The Real Writer

What's Your Writing Life or Writing Goal Theme for 2012?

I'd like to share a quirky little ritual I do every New Year's Eve.

I'm a writer so I'm imaginative. I love the symbolic and figurative. And this ritual is that!

You need:

- 15-30 minutes of undisturbed quiet

- Some pieces of paper or better yet, a journal

- Something fun to write with. This is not the time for the boring ballpoint pen (although I love them for writing in general). Get a colored marker or pencil or even crayon. Or that fancy fountain pen someone gave you years ago that you never use. Or a quill if you're into period dramas on PBS, like me!

- A drink. Something to toast with. That can be tea or wine or whiskey or water. Up to you.

- A fireplace or big spaghetti pot or ashtray, and matches.

You may have heard of this type of  'write it and burn it' thing but bear with me. I have some fun and important questions ahead.

And, it's really helpful to release a year. To 'complete' it so to speak. The good and the bad, in order to move towards the writing life and goals that are important to you. You can't do that dragging around your perceived inadequacies and failures from the previous year. 

Note I said perceived.

I always say there is no failed writing and I say the same for whatever you reached for this year: some contests, a fellowship, an agent. If you didn't get it either you're not ready and there's still practicing to do (don't you want to give your best?), or there's something better around the corner for you to receive. I tend to think it's both. So take heart!

(Pardon me, I'm feeling colorful today.)

Read through the process before beginning.

Take out your paper and write all the crazy, complicated, depressing, sad, frustrating, heartbreaking things that happened this year related to your writing. Just purge everything.

For me, the biggest thing was that I lost my 18 year old Westie, Keegan, a once-in-a-lifetime-extraordinary dog  and went through a period of considering giving up writing for a while. It just didn't feel important or necessary anymore. Here's my boy a month before he let me know he was ready to go:

He was as delicious as he looks.

Anyway, the LAST thing I felt like doing was writing. I talked this over with my writing group and they were very supportive. I kept going to the meetings and workshopping their pieces. And I didn't write for several months - about four. Usually I write to get through a sad time, but it didn't work for me this go round. I couldn't read either.

Eventually, in late May, I wrote some poems, then pulled out a novel idea I'd been wanting to start, and in a weekend I had the outline. I felt a glimmer of 'good' about writing again and decided to start slowly, about 10 pages a month. And now I'm in the last third of it and it's turning out really well.

How about you? Get it all out. Everything that makes you sad and mad about your writing and writing life in the last year. No time to write because of the kids? Lost your job so all your time was spent looking for a new one? No money to go to the conference you've been dreaming of? It all goes here.

Here are some questions to help organize your thoughts:

1) What were my biggest lessons and challenges in 2011?

2) What were my biggest disappointments in 2011? 

3) What am I ready to let go of from this past year?

 Now do the same for everything that went right. The goods, the surprises, the gifts of ideas and characters and images and poems. Maybe you were really disciplined this year about writing and kept your butt in the chair when you were supposed to. Maybe you won a scholarship to a writing conference or won or placed in a contest. Maybe your query letter garnered full manuscript requests from 75% of the agents you queried. Even if no one took it - that's a success. And they gave you feedback in their response, so USE IT to make the book better.

1) What am I most proud of in the past year?

2) What surprised me about myself?

3) What made me feel great about my writing and my abilities? 

My big 'good' this year was that I traveled to England for a Jane Austen pilgrimage, something I'd wanted to do for a long time (sad fact: I was only able to go because Keegan was gone - he'd been too old to board for many years so I hadn't traveled in long time).

Not the sites where the adaptations were filmed, but some of the sites related to her - her grave and the house where she died in Winchester, her portrait at the National Portrait Gallery, her home in Chawton, for example. It was marvelous, everything I'd wanted and more, plus I received an exciting novel idea on the trip that I quickly outlined so that's waiting for me after I finish the current one. Can't wait! (If you'd like the posts about the trip, I just put up #3 of 4 here: Jane Austen Pilgrimage)

Here's her beautiful home, now a museum:

I also took a class there called Writing the Ideal Heroine, taught by Austen's great-great-great-great-great niece, Rebecca Smith. To read about the class and the exercises we did: Writing the Ideal Heroine.

