drafting

one of the most difficult things, for me, in revision is when my first draft is a more solid first draft. its easier when they're sloppy messy things that can be tucked and prodded and pinned back here and there. i need to expand a poem, and the initial draft or two left it pretty close to there. so i have to go back, take out the seams, let it out to add what needs to be added, and stitch it back together again.



"Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one's mind comes to inhabit the material fully."
- Ted Solotaroff

&

"The waste paper basket is the writer's best friend."
- Isaac B. Singer 

writing with children, other people's shoes & poems published

encouragement from novelist john reimringer on being a parent and a writer:

The child is an opportunity. Remember that in art, restriction forces your creativity in new directions—the restrictions that dramatic structure puts on a novel, for instance, or choosing to write a sonnet puts on a particular poem. Form in art is a restriction that forces creativity. If you choose to have a child, you’ve chosen to add a new form to your life. Be open to the opportunities your choice will create. I should follow my own advice.

~&

this week i started auditing a writing class online, Other People's Shoes, Persona Poetry That Fits. its through the rooster moans poetry workshops, and they allow teaching artists (like myself--i teach a class on confessional poetry  in may) to sit in on classes.

since a lesson is only posted once a week, it works out well with my tuesday night writing time. it has been good to write again (and i've even started submitting my writing again--i sent out to seven magazines this week! seven!).

i've always been interested in persona but only dabbled in it, so i'm really enjoying learning more about this type of poetry, and the writing prompts have helped me to be able to actually write a poem in what little (and precious) writing time i have each week. for the first persona assignment, i wrote a love poem from the perspective of a mug. it's called..."mug" (working title), ha.

plus, i just love having a good assignment to complete. its the nerd in me.

 ~ &

i have some poems in rufous city review's latest issue, at 2river view, and  a poem (from when i was pregnant with zu) on literary mama. if we have as many babies as we hope to have, i suspect 90% of the entire body of my work will be about babies.

a person's "books to read" list can be the most revealing thing about them

books i'm hoping to read this year:

The Circle Maker: Praying Circles around your biggest dreams and greatest fears by Mark Batterson

Grace for the Good girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Emily P Freeman

She's Got Issues: seriously good news for stressed-out, secretly scared control freaks like us by Nicole Unice

The Shaping of a Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot

Beyond Bathtime: Embracing Motherhood as a Sacred Role by Erin Davis

The Mission of Motherhood: touching your child's heart for eternity by Sally Clarkson

Breastfeeding, Take Two: Successful breastfeeding the second time around by Stephanie Casemore

The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol Oates

Imago Dei: Poems from Christianity and Literature edited by Jill Baumgaertner

The Empty House poems by Faith Shearin


{and others i want to read ..here.. }

~

have y'all read any of these and liked or disliked them?

and i don't have many poetry books on my list--suggestions are welcome!

tired of poetry

 

writing has been difficult lately. 

earlier this fall my writing was going well; i got a lot of work done on my manuscript, wrote new poems i'm happy with, published in places i was excited to publish with.

then november came and december, and i've not written but two lackluster poems in this time and sent out my work hardly at all. writing has been on the backburner, and its been difficult to muster up the passion necessary to get back to it.

this past week i've started reading poetry regularly again, in hopes that it will spark something, but i feel like i've just been slogging through it. reading literary magazines i've started to feel like my aesthetic is irrelevant. all these modern trendy poems.  i don't think my poetry is really "cool" enough. well and news like graywolf press, which i respect(ed?), publishing james franco's poetry collection just makes me feel like what is the point?

so after hitting such a high point this fall, i feel disillusioned, without inspiration, and tired. i'm not sure if this is something i should just push through--keep reading, keep writing--maybe return to reading through some of my old favorites or try some writing exercises or a writing challenge?--or if i should take the opposite route, take a break from writing, and if so, how long? a week, a month, a couple of months? and of course there's that little voice in the back of my mind that says wouldn't it just be easier to Not be a writer?

have any of you faced these feelings with your writing, and if so, what did you do or what would you advise?

time to write

i have a new poem up at Stirring -- "It Is Well"

also poems forthcoming at 2River ("The Escape" and "Rebecca")

and, surprisingly enough, a short story forthcoming in Relief! I don't publish outside my genre very often, so I'm particularly excited about that one.

