letters by way of the Arts Journal. There's something about a love letter. But maybe that's just because I'm a writer. I like the idea of love transcribed on stationery--handwritten exclamations (or subtle declarations) creased and stuffed in an envelope, dropped in the post (perhaps after much deliberation), and shuttled across distance to bring together two people.

I remember being so tickled when I found my parents' love letters, written so many years earlier when my parents were not my parents but two young kids testing out their romance, my father pursuing my slightly aloof mother (and--gasp--there was a chance I might not be born). Reading those innocent letters felt part archeological dig, part invasion of privacy, and part exhilaration at being privy to, however remotely, the development of a relationship (particularly one so important to me).

I suspect, as the article suggests, that the love letter, written on honest-to-goodness paper, is a thing of the past (still, S. and I met through letters written while we were at different schools, and though that's in the past too, it doesn't seem quite so far in the past). But, then, I suspect letter writing in general is a thing of the past. Why write a letter when you can send an e-mail or text message? Don't get me wrong...I love the electronic age. But there's nothing like opening the mailbox to find something other than bills and catalogs. There's nothing like holding a letter in your hands and later storing it away in an old shoebox. There's nothing like reading words inked in the penmanship of someone who loves you. There's nothing like sitting down to write back.

Artistic Space

The other day, Lori-Lyn wrote a post on her blog The Dream Life about writing spaces and it has stayed with me. I tend to float around from room to room, as projects develop or seasons shift or my mood changes (my cat does this too, finding a favorite spot for a few weeks at a time). The age of the laptop makes this even easier, though I wonder why I don't roam even farther, to the patio outside or library or local coffee shop, instead choosing to stay somewhat anchored inside the house.

When I'm daydreaming about the "perfect" house, it usually has a large shed (small barn?) at the back of the lot, a place separate from but close to my living space. It would have windows (natural light is a must in my daydream), at least one wall of solid, beautiful bookshelves, a comfy, oversize chair for reading, a large table to work at with plenty of space on top to spread papers out and plenty of space below for my legs (I'm constantly knocking my knees on my current desk...perhaps that's part of the reason I move around the house), and of course wi-fi connectivity for that laptop I drag around.

While having a good and beautiful place to work is nice, I try to remember it is not necessary to write. Writing happens anywhere we make it happen.

Still it's fun to daydream. So...what's your artistic space, whether real or imagined?

Prompt

Raised Catholic, I continue to be intrigued by the tradition and ritual of the Catholic church, its saints and sacraments, its popes and Purgatory, and on and on. The imagery of this tradition frequently appears in my creative writing. So here's a writing prompt--good for writers of all genres--that rises from this intrigue.

Write a confession. It might be a first-person narrative or dramatic monologue. It might be heavy or humorous. It might be a long-kept secret or widely known fact. It might be directed to someone specific or the world at large. It might be none of these things. The goal, as with any prompt, is to play, to follow whatever trails the writing leads us to.

Black Swan Pas de Deux

For my senior-year performance, I danced the role of Odile in the Black Swan pas de deux of Swan Lake. Recently I've been thinking about the role and the ballet once again as I've been working on a poem off and on for some months about Odile. She's a tricky character to get right, both on the stage and in this poem. Perhaps watching the dance repeatedly will generate new sparks.

Added: American Ballet Theatre
Gillian Murphy as Odile, with Angel Corella
Marcello Gomes as Von Rothbart

Mammoth Cave

What is the attraction of a cave? S. and I went to Mammoth Cave and toured through part of the cave system open to visitors. Early guide Stephen Bishop called the cave a "grand, gloomy, and peculiar place," and that's about as good a description as any. On the four-mile, four and a half hour Grand Avenue tour, we walked through gypsum lined passages, narrow canyons, underground hills, large rooms, and areas with dripstone formations. We experienced dry caves and wet caves. We saw cave crickets and bats. We learned about the geology, ecology, and history of the cave system.

Long have humans been fascinated with the cave, given the names of past visitors on cave walls, those from the mid-nineteenth century that had been charred on the cave with candle smoke and those from more recent periods that had been etched in the limestone, as well as given the artifacts that have been found, including Native American tools and bones.

I think I would have enjoyed the cave more if we could have explored it on our own, although I understand the reasons the group tours are a necessity (cave preservation and visitor safety). I found it hard to appreciate the full effect of the cave in a group of 80. Two of my favorite moments on the tour were when the lights went out. The first time was accidental as we were walking through Cleaveland Avenue. The second time the rangers turned out the lights and requested silence for a moment while we were seated on benches in a large room (Aerobridge Canyon, I think). That is when I came closest to understanding the cave: in total darkness, enveloped by the earth, nearly 300 feet below the surface, with only the sound of my own blood rushing through my body.

Perhaps there is some connection to why I'm a writer. I get a similar thrill writing--entering darkness and solitude and silence, where I must rely on my imagination to reveal the light and the sounds of humanity.

