- Haiku improves with practice.
- Poetry is real work.
- Sometimes work is gentle, easy, and takes hardly any time.
- Sometimes work is hard and grueling and difficult.
- Sometimes I forget to do things I said I was going to do
- Instead of hating on myself or giving up, I can just start doing them again.
- I am an imperfect poet.
- There is a difference between work and discipline.
- “Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.”
- Writing can be a form of spiritual practice.
- Once upon a time I bloomed words from the tips of my fingers like a… word-blooming goddess with flowering fingertips. Now, I am embryonic. I need to be patient with myself.
- I am unreasonably jealous anytime another writer gets attention and accolades.
- Someone inside of me thinks all the attention and accolades should be long to ME ONLY ME IT’S ALL ABOUT ME DAMMIT.
- Ahem.
- I am reminded of my gentle, loving, sweet-natured kitty. She gives teeny mews most of the time and has an endless supply of soft kitty hugs and purring cuddle sessions for me. Until another cat invades our household.
- Then, sweet Tara turns into a yowling, hissing fiend of a cat. She flips like a coin: one moment hissing and attacking the INVADER, and the next minute turning to me with a look of pure innocence, asking “Mew?”
- Sometimes Tara can learn to share space with other felines, but only after a long and persistent campaign of desentization.
- In matters of poetry and accolades, I am more like my cat than I would like to admit.
- I am an imperfect human being.
- There is nothing wrong with giving my embryonic, easily threatened Inner Poet all the time and safety and attention she needs.
- WordPress’s post-dating feature is the best thing ever for procrastinators.
- I would like to do NaPoWrMo next year.
- Other poets have blogs.
- Actually, I already knew this.
- There is a very large and very important difference between writing and marketing your writing.
- I tend to forget that every task in the universe — even those done online — takes time.
- I find the notion of making numbered lists of disparate elements strangely entertaining.
- I can scrawl a haiku in a notebook while stopped at a traffic light.
- Doing so is not illegal, but checking my email is.
- Does that seem right to you?
- Nobody said that life was fair.
- Encouragement and accolades come from unexpected places.
- I should take none of them for granted.
- Daily posting is good for me.
- I feel curious and optimistic about the future.
- If one is not careful, one may post a single haiku that still contains typos.
- I have been alive for 37 years and some months.
Katie Peterson, Sore Throat, Inspiration, the Cycle of Percussion
The Boston Review has been sending me messages on Facebook every day for National Poetry Month (or NaPoWriMo, as the more intarweb-geek among us have been calling it). My initial reaction was just “too much poetry.” It felt like work, especially since I have a very complicated relationship with writers’ community in general. I’ve also been known to focus on the negative instead of the positive. And there was a song about that.
So I was reminded that reading other poets — and looking at art in general — can instigate a cycle of percussion that John Updike once described in a story we read when I was studying 11th grade English with Mr. McWilliams. Updike’s story went something like this: the pianist hits the key, which causes the hammer to hit the string, which sends out a sound wave that travels through the air to hit the eardrum of a listener, which causes a whirl of percussion in the listener’s brain, resulting in the pen hitting the paper, perhaps resulting in a poem or a story that inspires a musician to write down some music, which a pianist then plays…
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I do find the work of others inspiring, in spite of myriad disappointments and roiling resentments. I forget, sometimes, that I could be one of those poets with the long list of publications after their name, if I just did the work–the very very hard work–of putting pen to paper, and revising, and editing, and researching publications, and sending out submissions, and exposing oneself to criticism and rejection but also to acclaim and acceptance.
Katie Peterson says something similar, slightly macabre, about percussion, and memory, and reminders, and tangents, and hopelessness, and returns:
Sick in bed with a sore throat
I can’t get out of my mind
the image of the cat
harpsichord from the 18th century‚
soothing a prince with laughter.
Full poem here: http://bostonreview.net/NPM/katie_peterson.php
National Poetry Month for the Lazy and Persistent
It seems that some writers can just up and form close friendships — whole schools, even — with other writers. I wish this were more often the case with me. If it were, perhaps I’d already be published and successful and happily ever after by now. I alternate between blaming all writers everywhere and blaming myself. But maybe, as with most things, it’s not a black-and-white proposition. And maybe– just maybe — casting blame is not really all that productive. Perhaps I get my gold star just by persisting — in reaching out, making connections, and nurturing writerly friendships — in spite of failures and disappointments.
And now that I think about it, I have had a number of successes. There’s the small group that grew out of connections made at Poetry@Prose which has been meeting regularly. I’m a part of it, but not the owner of it. None of us are. We just keep showing up and plodding away with our careful little poems, shining them, polishing them, picking out the gems and nurturing each other’s work with praise and gentle, gentle suggestions.