~

don't let the string of publications fool you--i have been extremely slackerly in the writing department the past month. between the holiday rush, sicknesses, traveling, grading, end of semester craziness, and early pregnancy morning sickness / fatigue, i've only written i think maybe one poem in the past month and read one poetry book. 

my grading is all but one paper short of complete, and, besides graduation, i have a break from school until january. my plans over the break are to take an online class on online teaching (which so far doesn't look to be an extreme time commitment), travel a bit to see family, and finish my confessional poetry class lessons. i will admit some of my writing time the past month has been eaten up by essay writing--i've really been enjoying researching and writing the essays on confessional poetry that i'll use for my class.

now that school is all but over though i plan on getting back to my writing in earnest. even with all the trials of the past month, i know that part of the reason that i haven't written is that i didn't commit myself to write. i'm not going to make any hard and fast goals for myself over the break--i'm putting relaxation and time with family as a top priority--but i do plan on setting aside time to write at least once a week, and time to dig into the huge stack of poetry books i've yet to read. after all, a lot has happened in the past month--i think i have some things to write about.

the clockwork muse

i haven't had much time for writing this month. its a busy time of the semester, and i've been constantly grading (besides this blessed four day reprieve! so happy to see the end of that stack of papers!). i had a little time to edit the other day and to start reading poetry again. i've felt frustrated with finding time to write this semester though--August and September, i was writing everyday, but i found that to be unsustainable.

which leads me to a quick book recommendation...

i've just started reading The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, and Books by Eviatar Zerubavel, and it is indeed the most practical books on writing i've ever come across. i wasn't sure how relevant it would be for me--i'm not writing a dissertation--but so far i'm about a third of the way through (its only 100 pages long, a quick read), and i find myself taking notes.

the premise is that all writers need to find a weekly schedule that works with their life, and stick to it. this seems like common sense, but i think most creative writers, especially when they start out, are more apt to wait for the muse (and i think that is particularly popular among poets, not working on a longer piece).

i know that i used to do that--when i was single, with no children, i could just write whenever fancy struck. then i got married and had to adjust a bit to bryan's various work schedules, but still could largely write whenever i felt like it. my schedule during that time in my life was to write a poem a week and to find time whenever i could to fit that in.

then we had a baby.

i've done a lot more on my writing than i would've thought possible this first year with zu. i finished my book, revised it a few times, wrote many (though not As Many) new poems this year. but the way i work has been completely different. mostly in snatches of time--naptimes, bedtimes. and there were (and are) lots of interrupted poems that never quite got off the ground after being interrupted. i don't expect myself to write as many poems a year or revise or submit as extensively as i did when i didn't have as many demands on my time. still, it gets frustrating sometimes, like this month, when i feel that i've not had time to sit down and write at all.

so, here are my notes from the book so far-

1} every writer needs a weekly schedule

2} even the full-time professor with a husband and toddler has more time than she thinks she does

3} establish your ideal writing-time-block (for me, that would be about 3 - 4 hours at a time)

4} establish your ideal writing schedule during that time ( mine: 45 min - hour reading, 1 - 1.5 hrs writing, the rest of the time revising, maybe some time submitting)

5} to find When you can write, first block out all the times in your schedule that you can not change due to work, life, etc, And block out times that you are likely to get interrupted or find that you can't work well.

this is the challenging part for me because i really do not have that much time in the day where i can write.