The best part: I saw a Westie the first day of my trip, within one minute of walking out of my hotel so I knew Keegan approved. :)

Now it's time to create a personal theme for your writing life and/or goals in 2012!

Using what you've just written for reference, answer the following questions:

1) What have you put off or avoided this year related to your writing?  What's the next logical step you're not taking because it scares you? Because you have to put yourself out there?

Has your novel been ready to go but you haven't written the query letter so you can send it to agents?   After all, if it's still in a file on your computer, it can't be rejected, right? It's perpetually a work of genius. :)

Or you need a critique group but you don't know if you can take their critique or where to find a group or how to run it?

Or you have lots of notes but haven't actually written the book you say you want to write? You could also have notes for poems or poems that need revising but you just haven't gotten to it so there's no collection to send to contests.

2) Write about how you have been feeling in 2011 and choose how you want to feel about 2012. 

Has this year been all about frustration because you didn't have enough time to write? Disconnection because you haven't been writing or your critique group disbanded and you need a new one? Or you haven't been attending events in your writing community?

Maybe it's been a great year and you've had lots of success - you did most of what you wanted to do. In fact, you worked your ass off, but now you want to slow down, take some time to do research, or just write flash fiction, send out the work you've written rather than write something new for a bit, or catch up on books on craft and try the exercises.

3) What do you want more of in 2012?

Time to write. Recognition. Ideas that flow easily. Getting out of your own way and letting the story through. Opportunities to read your work.

4) What is something big that would blow your mind if it happened in 2012? Blue sky this - no limit.

Remember, writing related. So you could win the lottery, but a portion of the funds should go to you renting a house in Italy for a summer so you can write. That sort of thing.

I don't suggest the lottery, though, I suggest being less specific in that case and saying, "I receive funds that would allow me to rent a house in Italy for the summer so I can write." That way you're not limited to the lottery!

Reread what you've written and write down five key words that jump out at you. Perhaps you've written 'recognition' somewhere, 'community' or 'creativity.' I'm talking abstracts here, not 'novel' or 'conference' or 'critique group.'

Pick the words that excite you and/or make you nervous (that's really excitement masquerading as fear, our ego getting in the way).

You can either choose one of the five words that really resonates with you, that you instinctively know is what you should claim for 2012 by completing this sentence: 2012 is the Year of ___________,

OR write a sentence that encapsulates the theme: Recognition for my writing. Or: Connecting with a supportive writing community.

Write this on several pieces of paper or Post Its and put them where you can see them - wherever you write, one in your car, one on the bathroom mirror.  It might make you feel silly but do it anyway, at least for a few months.

This is NOT a resolution, it's a theme for your life in the next year. You are writing the story of your life every day. Keep this word or sentence in mind and make choices accordingly.

You might want to go a bit further and write down three things you can do in January to get started on honoring this theme. To get recognized you have to get out there, so maybe the list looks like this:

 - research and write query letter draft and give to writer friends to critique

- look for critique group (make a flier and put it up in libraries, the local Whole Foods, church if you     go to church. Post it on Craig's List, or in the forum of your state writer's association).

- enter one contest a month (Poets & Writers is a great resource for reputable contests: Poets & Writers - Contests and Grants).

If you can only get one completed, start the next in February. The point is to KEEP MOVING FORWARD with your theme in mind.

It shouldn't bore or annoy you to do it because hopefully you were very clear and picked what excited you. That excitement will give you momentum.

If it doesn't, do the exercise again. Perhaps you knew which word you should choose, but you chose another out of fear.

Choose the right one now.

You don't have to know how it will be supported. Just know that if you commit to it, it will.

I'd love to know your writing life/goal theme. Share it in the comments section.

Mine is EXPANSION.

