Writing the Life Poetic

Embracing the uncomfortable

It's 3 a.m. and I've just spent the past half hour rocking my son Theo back to sleep. This week he's learned how to pull himself up to standing, and this has him so excited that he's been unable to settle down when he wakes in the night.

Since Theo's birth seven months ago, time has blurred to a single, endless day that progresses in two-hour increments of waking and sleeping. Being present enough to safely care for my dear son when every atom of my being is craving unconsciousness--night after night after night--is (after giving birth) physically and emotionally the hardest thing I've done. This is where poetry comes in.

I've been appreciating lately how my lifelong practice of poetry has trained me to sit with my discomfort and be curious about it. Instead of repressing or avoiding, I've learned to move into the center of the ache and get familiar whatever awaits me there. In this way, writing poetry has been for me like driving through a storm. With my rubber to the road, when lightning strikes I can give all of that energy safe grounding.

Writing my way through turbulence over the years has cultivated in me the quiet to be with my son now and find what is shining through the dull film of exhaustion. To study the heavying shape of his earnest little body curved to fit mine. To breathe into his thirst as my body empties into his. To inhabit fully the gift of each word as it arrives.

Join us at the OREGON STATE POETRY ASSOCIATION SPRING 2009 CONFERENCE this weekend!

April 24 & 25, 2009
Portland, Oregon

Come by car, train, bus, or plane, but do come to the OSPA Spring 2009 Conference in Portland on April 24 & 25. Our theme is Open Roads. There will be poetry workshops, guest readings, open mic poetry readings, the Spring 2009 Poetry Contest winners presentation, and more.

LOCATIONS:

Friday, April 24
Powell’s City of Books
Burnside & 10th, Portland
6:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Mistress of Ceremonies: Sage Cohen, Author of Writing the Life Poetic

Saturday, April 25
The Native American Center at Portland State University
710 S.W. Jackson Street, Portland
8:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
__________________________________________
CONFERENCE WORKSHOP LEADERS

Paul Hunter
Author of Breaking Ground, 2004 Washington State Book Award Winner

Workshop: Liftoff & Touchdown – Oral Poetry in Public Presentation
Borrowing some ruthless thinking and timeless tricks from the theater, we are going to discuss how to pick what to read, how to gauge your audience, and how to serve up your work so that it makes the greatest impact. How to help the poem and the whole reading take flight and land right where you want it. This will be a frank discussion, offering useful tips, with practical implications for all working writers who read in public.

John C. Morrison
Author of Heaven of the Moment, 2008 Oregon State Book Award Finalist

Workshop: Models, Memories, & Mayhem – The Play of Generating Poetry
What might be a few sure-fire ways to ignite the imagination and generate juicy, compelling drafts? Jumping from prompts presented by sample poems, trolling a guided memory for inspiration, and engaging in a frenetic wordplay exercise, we'll explore and refine pathways to a poem. After an open, dynamic exchange, you will leave the session with some enticing beginnings you'll want to pursue at your desk.

Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge
Author of poemcrazy and Foolsgold: Making Something From Nothing

Workshop: Poemcrazy – Freeing Your Life with Words
Dipping into our hearts as well as diverse books of poems, we’ll bring forth a colorful group word pool (using every color ink). From there we move into “dreamsense” and our own gatherings of words to explore who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going.
__________________________________________
CONFERENCE SPECIAL EVENT

Sharon Wood Wortman
Author of The Portland Bridge Book
will lead a Portland Bridge Walking Tour
Friday, April 24 at 2:00 p.m.

Tour the operator’s tower in the 1926 Burnside Bridge and walk to some of the city’s big Willamette River bridges, with stops at ODOT Region 1 to visit a hands-on bridge museum. We also ride MAX, conduct a test for synchronous vertical excitation on a very flexible tied arch, and more. Participants are invited to bring a favorite bridge poem to share. Total distance walked: ½ to 1 mile on level ground (ADA accessible).

Registration & Details at: www.oregonpoets.org

$45 Members
$55 Non-Members
$25 Students
$20 Bridge Walking Tour

Hello, people of the future

My husband and I spent the weekend childproofing to keep the house safe for our suddenly-crawling-and-standing son. In addition to the standard fare of bolting the bookshelves to the wall, locking up the cabinets and removing heavy objects from high places, we also decommissioned a raised, slate-covered platform that once seated a wood-burning stove.

The stove, the chimney it was routed to, the platform and the walls around it were all deemed completely unsafe by the house inspector when I bought the house, and then confirmed unsafe once again by Buck, the charismatic figurehead of Buck's Stove Palace. A year ago, we gave away the stove on freecycle. Now it was time to remove the pointless, pointy perch that once housed it.

As Jon chipped away at the platform with a sledgehammer and other manly tools borrowed from our neighbor, I fed Theo his first whole banana in a little mesh sack that he could hold and maneuver himself. It turned out to be an extremely effective distraction from the mess and noise of deconstruction in the next room. Theo was mesmerized by his authority over the banana, and the cause-and-effect arc from desire to fulfillment that lay entirely in his little hands. As he successfully sucked and squeezed a sludge of banana through the mesh, I was focused on managing the sweet, sticky ooze that was starting to glue the two of us together.

Jon approached the couch holding a little baggie with a piece of paper tied inside of it. He held it up incredulously. "There's a note in here," he said with reverence. "I found it inside the platform." I'm a message-in-a-bottle romantic freak--always have been. With my sticky fingers, I impatiently waited as Jon untied the crumbling twist-tie holding the bag together and extracted the rolled-like-parchment piece of ripped notebook paper. He read out loud the following (spelling as written):

Hello, people of the future. We are the people who built this platform 8/21/02. We are probably dead by now so we smoke a gonga bowl as a fairwell to you all.