Alas, not all interactions go so well. Writers can be a prickly, solitary lot. I know this because I am a writer. About a week ago, I got an email from a poet whom I admire a great deal. She and I also met through Poetry@Prose, but we’ve had much greater difficulty following through on a mutual desire to collaborate — or even to meet up in person. This email asked if I would like to engage in some mutual support around National Poetry Month. (That’s April, the cruellest month, in case you weren’t keeping track.) Being the technically apt person that I am, I saw that she bcc’d me, which implied I wasn’t the only one she’d invited. I replied with a hearty yes, and since the bcc implied it wasn’t a private party, I cc’d the two other members of my writing group, recommending them as kind and generous fellow writers. She replied that she wasn’t up to emailing drafts out to strangers — a sentiment I can certainly understand and identify with. And then the whole email chain just sort of went… downhill.
A quick phone conversation probably could have sorted out the whole thing. But for a variety of reasons, that didn’t happen. And so two well-intentioned writers found themselves smack up against the limitations of written expression. Both of us fell away from the interaction exhausted and disappointed. I can only hope it hasn’t completely poisoned what tenuous connection exists.
One benefit of the whole thing, however, is that it’s gotten me thinking about National Poetry Month (or NaPoWriMo for the more abbreviation- and internet-enabled among us) before the month actually starts. Back in November (aka NaNoWriMo) I attempted a poem-a-day writing challenge that crashed and burned in the ruins of, well, what usually happens in November. But I’d like to try it again. And I’d like to do it lazy and simple — an approach that doesn’t come naturally to me. I’d love, of course, to do it with a group of supportive fellow poets but I’m not sure such a group exists — at least not for me, at this particular dot on the timeline. So I’m going to try my hand at a haiku a day for the month of April. In the spirit of lazy and simple, I’m going to post these haiku only Monday through Friday, and only for the month of April. Feedback is welcome, as long as it’s positive or in the form of haiku itself.
This is just to say (or, a spiritual petit four)
Too much to say, not enough to say. This is just to say that I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were — No, that’s what William Carlos Williams said.
A little while ago I started a long and rambling post about my late-February trip to California (already, it’s been four weeks since my departure!). Then, instead of clicking “Save draft,” I clicked “Publish.” And thanks to the power of the Intarwebs 2.0, all y’all got a peek at it. More than a peek, on RSS and via email. Which made me retreat further into myself.
So consider this post a sort of clearing of the throat. A burst of rusty water from the pipe. A blogospheric petit four. Now that I’m blogging into the Great Beyond without even my old Livejournal friends for company, I find myself with a bad case of stage fright. The bright, bright lights; the black, black house.
California filled my mind with images and colors and textures and flavors — experiences of the moment, memories from childhood, epiphanies from both. Returning to Boston filled my sinuses with gunk and my mouth with cotton. In between the two, I’ve just been trying to return to equilibrium. Because of course, when I least expected it, chronic illness raised its ugly head. And while I battled with a cold and the symptoms the cold unleashed–symptoms of a deeper, more persistent disorder — springtime crept on little cat feet all around me. New England springtime, in the form of longer days and brief periods of warmth — just long enough to make you think you didn’t need your long underwear anymore. Then, a one-two punch: frigid air, cloudy skies.
First the crocuses, then the snow. Snow on tulips. That, my friends, is springtime in Boston. But the supermoon came and went on Saturday, and the vernal equinox the next day, and I’ve been clawing and plodding my way back to health. And maybe soon I’ll even be able to tell you properly about my latest pilgrimage back to the place of my birth. And the books I’ve been reading — especially that new one by Andrew Himes.
Gratitude list
Five things to be grateful for today:
- Sunshine after weeks and weeks of clouds and snow
- The luxury of unstructured time
- Counting the days until California
- Heat included in the rent
- The intarwebs — still helping me meet new friends after all these years. Clear proof that love and friendship can triumph over hatred, fear and paranoia
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
I was in high school and half in love with a boy from Texas. I was only half in love with him because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do with boys. Well, he was awfully cute. And I was 13 years old and full of hormones. Like me, he was a child of hippies. Unlike me, he was unabashed about it.
He pulled a slim volume from his locker — the locker so close to that other boy who got me into so much trouble. It had a yellow spine and a black-and-white photograph of a girl perched on top of a pile of rubble. It was called The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster, by Richard Brautigan.
“He’s a minor LSD poet from San Francisco,” he told me. “I thought you might like it.”
Even then, I was known for liking and writing poetry.
It was the first book of poetry anyone ever gave to me like that: spontaneous, easy. With the perspective of time, I can see that maybe he was as half in love with me as I was with him. We ended up embarking on a relationship far more intimate and complex than anything you’d see on Glee. It’s hard to say who broke my harder: him or the other boy I loved at the same time, in a more carnal, conventional manner.
But that’s a story for another time. Right now what I want to think about is that moment when he handed me this slim volume, the same one that sits on my desk beside me now, a little time traveler through the decades.
And the wonder of discovery when I first saw a poem like this in print:
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
When you take your pill
it’s like a mine disaster.
I think of all the people
lost inside of you.
Poem a Day November — Day 1
Yes, I know I’m late. All I have to say about that is “fuck you, November.” Although October was more of a bitch this year than November so far.
I’m more of a poet than a novelist, so I’m doing what some poets have started to do, which is write a poem a day in November instead of the insane marathon of a 10,000 word sustained narrative.