When I thought of what that would look like, being a very visual person, I got a picture like this:

The universe - which seems appropriate somehow. Find a picture that symbolizes your theme and put that up instead of the word if that works better for you.

Keep what you've written for your 2012 theme where you can refer to it whenever you like for inspiration. And especially for next New Year's Eve, when you do the exercise again!

NOW WHAT?

BURN IT. In a SAFE place, fold the list you made of the goods and bads in 2011 to symbolize completing them, place them in the pot or ashtray and burn the list (or throw into a fire if one is handy - that's the safest way). If you can, feel grateful for all you learned, struggled with, and received.

DRINK IT IN. Next - hopefully you've brought your drink outside so it's handy - raise your glass to yourself, your next year of creativity, and say the word or sentence that symbolizes your theme.

Happy New Year!

Non-Traditional Teaching Jobs

I don't see myself as someone who will ever compete for a tenure-track job in a college or university, because the academic world is not for me. I've always sought out alternative teaching jobs, which I find more fulfilling.

If you're like me on this, then here's a list of possible places you can contact to offer a class (on just about anything, not just writing) of your own:

1) Public libraries

2) Recreation or Community Centers

3) Senior Centers (not just those where seniors live, but day care centers)

4) Extension or Continuing Ed Programs at local colleges and universities

5) Schools for the Arts (alternative high schools - even if you're not certified as a teacher, you can do it as
a substitute)

6) Local private schools and high schools sometimes have artist-in-residence programs (check with your
local or state arts council.

7) After school programs, summer programs (again, check with local colleges and high schools), teen
centers

8) Children and Talented Youth programs (Johns Hopkins has a great one, nationwide - online all year long,
residences for 9 weeks in the summer)

9) Mentoring programs for teens and kids (where adults are matched with a teen or child one on one)

10) Local arts non-profits or art collectives or art centers (they offer pottery, painting, yoga, etc., - do they
offer writing? If not, get in there!)

11) Local bookstores or coffeehouses

12) Your home (put an ad in your local paper or on Craig's List)

13) Your church, synagogue, or religious center

I hope I've given you some inspiring ideas here. Teaching in these kinds of environments is often more fun and rewarding as you reach a wider, more varied audience, with different outlooks, experiences, and levels of ability. If you're pulling in your students from the School of Life, there will be a lot more to work with. People often can't afford (financially or in terms of time) to go back to school for a degree, but they still have a passion for writing and want to learn and develop their skills. I have found many, many fantastic writers in the places I listed - from 13 years old to 75 years old, and my own creative life is much richer for it!

Poems From the Aerial Show

So many people have asked to see the poems from the show last night (there was so much to see and hear - paintings and animation projected on the walls, music, my poems, not to mention the wonderful 'air-work' of the women in Mara's class (Julie, Holland, Nancy, and Kristen - they were marvelous and graceful and magical); it was a feast for the senses!) that I'm posting the poems here, in the order of how they appeared in the show. The first two were performances on the ladder, the third was using harnesses, the last was using a trapeze:

REVOLUTION

I think of them twice a day—
before sleep and upon waking—
the women who turn the wheel
of the year. I picture the Goddess
at the center with her hair flying
as her head rises and falls, the totems
of dove, serpent, and sow spinning
around her. If the Goddess is Arianrhod,
the wheel is a silver star, a ship
dipped into the sea, where heroes ride
to the Moon’s land of death. In dreams
I travel with them, stand near this guide
whose eyes and touch are cool
and blue. As Kali, she is both mother
and grave, dancing a dance of time
with feet like a wheel of fire,
wearing a necklace of skulls, killing
what needs to be killed. From her
comes the gift of aging, wisdom written
onto my skin for all to read. As Fortuna,
she is fastened tight, raising the fallen
and abasing the proud, her consort
waiting at the point of midnight,
holding the poppy stalk of death.
Through her odd days are female
and sacred. As the Virgin, she is higher
than all creatures visible or invisible;
she bestows every grace of body
and every beauty of soul. At birth
she sprinkled my face with life-giving
water. These four are corners, directions,
circles. I remember to pause often,
and follow the force of their revolutions—
how the mythic wheel steadily pulls,
and also when it stops turning on the still,
dark day of winter solstice and the summer
day on the other side of the year, a gentler
sort of death. In between she is always
with me, in the wheel of the sun, the earth,
as they spin in the airless universe,
and closer, when I lie alone in the dark
of late night and early morning,
my body silently turning in the wheel
of the eye, the heart, the breath, the hand.