Donald Hall

I finally got around to reading a Paris Review interview with Donald Hall, which I came across on the magazine's web site and bookmarked several months ago. The interview is from 1991 (so I'm further behind on my reading than I thought), but parts of the interview speak to what I've been pondering lately. I'm particularly interested in what Hall had to say about his process:

...I begin with a loose association of images, a scene, and a sense that somewhere in this material is something I don’t yet understand that wants to become a poem. I write out first drafts in prosaic language—flat, no excitement. Then very slowly, over hundreds of drafts, I begin to discover and exploit connections—between words, between images. Looking at the poem on the five-hundredth day, I will take out one word and put in another. Three days later I will discover that the new word connects with another word that joined the manuscript a year back.

Hall, a devoted reviser (hundreds of drafts!), also says:

First drafts of anything are difficult for me. I prefer revising, rewriting. I’m not the kind of writer like Richard Wilbur or Thomas Mann who finishes one segment before going on to another. Wilbur finishes the first line before he starts the second. I lack the ability to judge myself except over many drafts and usually over years. Revising, I go through a whole manuscript over and over and over. Some short prose pieces I’ve rewritten fifteen or twenty times; poems get up to two hundred fifty or three hundred drafts. I don’t recommend it, but for me it seems necessary. And I do more drafts as I get older.

And:

Today when I begin writing I’m aware: something that I don’t understand drives this engine. Why do I pick this scene or image? Within the action of kicking the leaves something was weighted, freighted, heavy with feeling—and because I kept writing, kept going back to the poem, eventually the under-feeling that unified the detail came forward in the poem. The process is discovering by revision, uncovering by persistence.

Yes! I sometimes think there's an overemphasis on creation and not enough attention to revision, which is just as magical, if not more so.

Hall also talked about the passage of time and its effect on him as a poet:

I’m more patient now. When I was in my twenties, I wanted to write many poems. I had goals; when I reached them, they turned out to be not worth reaching. When you begin, you think that if you could just publish a few poems, you’d reach your desire; then if you could publish in a good magazine; then if you could publish a book; then . . . When you’ve done these things you haven’t done anything. The desire must be, not to write another dozen poems, but to write something as good as the poems that originally brought you to love the art. It’s the only sensible reason for writing poems. You’ve got to keep your eye on what you care about: to write a poem that stands up with Walt Whitman or Andrew Marvell.

Okay, so I'm still impatient and I still desire publication of my book. However, there are moments of simplicity when the outside world (its charms and lures, its criticism and cold shoulder, its fleeting praise) falls away and I'm only concerned with the work at hand, with writing a poem that can stand up.

Style

What's on my mind now is style. What makes a poet recognizable? Many poets, particularly the "big name" ones, have a distinct style. Give me uncredited, unknown poems of certain poets and I think I could match the poets to their poems. But what constitutes a poet's style? Form (and I mean this loosely...form, not Form)? Tone? Imagery? Language? A bit of all of these, perhaps. There is something else, though, something that's undefinable.

I don't think I have a distinct style, which makes me wonder...am I lesser poet for this? have I not established a style yet or is it my style to have no recognizable style? Maybe I'm too close to the work and can't label my own style.

As I write this post I realize I'm not really saying anything, just talking to myself. I feel better when I consider that talking to oneself is something we all do, and more than that, it's useful. Talking to oneself helps sort out one's thoughts and feelings. In Writing Poems, Robert Wallace says:

Talking to oneself, literally, like Wordsworth on the footpath with his terrier, may be a help in keeping the poem going.

and later:

Enjoying the sound of his or her own voice, sculpting, relishing, caressing the unfinished poem is part of the job, one of the tools.

So, too, sculpting, relishing, caressing the unfinished thought is part of living. Having talked to myself about style, I'll be ready to receive "the answer" when it comes.

The River Birch Revises Its Life

Sometimes disparate parts of my life come together in surprising ways. Or maybe not so surprising, since we humans seem inherently drawn to metaphor. We want to see connections. Maybe we even need such connections to survive.

This afternoon the guy who designed and developed much of our landscaping stopped by to take a look around. We had a look at the river birch, which has a few clumps that look distinctly different from the rest of the tree. These clumps have smaller, drier, more condensed leaf clusters. Upon closer investigation, Daniel determined these clumps belong to the original tree, the one with a root ball that came from a nursery. The rest of the tree--the healthier, larger part (that looks like the main tree now)--is actually from an offshoot that grew after being planted and adjusting to the soil.

Then this evening in Leatha's revision class, she pointed out that sometimes we must abandon the original impulse of the poem to find a truer, better poem--the real poem. What a challenge for most of us! Particularly if the original impulse has some nice language or images, if it looks like a real poem. Sometimes we can develop a poem only so far using the original impulse and thus must follow the offshoot that becomes the real poem.

I tell myself: remember the river birch.

CCLL Reading

On Friday, July 11 at 6:30 p.m. the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning is hosting a staff/instructor reading. Come listen to recent work by some of CCLL's staff and instructors (including yours truly).