I fully expect this month’s poems to be mediocre in quality. As Julia Cameron said, “rest on the page.” A single haiku is better than silence — at least in this scenario. If you want the good stuff, buy the chapbook. Assuming it’s ever actually published. [Update: It WAS published!]
still waters of the pond
turn the eye inward
leaves a carpet of yellow–
sun on the ground
turn the eye outward
Meditation Challenge: Day 8 of 28
Once a day and twice on Sundays. Yesterday I sat for 20 minutes in the morning and then 20 minutes after I got home from a visit with Mom. It was the first time I’ve done a meditation at night in this go-round. Very interesting to see the differences in the state of the mind between morning and evening. Took me longer to settle down — actually longer to sit. Part of the evening meditation was also about re-settling after a day that involved lots of driving. Re-settling myself into my home and re-sanctifying it.
This morning I began Week Two of the program, which focuses on the body. Specifically, the teaching suggests that I focus on areas of discomfort or pain within my body. Relating how I approach discomfort, pain, not getting what I what, to how I relate to my own body’s pain. It’s a very powerful association but definitely a more challenging kind of meditation. Luckily, the teaching — and my own mind and experience — remind me to continue to be gentle and open. I move back and forth between focusing on my breath and returning to the area of discomfort. First the general area, then gradually honing in on the spot that has the most intensity of pain. Or sensation. This kind of meditation can be exhausting. So I begin, again and again. Return to the breath. Return to the sensation. The teaching even suggests focusing on pleasurable sensations as well — but warns that it is easier to get lost in pleasurable sensations.
I do not think that attempting this challenge by myself would be a good idea if I did not already have some experience practicing meditation with others. It is so easy to become overwhelmed and lost in the mind. But also wonderfully rewarding to peel away the layers and find, finally, the Centered Self. The End of Desire. The bottom of the tackle box.
(Re)Commit to Sit
Right around the equinox I started the Tricycle 28-day meditation challenge. Other friends of mine might do weight-loss challenges, but this is definitely more my speed. So to speak.
As the word “challenge” might imply, the course set out by the hard-core Buddhists over at Tricycle magazine was a little too rigorous for me. But I figured it was a good opportunity to deepen my on-again off-again sort-of daily practice of mindful movement and seated meditation into something a little, um, deeper. I may not be able to commit to 20 minutes a day of sitting still for the rest of my life, but at least I could commit to 28 days.
Tricycle’s staff wanted me to sit for TWO 20-minute periods, morning and evening, and then dedicate two hours over the weekend to more sitting. Maybe that makes sense for a farmer or a delivery person, but I ALREADY spend far too much time with my butt planted in a chair. 20 minutes of doing it mindfully sounded possible, though, especially since seated meditation always inspires me to a more frequent yoga and/or tai chi practice too.
The first few days went pretty well. Then, on day 3, I started feeling like crap. Some passing physical symptoms kicked up the chronic illness and before I knew it a week had passed.
I got back to it last night. I was pretty emotionally raw and noticed that the practiced helped calm me — but not just because of the practice itself but because of all the little bits and pieces I’ve learned about mindfulness practice over the years. This morning I sat again, and for the first time I saw the sitting as a gift I was giving myself rather than something I was taking away from more meaningful pursuits.
There is a difference, after all, between focusing all of my consciousness into the screen whilst typing madly with my fingers and hunching my shoulders… and sitting quietly listening to my body.
In terms of how to count the days, I decided to consider myself pretty much at the same place I left off last week. The 28 days are divided into four weeks of practice, with a focus that shifts from breath to body to mind to etc — I’m trying not to peek ahead. So I’m still on the breath week.
We’ll see whether I want to give myself the gift of 20 minutes of seated meditation tonight, or some other gift instead. Like a hot bath. Or another form of relaxation.
For right now, at least, I’m glad to be back on the beam.
Five Things to Be Grateful for Today
- Got to see Marge Piercy read in person at the Longfellow House yesterday. I told her that The Moon is Always Female is still my favorite book of hers, and she recommended What Are Big Girls Made Of?. She also knew how to spell my name correctly. And she signed my copy of one of her latest volumes of poetry.
- The sun is shining and the relative humidity is low. I’m going outside for a walk while I still can.
- Got a call from one of my business owners at 9:30 AM. I had a mouth full of yogurt when she called, but at least I was on my way into the office, which is more than can be said for more days than I’d care to admit in the last year or so. After 7 hours working on something I expected to be able to fix in about 30 minutes, I’ve got the changes ready for release.
- Today is the 20th anniversary of the ADA. Thanks, the the first George Bush for signing that. And thanks, Bill Clinton, for signing the FMLA. Without those two pieces of legislation — and an employer big enough and honorable enough to care about adhering to employment law — I’d probably be out of a job right now.
- There was a big rally on the Common today to celebrate. I was hoping to go, but I have surgery scheduled on Friday. I’m grateful for the health insurance that makes the procedure possible, and all the love and support I’ve gotten from friends and family around this and the other health issues that have been KICKING MY ASS in the past couple of years.
Garden of Words 