______________________________________

WATERING PLACE

Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.
-Robert Frost, “Directive”

I imagine you on a path, returning to water,
returning to what you once left by design –
not just to burn off the irrelevant details

of self by lesson or law, but to find
the mind before the mind was given –
as question. There’s no story about where

you’re going, no voice, no images
in dreams of face or tree or star as guide,
though you are watched with eager eyes

as you come near, as you are lost, let go,
in the center of the pausing that opens
to receive each day’s little draught

of life, with its darkness light not yet seen.
This isn’t just your road, it belongs
to all the wanderers and worshippers

who journey and don’t ask how it will end.
They know the only passage between earth
and sky is the next step. The only boundary

is the hand of the person in front and behind.
They know - like you – the heart is never dry –
inside water waits, wants to be found.

______________________________________

AWAKENING

When light has again lifted us
from darkness, from waiting, and time
is less memory and more dream,

we rush to gather stones, turning
them like beads on a rosary,
like planets orbiting one another

in our hands. We forget the stillness
of the self, the peaceful pause between
birth and breast, sealed carefully inside

to keep us free. Instead, we throw wishes
into wells, fountains—each a fault
of the heart—another stone—heavier

than the feather on one side
of the ancient scales of the dead.
Somewhere, at the bottom of the world,

is a mound of stones, growing
until the soul, weighted beyond limit,
falls through. Then, how love expands

in the echo of the eye. And the body,
once a pendulum, swinging, becomes
a bridge, rising in the space between.
___________________________________

RETURNING

At the top of the trees that touch the sky
live the women who light the stars
at morning and evening. Visit them
when you feel wild and lonely—

follow their silhouettes in the dark
and the ice, as they turn the day
into a pink bloom. When the sky
is an immaculate blue, lie in the billowing

fields, the earth a carousel beneath you,
spinning slowly. Stay when the sky
is plum purple, until night is steep
and gleaming. Then you will learn

when is enough. How to quiet the fear
and the starving. How to be the bearer
of rain. How the body is still part
of the garden. As the women ascend

and descend, each with their little fire,
your heart will become a flock of birds,
rising to fill the sky with wings.
Soon you will remember how to say yes.

"Exquisite Chris" poem by WHWN participants

I must share this because it was so thoughtful:

Exquisite Chris
by
her poetry class

Chris is our teacher
Chris is beautiful
Chris is precise and spiraled
as an ocean vortex
Chris is a captain steering
my life in a fresh direction
Chris is a woman with feathers
Chris is insightful with proper direction
Chris is our mother
wren, regurgitating
brilliance like the earliest worms
Chris is the laugh that curls
out from the heart
Chris is the face that launches
poets off creative cliffs
Chris is the lady who makes you stay
up till midnight on a school night
looking for a better word.

Do I have the most fabulous people in my classes or what? Thanks to: Leo Horrigan, Michael Kelly, Rachel Lucke, Cliff Lynn, Eugenie Nable, Lisa Orenstein, Aimee Pohl, Kathy Spath, Shara Terjung, and Nicole Walton.

Check out the 'our writers' page at the WHWN website at www.whwnwriters.com to see more terrific poems, essays, and stories.

Visual Poetry Exhibition

"100 Words," a visual self-portrait poem including the top 100 words used in my poetry

Enter a world of images, words, signs and symbols, where a poem is meant to be perceived not read. April 12th (Thursday). Gallery show/reception is at 6 pm, poetry reading in celebration of the Write Here, Write Now poets and National Poetry Month is at 7 pm.