Mornings (impossible): i teach MWF, zu wakes up at 5am everyday, and i can't write earlier than that
Afternoons (not happening): zu has her naps but bryan works nights so that is some of the only time we get alone together--and i am not giving that up for writing!!
Evenings: fridays we lead small group and saturdays bryan is off work, but i do have time between zu's bedtime at 7 and my bedtime at 10 on sundays, tuesdays and thursdays. the other days bryan goes in later, at 8, and i usually do my housework then. 

after going through those steps, i found that i could potentially have a decent 3 hour writing time on sunday, tuesday and thursday evenings--that is nine hours a week, much more time than i would've thought!

realistically, that won't work for everyweek--we might have friends over or i might have a ton of papers to grade. and i'll have even more time than that in between semesters, when i'm not teaching.

so my commitment for next semester is to plan on using tuesday and thursday evenings for writing, tuesday being my hard-and-fast writing date, thursday being more flexible, and sunday being my potential stand-in for thursday. (of course, i'll revisit this schedule when there are any work/life schedule changes that i'll need to adjust for)

i love schedules and organization, so i think what i've learned most from this book so far is that a flexible schedule doesn't mean not-scheduled-at-all--my problem this year has been if my rigid writing schedule is messed up, i don't write at all that week. or, if i am on a writing everyday schedule and i don't write that day, i feel guilty. hopefully introducing set writing dates and flex days will solve that problem!

sabbatical

i mailed off my manuscript to 3 contests yesterday; i gave them each little kisses on the forehead for luck as they venture out into the world.

i've been drafting a poem this week but its gone slow. after the editing marathon i've done the past month and the many new drafts the past couple of months, i think i could use a short writing sabbatical--i'm worn out!

so this entire week i'm going to take a little break. get some grading done, caught up on lesson planning, relax with the family, even enjoy some fall weather.

“Rest and be thankful.”  - William Wordsworth

wistful whimful submissions, a book i heart, and social media blackout

.

i'm about half-way through Pruning Burning Bushes by Sarah M. Wells right now (reviewed ::here:: recently). faith-based poetry by a woman poet who is also a mom? well, i'm in love really.

.

i'm also rereading God as Author. i was a crazy-person last time i read it, a few weeks after i had zuzu (really i was only fit to read The Cat Who... books at that time in my life), so i remember just about none of it from the first reading. and its good. so i'm glad i'm rereading it. 

.

on a whim i applied for a residency. not sure what i would even do if i won said residency but it was a long day the day i applied and i was wistful for writing time and curse email applications! they're just too easy. going to the post office leaves time for second thoughts.

.

i'm drafting a new poem this week. i love the feeling of a mostly-done poem in my notebook, something to come back to and flesh out as i have time.

.

going off a suggestion by another poet, i've been thinking of titles in my manuscript and of writing some more Leah poems (after one of my poems, "Leah Speaks Her Piece"). which is really about my grandmother but using persona leaves me some fictional wiggle room and saves my hide if i do happen to ever have a published manuscript fall in the hands of family.

.

oh that makes me nervous even thinking about that...

.

that said, there are two contests i want to send my manuscript out to at the end of october. i've done some reordering, cutting, a bit of adding, and right now i'm in the nit-picky revising stage. i'm thinking of deactiving all of my time-wasters (pinterest and FB, that means you!) until the october deadlines, since i also have the next wave of student papers coming in mid-october.

.

because time to myself is precious and limited. and its just way easier to look at my friends cute babies then to revise a poem for the twelfth twentieth one-hundred-twentieth time.

drafting "a birthday poem"

this week has been a week of hard writing.  i've struggled to write everyday, some days writing shamefully little. i had three false-start drafts, never getting off the ground, not worth pursuing really. last month was really a writing high for me--i wrote a lot of very promising drafts, worked in new forms, got some good editing done on my manuscript. so coming off of that i've floundered a bit.

its a busy few weeks too--relatives in town last weekend, coming back next weekend for my zu's first birthday (?!), lots of time with friends, activities with the new church. all good things, but my introverted self was needing some quiet today, some time alone in the stillness.

after the baby went down for her afternoon nap, i told my husband i just needed some time and escaped to the solitude of the sunroom to read, write, look out the window, enjoy the quiet.

