Another one bites the dust

They're starting to come back.

I've been writing these long--and, for me, experimental--poems since June. I've loved doing it. I've had so much fun. I've sent them out. And, for the most part, they've stayed out.

But they're coming back. This is very good for my standings in the Facebook Paper our walls with rejection slips contest. But it's also, I admit, disappointing. I'll send them out again, at least once more--probably lots more. And I'll keep reminding myself that if they don't get published, they don't get published, but writing them has been its own reward.

I might need to tell myself that about 20 times a day.

And then I need to write. I used to ride horses. I've had plenty of experience hitting the dust. Get up. Brush off. Get back on. Breathe.

Gratitude

I had plenty of gratitude yesterday, but not enough Internet connectivity.

I'm grateful that my daughter is on the mend after having oral surgery. It's been slow, and so hard for her, but she seems to be getting a little better.

I'm grateful for the chance to participate in Write-O-Rama last Saturday. I'm grateful for getting some writing in.

I'm grateful that the lights are up in the yard now. They help take the edge off the darkness.

And I'm grateful that my very persistent neighbors got the city to fix the streetlights. More light!

Sucking at studying

I read a lot. But… I'm 50 years old and I still can't study—not effectively, not with efficient retention.

It's been an odd week.

I've been reading some energizing and inspiring anthologies, including Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms, Lyric Postmodernisms, and now The Verse Book of Interviews.

But when I remember something I've read and try to find it, I'm lost.

I saw a really helpful quote, and now I can't find it anywhere. While I was searching for it online, I thought I saw it, but now I can't even find that. Could my brain have created this memory to fill a gap? (I've read that brains do this, and I might even be able to tell you where.)

And I thought I read an interview of a Very Famous Poet. I remember thinking, "Do I want to read this? Sure, might as well." I remember details of the biography (which, it turns out, is the biography used for this poet ubiquitously), and I remember details of the interview, but I can't find that either. And I don't think my brain could have fabricated all of that!

Which leaves me...where?

Write-O-Rama!

It's coming this Saturday, December 4!

From the Hugo House website:

Write-O-Rama is a full day of more than 30 one-hour workshops offered by Hugo House's writing teachers. Sample Hugo classes, dabble in different forms and genres and share your fresh, new writing before the ink even dries at two open mics.

I'll be doing a fragment-inspired Break It Up: Short-Burst Writing workshop at 10:00 and at 2:00—and you can read about loads of other workshops on the Hugo House website.

Come, and come ready to write!

Gratitude Journal, and it's dark already

I'm grateful that the roads are now clear.

I'm grateful that most of the family was able to get together for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and that we have such a wild, wacky, wonderful family.

I'm grateful for my children, and the chance to watch them grow.

I'm grateful for the cat who is sleeping on my legs.

I'm grateful for a bunch of writing time this weekend.

Tomorrow, it's back to work, but I have gratitude to take with me.

What kind of poetry do you write?

How do you answer this question?

It came up again last week at a dinner party. I hem and haw, never sure what to say.

And it depends who's asking. If it's another poet, do I say lyrical or narrative? I'm still trying to wrap my head around those two, because at one end we have the Iliad and the Odyssey, and at the other hand we have postmodern lyrics (and probably post-postmodern lyrics), and I fall somewhere in the vast middle.

If it isn't a poet, I want to say "accessible," because that's true. Even my new, more fragmented poems are still pretty accessible. And I don't want to get into explaining how I'm exploring with more nonlinear poems, trying to break up the narrative in longer poems that are divided into sections. How dry. (Although I'm having a blast writing them.)

Often, I try to answer the question by saying what I write about. The stock answer: gardening and death. Except that my forthcoming manuscript is about illness and healing. And the poems I'm working on right now are mostly about middle age, set in the Pacific Northwest landscape. Except for a few more poems about death and grief. And then I'm toying around from time to time with the messy confessional poem.

Clearly, I need a succinct answer that is generous and--yes--accessible.

How do you answer this question?

Snowed-in--it takes just a dusting

Yesterday began with that dusting. Then, snow mist and freezing fog.

The ride home from work was surreal, with the wind swirling clouds of that snow mist in the headlights. It looked like the smokey wraithes that rise off of dry ice. The roads were solid ice. The bus commute was two and a half hours--probably one of the shortest rides in the region--and I missed the Billy Collins reading.

The winds continued to drift the snow, so a few inches was sculpted into peaks and swoops, like a meringue.

This morning, I'll be staying put, working from home, with a cat on my legs.