Creative Alliance - 3134 Eastern Avenue, near Patterson Park.

RSVP to info@creativealliance.org

Back to Walden Pond

True to my word, the next time I went to Boston - a week or so ago - I drove out to Walden Pond with my friend and fellow writer, Rita, to visit. What follows will prove to you what a terrible, testy traveler/travel writer I am.

The place itself is right on the road, no romantic, twisting one lane affair ending at a lonely outpost, no, the paid parking lot and gift shop area are right there. One pays, parks, and crosses the street (at some peril - no light or stop sign) to walk down a dirt lane that ends at a small beach area, and the pond itself (all of which can be seen from the road). This was a bit disappointing as it was definitely not secluded, as I'd hoped. From the beach area, which was swarming with kids playing in the sand, a trail leads all the way around the pond, enclosed by wire on both sides to keep you from veering off the path and into the woods or by the water's edge. I believe this is to prevent erosion due to enthusiastic tourists and their tennis shoes. Rita had already been to the site of the house so elected to walk halfway with me, then sit on one of the little set of rock steps that appeared at intervals and led down to the water. The perfect meditative spot as long as there weren't too many people. (Alas, the latter was not the case for her as, when I returned, she told me of how two small, very vocal children came charging down the steps to stand next to and behind her, complaining loudly at discovering they didn't having the spot to themselves while their parents did little or nothing (mostly nothing) to take them in hand. She tried to ignore them as they threw what seemed like an endless supply of rocks past her head into the water, splashing her shoes. They left after a very long five minutes.)

I proceeded halfway around the pond to the site of the house, which is up a small path and rise from another lagoon/cove-like area. The walk to the site, which is not far from the water, is along a lovely avenue of trees. The site itself is a pile of rocks with several knee-high cement markers denoting the boundaries of the walls nearby and a stone slab to mark the chimney, as the house itself was dismantled long ago (see previous post on how it ended up as scrap lumber. Sniff.) Apparently, the area was excavated in (I think) early to mid 1900s. There were a few people reading the informational placards, but no one in the 'house,' so I stepped inside the confines of the markers to try to get a sense of the house. I envisioned wooden walls, maybe two windows through which one would see the tall, narrow trees and sparkle of the pond. The sense I got was - small. Smaller than small, actually. Closet, really. During the winter months, surely claustrophobic. Room for a cot, a table and chair and nothing else, I imagine. (I started "On Walden Pond" years ago but never finished it, so will not go any further and embarrass myself by not knowing the facts.) The space gave new meaning to the word 'retreat.'

I had the spot to myself for about two minutes before a stocky middle-aged man in thick black glasses, thick black mustache, and hunting cap (do people really still wear those? I guess yes) Came charging up the path and walked right in, brushing past me, to stand on the chimney stone. Okay! I waited a moment, but he didn't budge, so I left the 'house' to read the placard as the other group was leaving, where I found out Thoreau had been a 20 min walk from his parents' place and that the railroad ran right by (still does) so he was kept company by the train on a daily basis. Another illusion shattered. I lingered there for five minutes, but Hunting Cap didn't move. His manner was that of one who had claimed the site and wasn't about to relinquish it. Probably an English professor, or someone who considered himself an authority on Thoreau, and came regularly to enjoy some kind of ecstatic experience. It really pissed me off, frankly. I saw another group coming up through the boulevard of trees and headed out as I didn't feel like witnessing the standoff.

Once I found Rita, we decided to take a walk around the pond, which I estimate to be roughly 1 3/4 miles. It took us half an hour with minimal lingering, though there was plenty to enjoy about the view. It was a cold day (January), still, straight trees as far as you could see, afternoon sky with thin streaks of clouds was a perfect Easter egg pink and yellow, all of which was mirrored in the motionless water. So we got some exercise in a pretty place. That's about the extent of it. Oh, except for the woman in shiny, tight black leggings, poufy yellow parka, and fanny pack (yes, I said fanny pack) who nearly mowed us down as she made her way around the pond 3 times to our 1. She was in such direct violation of the purpose of the site that I thought of making a citizen's arrest, or at least fining her $5 so we could make back our parking money. I mean, c'mon, go to the local high school track or biking trail to powerwalk, not Walden Pond!

