on slumps and recoveries

Yesterday was a bit of a slump, I admit, even though I seemed to pull myself out of it at the end. But, if you consider my residency in baseball terms, having 6 of 7 productive days gives me a batting average of .857! (Compare that to Adam Dunn, supposedly the  slugger on my favorite team, the White Sox, who is only batting .185 and I’m a regular Hall-of-Famer.)

Today was what I would call a recovery. I did hours of revision work, completed a few more submissions, read two books, went for a tough and sweaty run. All valuable work. Sometimes I put too much pressure on myself to draft, forgetting that much of writing is in the aftermath of that act, that drafting is only the beginning.

I had some good news as well. Marc Neys (Swoon), the filmmaker with whom I have previously collaborated, has created a haunting film for “The Pioneer Wife Speaks in Tongues,” one of the poems from my latest chap from Redbird Chapbooks. Marc’s film uses his own original sound and music, my reading, and some strikingly edited public domain film to create a tone poem that, although not literal to the text of the poem, certainly captures its feeling. (The soundtrack is best appreciated through headphones…)

Also, Daniel Romo posed a visual prompt challenge on his blog last week to give away a copy of his new book Romancing Gravity. He chose my prose poem (the first of the poems about the girl!) as the challenge “winner.” You can go read it here - while you’re there, figure out a way to get yourself some copies of Daniel’s books -he is wonderful.

So, three more days to go. I have a rough working plan for the last days that includes healthy sprinklings of reading, revising, submitting, drafting, note-taking…and eating local apple pie at the orchards with my fellow residents…and having a massage to work out the kinks in my back and shoulders from hours at a computer or a desk. Recovery. I’m picking my spot, pointing at fences, ready to knock it out of the park.

losing sight of the shore

“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” Andre Gide

Today was a difficult day. I felt a little lost, unmoored and floating in an unfamiliar sea. On a day that celebrates relationships (both Father’s Day and my wedding anniversary), I was separated from home and loved ones. Hearing their voices on the phone and being unable to see or to touch them added to the disorientation, the sense of bobbing aimlessly with an infinite horizon and no land in sight.

I took a long walk – a very long walk – and felt the sun on my skin and the breeze on my face, enjoyed the shade of a great tree. I read a book that, for a while, transported me to another place, neither here nor home, and the seas began to calm. It was only then that I was able to sit down and write, differently than I have for the rest of the week, gentler (if that is a word one can apply to writing).

One draft elaborated on a childhood memory of the adults in our neighborhood thinking they had seen a UFO. One was a character’s life cycle of place, ocean leading back to ocean. Another, a love poem of sorts. And another, a new poem about “the girl” that is the closest she has come to being me. And now a long, low train whistle blows outside the window, a sound that has become familiar and soothing in this small town that is not my own.

Some might see a writing residency or retreat as a way to throw off the anchors of their everyday responsibilities and row with abandon toward the open sea. For me, this fruitful time has reminded me of how lucky I am to be rooted to people I love, how their grounding presence is what allows me to pursue my dreams, to do what nourishes me, how their bright beacons will keep me always rowing steadily toward the shore.

good to go for something golden

Let’s call today a Saturday Sampler, a little bit of everything, a lot of jumping from project to project and idea to idea, from rest to activity, from social to solitary, from reading to writing to drawing to taking photos, from sun to wind to rain. That was a good thing for me. Although I am incredibly grateful for this time and opportunity (and I am making the most of the concentrated time, believe me), I am getting to the point where I miss my husband and home, especially since tomorrow is our 29th wedding anniversary. It is a testament to him and our relationship that he is okay with me taking this kind of time to do something that is important to me. No words I have are enough to describe how lucky and blessed I am to have him in my life.

[Pause for a deep breath - crying alone in a writing studio would be weird...okay, all better now. Back to our regular post...]

Had a nice lunch today with the two remaining residents, talking art and writing and just generally enjoying conversation, something we all have had very little of this week. But then? Back to work!  Today I tried three different things that were on my “I’d like to try this if I had time” list.

First, I read some public domain text from Project Gutenberg (I used a suggestion from Found Poetry Review, a chapter in a 1905 book about pistols that dealt with the rules of dueling) and used some of the phrases to create a strange draft about a porn film director. (Don’t ask me why…can’t answer.) I forget what a wealth of strange and wonderful text is in Project Gutenberg -I need to use it more often.