and then finally i got my draft done for the week. a birthday poem (working title) for zu, mainly about the transition to winter and what we pass on. that has been a subject of interest for me lately, so this poem is in that same vein as "discipline"--what we pass on intentionally, unintentionally.

i tend to write medium length (half to one page) poems and this one kept meandering along. i feel like its a bit more southern and drawling than what i've written lately, an easy rhythm to it. revising will be a matter of adding in some places, cutting in others, and lineation, which i haven't done yet. some poems i write in lines from the beginning, some in scrawling long-hand, one paragraph over pages and pages in my writing notebook. 

the next few weeks are going to be busier still--birthdays, parties, travelings--so while i'm planning to keep to writing everyday, i'm going to cut myself a little slack on how many poems come out of that--i think if i get one out of the next two weeks, that will be an accomplishment i'm happy with

learning from the masters

as i've delved obsessively into manuscript editing this week, i've been reading through some of my favorite poetry books, trying to remove the clockface and see how the gears tick together. C.D. Wright, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Sylvia Plath, and Claudia Emerson are a few I've focused on, as well as Paper Anniversary, my first poetry professor's book. i've also done some reading through the first book interviews. my professor has one. here . that i found insightful and inspiring, about poetry and the first book.

a quote, talking about his thoughts on poetry writing:

Sometime I sense in my students—and I used to detect it in myself—that they are dissatisfied with their world, that they distrust it and long for more exotic surroundings, cities with name recognition and events that are more compelling and poem-worthy to dress up their days. They haven’t yet fully come to believe that a parking lot in Jackson, Tennessee, where they’ve just slammed the car door and slung a book bag up to their shoulder, where the afternoon light throws the outline of every bumper onto the veiny asphalt in some crazy and rhythmed way, where they’re late and lonely and hungry and not as prepared as they’d like to be, can have anything at all to do with art. The sooner we all get over that the better. ( Bobby Rogers

reading through my manuscript i've really felt that. i don't write about exciting things--hurricanes and abuse and drugs and big cities--i write about washing the dishes and having a baby and going to church with my husband. i really do. and as i've been editing, i feel like maybe that isn't good enough--who wants to read about such simple things? so i am glad to have read this interview this morning. i am so lucky to have studied, right from the beginning, under talented professors who care for and believe in their students, and who have a vision for poetry that i can learn from.

sea of poems

ordering the waves

i sent to 6 contests this year and heard back from 3 of them last week.

not even a finalist. sigh.

after some homemade sugar cookies and an appropriate length of moping, i pulled out my manuscript to do some editing.

this is my first year where i have sent to more than 1 contest. i've been working on my manuscript for 3 years, since finishing my mfa.

i do feel like it is strong enough for publication--else i wouldn't send it out--but as i write new and stronger poems i like to go through and weed out the weaker poems, see where the order needs to be shifted, etc.

so i've heard advice a few places to leave a manuscript be once its finished, but i am a tinkerer. what i had right out of my mfa is still for the most part the core of my manuscript. life, however, has led to new subjects (motherhood, babies) and also a new boldness in writing about the never-mentioned family history (a traditional southern family, we don't ever mention anything unbecoming).

i reordered, added and removed, and i'm doing some read-throughs of the printed-out manuscript these next few weeks, getting it ready to send out again. i've always had an easier time editing on paper than the computer screen, and there's something to physically holding the poems in my hands.

i don't expect to have it published this year, honestly--my hope is for it to happen before i am ineligible for the yale series of younger poets (age 40--younger poets?). i've had professors and friends read through it but i could always use an extra set of eyes, readers, if anyone is interested.

of course, i do already have a faithful manuscript assistant available at all hours:

cats are the best editors

an assured completeness

1\  what work is
the past few weeks have been about adjusting to our new schedule as a family. bryan started work at the library, working in the evenings. since i was already the one who did zuzu's bedtime schedule, it hasn't been hard on her but i do miss the time bryan and i were able to spend together after zuzu went to bed. we've been working on being good stewards of our time when we are all home together--putting away the computer, turning off the tv, and heading out to the park or downtown. now that the weather isn't beastly hot we've started going out to stroll by the river, which i had missed terribly this summer.