On the way back to Rita's, we decided Walden Pond was/is definitely one of those places best left in one's mind as a mythical, dreamlike world, and never visited. Once places like it are turned into public parks they become, well, open to the public -- the last thing you want to encounter when there, right? Would be so much better if we could make appointments to have these sites to ourselves for an hour, without coming upon noisy children, people fishing, people climbing over the wire fence to trek into the woods, and gift shops selling magnets and mugs. Of course, that would cost a fortune so most of us would never see them at all. In the end, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

I think we all dream of a magical spot in which we'll be touched by something greater than ourselves, allowing our own special genius to flow out in words. We go on retreats and attend conferences, we change the guest room or a corner of the basement into a private sanctuary to write in. And we travel to those places once inhabited by our favorite writers and poets in the hopes some secret will be waiting there just for our discovery. Truth is, what we know of writers and their lives is always better when left to our imagination. The trip to visit their home or grave is usually not the revelation we hope it will be. Truth is, that can only be found in their writing. It's there if you're open to finding it.

Now, when I close my eyes and picture Walden Pond, I see the still water, the patient, silent trees, the pink-tinged sky...and Hunting Cap standing on that damned chimney stone. I have no doubt he's still there!

Inventory Excerpt for the Radio

Here's what I read yesterday on WYPR's The Signal:

Dad has some trouble unlocking the front door. He rummages through a plastic sandwich bag filled with keys. There have to be thirty clinking around in there. “These were your grandmother’s,” he says. “I couldn’t find mine. I think most of these are duplicates.” Finally the knob turns and, after shoving hard with his shoulder, the door opens with a sound like splitting wood. The house is dim, stifling hot, and there’s a smell I can’t place. Musty, wet, foreboding, forgotten.

Dad finds the thermostat and turns on the air conditioning. I watch him drag open the heavy once-cream-now yellowish drapes, and in the afternoon light finally see what I'm getting myself into. Because of grad school, I haven’t been to the house in nearly a year and can’t believe my eyes. Green plush sofa with armrests torn and cushions spotted with stains, dining room table covered with stacks and stacks of mail. Piles of newspapers and magazines. Water stained wallpaper where rain continually leaked in a window. Beige carpet is worn by the coffee table. Paint peeling. Dust. Setting a match to the place seems like the best solution. What is there to salvage here? How in the world did my grandparents live in the middle of this? It’s as if children have had the run of the house for years. I want to ask my father how it got this bad, but I know. Both of them were suffering from dementia--Pop was worse off than Grandmom, who seemed normal—still wearing lipstick and wanting to get her hair done and asking questions about my love life. But Pop—he just—disappeared. He was very docile and quiet when I was around; he stayed sunken in the brown leather armchair by the loveseat, reading the newspaper or staring off into space. I know my dad checked on them every day. I know how many times he tried to talk them into moving to a nursing home, and how indignant they became when he brought up the subject. And I know he’s thinking the same thing I am now: please don’t let this happen to me.

“Nina.” My father is looking at me impatiently. “Can you start on the kitchen? There are some garbage bags over there, and rubber gloves you can wear next to the sink. I need to go through the medical bills and bank statements.”

“Okay,” I agree and drift towards the doorway. The kitchen is eerily silent. I’d feel better if I could hear my father moving about, but he's suddenly quiet as--as the mouse I see scurry out from beneath the stove and dive under the refrigerator. Well, at least I’m not alone.