Second, I took some photographs that I printed and then did contour drawings over. I had remembered doing this in high school with magazine photos, so I thought I would try it with my own. Here is my best attempt:

Third, I did several pages of automatic writing, starting with a word or phrase from my reading and setting a timer for five minutes, not allowing myself to stop writing even if I had to switch gears in the middle of a sentence. It got easier as I went along, and as I went back to read the pages a few hours later, there are some phrases and word combinations that I  liked quite a bit that I can now pull into more focused and concentrated drafts.  (The bonus? Now I have some fodder for times that I am stuck during the next few days…)

(I also prepared and sent a few more submissions out today. It is so time-consuming that I figure I will get as many as possible done here so that I can use my time when I get home to be writing new work and revising the things I am creating here.)

These experiments were a good lesson. As writers, we can get “set” in our ways, using the same inspirations or processes over and over again or just waiting for inspiration to strike. Actively pursuing language and forcing the writing muscles to work are both time-consuming but ultimately worth it. Now I’m good to go for something golden in my remaining five days.

(Today’s post title from the song “Saturday” by Fall Out Boy.)

god of my own kingdom

Today finds me approximately halfway through my time here in Nebraska, so I took stock today. By the numbers:

• 25 new poem drafts
• innumerable minor revisions of old work
• 8 journal submissions
• second thorough proofing of my manuscript
• 4 sketches or attempts at visual art
• 7 books read, 2 print journals
  • Dash Literary Journal, Sou’wester
  • three little bones tour chapbooks by Josh Gaines, Ben Clark and Stevie Edwards
  • Reasons to Leave the Slaughter by Ben Clark
  • Cigarette Sonatas by Josh Gaines
  • When Kerosene’s Involved by Daniel Romo
  • Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay
• 3 audio lectures from poetryfoundation.org
• Made notes for several new ideas
• Researched journals for submissions/read online journals

So, maybe that seems like a lot to some of you, and maybe that seems like nothing to others of you who are naturally prolific. For me, it is more than I have accomplished in the past four months, so I am quite pleased with my work here so far.

I read an article called “I Did Not Vanish: On Writing” by Cynthia Cruz on the Rumpus today. Although the article speaks very personally about what writing is for her, there is much there for every writer to make connections. I was particularly struck by this quote about how she feels when writing: “For those moments or hours, I am God of my kingdom. No one tells me how things go. No one can argue against me when I’m writing poems.” There is much in this piece to contemplate and admire – go read for yourself.

 

strong and clear

“To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” Buddha.

Today began with my body telling me that it needed some attention. I awoke stiff and cramped and tight despite a good night’s sleep, so I listened. A three-mile run and an hour of yoga, although they don’t seem like writing exercises, certainly helped me to work out the kinks and leave my mind strong and clear for the work of the day. (I’m glad I spent the morning outside as it is now gloomy and rainy, perfect for sitting at the window and writing.)

Before I got started, I had a chance to visit the studio of my apartment-mate Trudie  Treijink, and I was amazed. Her hand-embellished prints blew me away. She is using a variety of media – large digital print of photographs, paint, pencil, Japanese fibers – to create peaceful and astounding images. Check out her work online. This certainly got me in the mood to create something new today, so I went to work on the prose poems about “the girl” that showed up the first day I was here.

I looked back in my idea notebook and saw that my students had challenged that I probably never used any of their vocabulary words in any of my poems, so I decided to use that as a starting point for writing about the mysterious girl. So far, she is loquacious, anachronistic, empathetic, and holistic (as well as tardy and frightened, even though those are not vocabulary words). Each draft is showing definite rhythm and even some internal rhyme within the prose blocks, which I have never done. In their rough draft versions, each one of them makes brief mention of “her parents”, and several have references to religion. I have no idea where or why they are coming, but I want to see where they go.

[Here I take a break to go eat zucchini bread and rhubarb cake with my fellow residents - there was a farmer's market today that contained more baked goods than produce. I did get a couple of giant kohlrabi to cook for dinner later this week, however.]

Okay. Good conversation and really good rhubarb cake have left me ready to get back to work this evening before knocking off for the day. I believe I will be working on revisions tonight while I watch/listen to some TV, so I will leave you with a couple of thoughts from our conversation. First, all of us have had great success with “experiments” this week, things we weren’t expecting to work on that have somehow intrigued us. Second, we all recognize the need to put the brakes on a little and pace ourselves – the first few days were extremely exhausting. And third, homemade cake makes everything seem just a little brighter.