it has been great for bryan to be back in a regular job. he went a month without anything after what happened with his last church, and he was getting very restless. i love that we're both working for the school and he has always liked working as a librarian.

teaching this semester has been so much easier than it was last semester. its nice teaching classes i've taught before, not everything is so very new. i ended up having six in the class and they are all so talented. i can't wait to see how their work blossoms over the semester.

i'm also co-advising the literary magazine this year. i could've taken it over entirely but i want to take a year to see how the current teacher advises it, so that i can make sure to do it right. our literary magazine is the oldest publication of the schools--its been going since the 1836!--but hardly any students know about it. we're working on awareness, and on building up our staff. i think that the magazine has a lot of potential.


2\ locomotion
we're a one car family now--bryan's explorer bit the dust. its fixable but the car is worth less than it would cost to fix it, so we've got it parked in the clearing (our land is wooded) until we can afford another car to trade it in for. we're thinking we'll just be a one car family as long as we can make it work--hopefully another couple of years. we live close to the school where we both work so on days bryan wants to take zu to the park or something, i'll just walk to work (or maybe get a bike!). right now zuzu is too little to play on the playground much so its worked out ok with me taking the car.

on sundays, tuesdays and thursdays i've started running/jogging/hobbling along as fast as i can (not very). bryan goes in at  five on those days, so i have a few hours before zu goes to bed. no impressive distances or times to report--i'm just happy to be getting active regularly. and zu enjoys being paraded up and down the street.


3\ my formal education
the form class ended this week. i enjoyed it so much, i wish it went on another year. i've written a villanelle, pantoum, sestina, ghazal, and gigan, and also learned about the blues poem, triolet and bop forms. i never had the courage to truly tackle form before i had the encouragement of that class. there is something immensely satisfying about form--an assured completeness that i don't always have in free verse, where the form is my own invention.  i'm so glad that bryan convinced me to take this class, and i plan to do more work in form, particularly the sestina, pantoum and villanelle.

while i'm here i might as well share the happy news--32 Poems accepted my poem "What to Wear"! its not really a poem about fashion even though it sounds like maybe it is. it is a poem that i wrote when i was in a nervous and sad disposition. it was one of those rare poems direct from the muse to the writer--i sat down and wrote it start to end, sent it out, and it was accepted the first place I sent it, 32 Poems.  i wish it happened like that every time--the effortless outpouring straight to the page.

drafting "Discipline"

So I am going to give writing about my writing a shot. I read so many poet-blogs where they write their drafting process and I find it so interesting. My personal drafting process is perhaps not quite as interesting...but I think it might prove useful to write about it, to sort out my thoughts behind the poems.

Right now I am working on my last assignment for my form class--to write a Gigan. I had never heard of this form before today--it was invented by poet Ruth Ellen Kocher (who I also had never heard of). Its 16 lines, in the pattern of couplet, tercet, couplet couplet couplet, tercet, couplet, line 1 is repeated as line 11 and line 6 is repeated as line 12 and the last couplet turns the poem on its head. Got it?

Discipline is about how bryan says I sound like my mother when I tell Zu don't play with the light socket, don't steal daddy's cell phone, don't climb on the table, don't bite the cat (there's a poem in there somewhere too ...)

and I started thinking that maybe my mother sounds like her mother who sounds like her mother who sounds like...how far does this voice of discipline go back?

which got me to thinking about family and lineage and blood-ties. Things I enjoy writing about. and I've especially loved writing about Grimm's fairytales of late, and my lineage IS german--my great-grand on my mother's side was a german immigrant.

I am not one hundred percent confident that the Gigan is the correct form for this subject matter--I'm thinking I might instead try it out as a sestina or free verse maybe (two wildly different things). 