I slip on the sunshine yellow rubber gloves. It feels like a betrayal to wear them, like I'm drawing a line between my grandparents and myself, as if I’ve now entered a third world country and I'm worried I'll come into contact with some deadly bacteria. But the room is as I've always known it: thick brown metal cabinets, pale blue Formica countertops with silvery bits of glitter, beige flooring with a brown floral pattern. The years have tinged the tiles a greenish-yellow. The curtains covering the window over the sink are yellowish as well--once white--their pattern of blue daisies stitched at the hem is still trying to be cheerful and so out of its element--like a woman in her fifties trying on her old prom dress. It just doesn't work.

Dad has left all the cabinets open and I recognize the glasses--the drinking, water, juice, bar, beer, and ice cream glasses. When I was a kid there was a glass for everything. Megan and I both had our favorites--I liked anything with a stem, she liked the short, narrow juice glasses with fruit etched around the rim. The drawers under the counter are open as well. One is full of jumbled silverware, one brimming with white and pink packets of sugar and artificial sweetener, the last with foil packs of ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, and barbecue sauce, also the tiny ridged salt and pepper packets, and plastic sleeves of forks, knives, and spoons.

Below those drawers are two wide cabinets jammed with canned food: soups, chili, spam, beans, and a variety of other vegetables. I start taking them out and stacking them on the floor, organizing them by type. Quickly I discover that succotash was their favorite. The deeper I go into the cabinet (and it's deep), the older the cans become, until I find ones that expired in the seventies. I realize my grandmother never let the supply get low enough that she'd have to make use of the cans at the very back. I fill three garbage bags--each halfway because of the weight--then double bag them, knot the ends, and push them into a corner.

I open a new bag and begin stuffing in handfuls of sugar packets but I don’t seem to be any closing to reaching the bottom of the drawer. I take deep breaths to keep my throat from closing up, and blink to ease the stinging in my eyes. This kind of collecting is either done by people not paying any attention to their lives, or paying too much attention. When I took my grandparents to buy groceries, they always ended up with a lot of food-- I could never figure out how they were consuming so much, and now I knew: they weren't. My grandmother must have been worried they wouldn't have enough, or be able to get to the supermarket when they needed to, and stockpiled. For the last two years they'd been fairly housebound, and my grandmother often called me at work asking me to take them to the grocery store. I remember the times I did but was annoyed, and the times I put her off, and shame pours over my heart, thick as the packs of McDonald's syrup that are mixed in with the mayonnaise and mustard. The emotion there is too deep a well.

"This is so stupid," I say out loud, throwing some ketchup packets, which is really unsatisfying so I throw some plastic forks. That's better, but not by much. My dad walks in and surveys the garbage bags of canned goods, the mountains of condiments, and the torn plastic chairs of the kitchen set.

"Let's go," he finally says.

"But we've only been here an hour."

"We'll stay longer next time."

He leaves and I hear a click as the air conditioning shuts off. I stand, pull off my gloves and stuff them into an open garbage bag. I switch off the kitchen light. Not that it matters. I turn it off because I can't bear the idea of that room with the light on all day and all night, ready for someone who's never going to come. There's something safe about a kitchen with the light on. Nothing can get you in the kitchen. It's home base; the place 'it' can never catch you. But here wasn't safe and the 'it' won.

Copyright 2006. Christine Stewart. All Rights Reserved

Reading on WYPR's The Signal

My reading of a sample of Inventory, will be aired on The Signal tomorrow, December 1st, at noon on WYPR (88.1 in Baltimore). The show is rebroadcast at 7 p.m.

To listen later, from the archives, go to www.signalradio.org

Poetry Today: A Mound of Broken Glass

I want to share a piece I read in the City Paper, online, from years ago. I was trolling for some piece of information - what I can't remember now, and happened - happily - upon this letter to the editors. It is dead-on accurate about the sorry state of poetry today and the argument is made articulately and eloquently. The writer of the letter is Jenny Keith. I want to thank her for writing this and hope she doesn't mind me posting it here!

"To me, the reason for small press' woes is simple: It's the so-called poets who don't care about poetry. We tell ourselves that it's the public that doesn't appreciate good writing, and that's why there's no market. That's simply not true; Lucille Clifton reads to rooms that are packed to capacity. Publishers do not have to ask Anthony Hecht to stuff envelopes.