Either way, it is always good to learn about a new form and to have a finished first draft.

sestina

we're writing sestinas this week. the sestina is one tough mama.

my topic is mothering, my words are:
belief
chain
chart
think
mother
pregnancy

picked at random from a book of poetry.

i'm writing it very slowly, a stanza a day so far, maybe two today if i get to it. hoping to complete it by saturday, the due date.

i like the revolving revolving revolving of a sestina. its like chewing over a topic, in my mind. obsessing. but it is difficult for such free-verse-lings as myself. or maybe even for everyone.

if you also decide to use these words for a sestina, please email it to me so we can compare notes & commiserate hardships

if you want to write

“I want to assure you with all earnestness, that no writing is a waste of time, – no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good. It has stretched your understanding. I know that. Even if I knew for certain that I would never have anything published again, and would never make another cent from it, I would keep on writing.”

Brenda Ueland, If You Want To Write 

~

this is true for me. it wasn't always. 

~

submitting poems is like pulling teeth (my own teeth). this one poet i like has been sending out submissions all summer and i wish i'd done the same, maybe i will do the same, next summer, or winter break maybe.  i don't care about it like i used to; then again, when i was just starting out, i so badly needed the encouragement of poem acceptances. without them, i don't think i would've gone for my mfa. well, or gotten the job i have now, so they have proven useful.

lately, if i send out my work, its usually to a magazine where i've read someone i like, and i haven't sent out much to my dreamjournals this year. its hard to find time for both the writing of poems and the sending out of poems. 

~

i'm learning that, personally, there are two things that i must do everyday: read scripture and write in my journal.

not for legalistic reasons, not for obligations, and i know it is not for everyone, but, for me, if i want to be a sane and balanced person rooted in God's truth and believing who i am in HIM, then this is a must for me.

~


i've written everyday for about twenty days now. out of the twenty days i think i've written six or seven poems, three of which are form poems, something so completely different for me.

i am loving my class; my teacher is smart and helpful, and my classmates are too, it makes me miss workshopping oh so much. so far we've studied the blues poem, villanelle, pantoum, and ghazal. the villanelle took me a few revisions to get it right, the ghazal was very difficult for me, actually the most difficult form i've tried, and the pantoum came pretty naturally.

i don't know why i have been afraid of form all this time, it has been lovely and refreshing to study a new aspect of my craft. i think that i might even...maybe....start writing form poems outside of assignments....

a form(al) education

i started my workshop yesterday: Rattling the Cage, a month-long online workshop on formal poetry. our first assignment was to write a blues poem or a villanelle. i've been taking time to write everyday, so last night after zuzu went to bed, i took my notebook out to the sunroom and started working on my assignment. sometime later, bryan came in and asked "so, want to watch some olympics, you've been out here two hours" -- i had no idea i'd been writing that long! i had no idea forms could be so engrossing and enjoyable and not utter and complete hades to write!

my first experience with form was writing sonnets in my mfa program and i was not a fan. partially that might have been that meter is hard for me. i'm not good at hearing it and it takes me a long long time to write it. also i think i was just so keyed up and nervous about being a first semester mfa student--surrounded by such incredibly talented classmates, such incredibly talented professors--that i froze up doing something outside my comfort zone.

i'm old now though and writing outside my comfort zone is not so scary. especially since the only people who are critiquing it are faceless internet-people who i'll probably never meet.

villanelles are not as villainous as i supposed they were. i've written two so far and i think i'll write another one before the end of the week. they are terrible but you can read them if you want (again, via email--these will not be publicly posted ever.)

i'll keep you posted on how the rest of the workshop goes; anything that has me writing two form poems in two days is worthwhile

vowels control your brain

this is one of the more interesting articles i've read in a long time. read it, i urge you. i think it is of particular interest to writers, the sound theory.

when i was thinking of baby names, i thought somewhere along these lines. one of my old favorite names, Isla, compared to my daughter's name, Susan, did not seem as steady, dependable and intelligent to me. I think that is partially that "Isla" begins and ends in vowels verses "Susan" which begins and ends in consonants, giving it a less feminine, or, as bryan and i like to say "frilly", feel.

Another factor for us is that I have a particular attraction to "n"s in names--my name and my sister's names all include them (Karen, Lauren, Renee) and my husband's name does as well (Bryan). I think Susan was so attractive to me as a name because it felt appropriate for a little girl name--and what little girls did I know better than Karen and Lauren? The name "Susan" blends right in with its similar length, repetition of consents, and concluding "en" sound. And, it also is fairly similar to the love-of-my-life's name--Bryan and Susan have very similar sounds.

So, all that to say, different names attract different people for a myriad of associations and history, so particular its hard to trace it back. there are the obvious things--i dislike the name Andrew because of a high school bully, the meaning of Susan is "lily" which is my favorite flower--but the psychology of naming goes so much deeper than that. i would love to study this further someday.

by golly! i think i've got it?

the past few weeks i've written lots of drafts of poems, not any that i'm very happy with. they don't feel quite right. i've also wanted to write about a difficult subject-- my grandparents divorce--which i've written about a few times before, never extremely successfully. i wrote a blogpost about it a few months ago and deleted it because i didn't even feel comfortable blogging about it really.

"heredity" a poem i wrote during my mfa program, was probably the best i've written on the subject, and it's too associative and vague...i feel like i lose my reader in that poem.

the past week i've written several drafts trying to get it right. i like parts of different ones. then yesterday i tried out persona--i read [this post] and thought maybe i need to put some distance between myself and the subject by writing in persona.

i don't write in persona typically, but i think this might be the way to write about family things without, as the poet says in that blogpost, feeling too vulnerable.

the poem that i think has the most possibility of the three i wrote this week is an untitled one written from the perspective of Leah (from the bible--Jacob, Rachel, Leah). i'm not entirely sure what to think about it right now. i wrote it in form first (very weird for me, i never write in form) then took it back to free verse.

i'm thinking though about trying out a few different personas for this topic...maybe something from mythology, since that is a more classic approach (though i have read an awful lot of poems about Persephone...) or something from Grimm's since i very much love Grimm's.

i'm glad to have made some progress with writing about this. my writing hasn't been as fast the past month or so, but it has been more...deliberate? and during my "child-bearing years" with little ones running around underfoot, that might be a more practical approach to the writing life. less flurry and more dedication. 

My life according to Ellen Bryant Voigt

Using only POEM titles from ONE POET, answer these questions

Describe yourself:  Southern Artifact

How do you feel: Dancing with Poets

Describe where you currently live:  Landscape, Dense with Trees

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:  The Waning Moon

Your favorite form of transportation: Song and Story

What's the weather like: Soft Cloud Passing

Favorite time of day: Nightshade

What is life to you: Preparation

Your relationship:  Long Marriage

Your fear:  High Winds Flare Up and the Old House Shudders

What is the best advice you have to give: Practice

If you could change your name, you would change it to:Amaryllis

My soul's present condition: The Happiness Poems

Poems on Demand

My younger sister is getting married this fall (hurrah! I am over-the-moon happy to see her settling down with a great guy!) and my family wants me to write a poem for the occasion and my notebook taunts me with its vast expanse of empty empty wasteland of pages...

I try to write a love poem and I write a poem about Zu or Bryan or washing dishes or the springtime weather or laundry drying on the line...

Actually, I would consider many of my poems to be love poems. The problem is that they are highly personal with specific personal details; I haven't lived their love story so I don't know how to write it. My first attempt ended up in the trash after our drunk uncles somehow showed up at the reception, and my second attempt somehow makes me feel sad at the end, which isn't what I'm going for.

The root of the problem is that not only does this have to be a love poem for someone else, but it has to be a family-friendly, publicly acceptable love poem in plain ole American that even cats and dogs can read.

If only I could write something lovely as this....
  

Sonnet XVII
by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Oh Neruda. Of course, no one can compete with the sexiness of a Chilean poet


So have you ever written a poem for a special occasion? Any advice? Any sympathy?