A few local poets care deeply about poetry, and it shows in their work. But why is it so hard to find new stuff by these few, including David Beaudouin, Richard Sober, or Eleanor Lewis? Perhaps, like the small-press editors, they are discouraged by the tidal wave of bad poetry around.

Why is it that so many folks sending their works to journals have never heard of nationally published and acclaimed locals like Joe Harrison, Matt Brenneman, or Greg Williamson? These poets' work shows what you can do if you are just bug-nuts talented, and then work, practice, study, and read like mad. These poets are not just lucky--they are good. Maybe even great.

Good art requires talent and hard work, and, unfortunately--heartbreakingly--most of us who write poems don't have it or won't do it. But we try and get published anyway, because we mistakenly think our name is more important than poetry itself.

That's why it's kind of unfair to hound the public to "support" small-press poetry. Readers get sick of trying to pick a diamond or two from a mound of broken glass--and having to pay for the experience. When the poetry is good enough, eventually it will get read and respected.

When more poets themselves start to care about poetry--really and truly care--we will understand the hard fact that not everyone is talented, and a few of us will have the courage to sit down. Or we will try harder to do the most with what talent we have. We will buy, read, and study the work of poets who are much better than we are and try to get closer to making something of beauty and value. Real poets are the servants of poetry; it's not the other way around."

I call to the poets with talent, and who care, to start making your voices heard, and to literary magazines to have higher standards and be more discriminating. If you don't - poetry is a lost art we may never be able to save.

Taping for WYPR - The Not-So Glamorous Life of a Writer

I was recently invited to tape a reading from the novel I'm currently working on (Inventory) for The Signal, a local radio magazine show airing on Baltimore's NPR station, WYPR. Very exciting! On a lovely, surprisingly warm evening in late-October I drove to the station after work and was met by Aaron Henkin, one of the show's producers, in the dimly lit lobby. Following him down silent, empty gray hallways, we ended up in a small square, equally gray room where the taping was to take place.

Aaron laid out the plan, I clamped on the headphones, and he left for the adjoining booth where he directed the reading, asking me for intro information and then cueing me to start. Within two seconds I realized: I really like having a giant microphone that deepens and amplifies my voice. Where can I get one? Would I look weird walking around with it all day? Yes, but I'd sound really really good! The only drawback - my breath sounded like a monsoon so I found myself holding it sometimes, which is a big no-no in reading. I wasn't nervous, just didn't want anyone saying to me later, "Hey, great reading, but didn't know you were such a mouth breather!" Blech. The result - I was a little lightheaded during most of the reading.

Though it wasn't live, I felt that I was reading for one listener, which is how I write also, and wanted the reading to be as silent as the room I was sitting in. As if it was just the two of us. When I finished - in one take I might add - Aaron said into my headphones, "Outstanding!" which was nice to hear.

We went upstairs where he made me a copy in about 3 minutes - the program he used was very impressive - odd to see the jagged mountain ranges of one's own voice on a computer screen; it's a bit like your voice is an earthquake and you're seeing the printout of the event on the Richter scale. Then we walked out through a different part of the station, down some very 70's, but still elegant stairs, talking about something I can't remember now, but I'm sure we were both terribly witty, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until I missed the last step and fell down the rest of the stairs!

Aaron, who is charming and very much the gentleman, was apologetic, but I started laughing like an idiot, because it was entirely my fault. I have a gift for falling down - and up - stairs. I've been told that if Newton were using me in an experiment to establish his theory of gravity, that I would fall faster than whatever object he was using for comparison. I'm there one moment and down the next. I've accepted this quirk of mine and now can laugh about it. It reminds me that I'm human, not the Writing Goddess so many of you see me as...

And Aaron often hosts CityLit Project readings, so if I'm on the roster for the next one, now we'll have an amusing little anecdote to tell.

If there really is a stairway to heaven, though, I'm in big trouble.