Sample [a hand-drawn arrow points to a small piece of plastic taped with masking tape and holding two, tiny marijuana buds. There is also a quarter taped to the note. Another arrow in the left margin of the page follows the word "Dank" and points to the list of initials.]

Peace out, SPJ, RAY, JE

Well, this explained a lot about the quality and usefulness of our defunct wood-burning-stove system! The folks building it had more important things to do than accurate carpentry and enduring tile work. They were communing with the people of the future--us. Only we managed to find their note less than seven years after it was written, rather than the many generations they seem to have expected.

This strangest of love letters made my day. I am passionate about letters...and semi-accidental letters between strangers are the most poetic of them all, in my mind. In the space between what was intended and what was received lives poetry. Together, these three stoned men "of the past" and this unexpecting little family of three "of the future" composed a poem.

Your turn!

Write your own "Hello, people of the future" letter!

Who are the people of the future you imagine inhabiting the place where you live? What would you want to say to them? Write them a letter, in the form of a poem, to give them a sense of who you are, the time in which you lived, and what is meaningful to you about the home that you occupy now--and they'll occupy at the time of the poem's reading. If you could tape some little thing to the note that signified who you are or how you are feeling in this moment, what would it be?

 

Happy seven-month birthday, Theo!

The life, not the writing

"A fully lived life is rich with material to write about—the writing always comes from the life. People who can't find much to write about aren't living deeply enough. The problem is the life, not the writing."   —Michael Ventura

(Another piece of wisdom from Mari L'Esperance!)

Bridal

The pond drifts its corsages
along the withered wrists
of trees fallen too soon.
The broken vow folds
its paper wings.
No boat, no confetti, today
the leaving falls away
to a float of daisies.
Each opens her hungry yellow
throat to the rain’s staccato,
trodden banks, the simple
untamed thrill of hope. 

the life poetic, by Grégoire Vion

so tell how was this?
week of readings?
throngs of screaming?
teenage girls throwing?
their thongs on stage?
how large now is?
your entourage has?
the Bureau seized many?
hard drives is Hollywood?
on your phone have?
they found how poetry is?
the new rock have you?
broken any hotel?
furniture yet have you?

* * * * *
Grégoire earns a living as a graphic artist in Berkeley, California. He gives credit fully to Sage for having lured him to poetry. This pursuit led to a lifestyle likely to arouse envy:

"Most often I work on my own little boat.
I don’t sail it, it is so nicely moored.
While I think of a line I nibble my pen
or a chinese teacup. I spread lines
on paper to show every week
to people who pay me to continue
to draw until I get tired."

Some of the result can be seen at http://www.grgwr.com
Also, he has written enough poems at this point to make a nice little book, he is working on it.

HOW TO LIVE, by Charles Harper Webb

 "I don't know how to live." –Sharon Olds

Eat lots of steak and salmon and Thai curry and mu shu
pork and fresh green beans and baked potatoes
and fresh strawberries with vanilla ice cream.
Kick-box three days a week. Stay strong and lean.
Go fly-fishing every chance you get, with friends

who'll teach you secrets of the stream. Play guitar
in a rock band. Read Dostoyevsky, Whitman, Kafka,
Shakespeare, Twain. Collect Uncle Scrooge comics.
See Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, and everything Monty Python made.
Love freely. Treat ex-partners as kindly

as you can. Wish them as well as you're able.
Snorkel with moray eels and yellow tangs. Watch
spinner dolphins earn their name as your panga slam-
bams over glittering seas. Try not to lie; it sours
the soul. But being a patsy sours it too. If you cause

a car wreck, and aren't hurt, but someone is, apologize
silently. Learn from your mistake. Walk gratefully
away. Let your insurance handle it. Never drive drunk.
Don't be a drunk, or any kind of "aholic." It's bad
English, and bad news. Don't berate yourself. If you lose

a game or prize you've earned, remember the winners
history forgets. Remember them if you do win. Enjoy s
uccess. Have kids if you want and can afford them,
but don't make them your reason-to-be. Spare them that
misery. Take them to the beach. Mail order sea

monkeys once in your life. Give someone the full-on
ass-kicking he (or she) has earned. Keep a box turtle
in good heath for twenty years. If you get sick, don't thrive
on suffering. There's nothing noble about pain. Die
if you need to, the best way you can. (You define best.)

Go to church if it helps you. Grow tomatoes to put store-
bought in perspective. Listen to Elvis and Bach. Unless
you're tone deaf, own Perlman's "Meditation from Thais."
Don't look for hidden meanings in a cardinal's song.
Don't think TV characters talk to you; that's crazy.

Don't be too sane. Work hard. Loaf easily. Have good
friends, and be good to them. Be immoderate
in moderation. Spend little time anesthetized. Dive
the Great Barrier Reef. Don't touch the coral. Watch
for sea snakes. Smile for the camera. Don't say "Cheese."

* * * * *

(Thanks to Mari L'Esperance for sending this poem to me!)

Shawn Sorensen takes the Oregon poetry world by storm!

I am so proud of my friend Shawn, I could burst! He has just won first place in the Oregon State Poetry Association's Spring 2009 contest, New Poets category for his poem "The Yard." Shawn is one of the most hard working, generous, enthusiastic, hilariously funny, and TALL poets I know. His dedication to his craft and his community always uplifts me and inspires me to push a little harder toward my own evolution. In fact, that's why I invited him to be a columnist for the Writing The Life Poetic zine...so all of you could benefit from his charisma and know-how! But I digress...

With no further ado, I bring to you the first-prize-winning poem of Shawn Sorensen:

The Yard
 
For William Carlos Williams
 
The frame of a garden bed
rests in the yard,
stoic while dandelions
proliferate.  Its four boards,
 
weather-treated, stained,
enclose small tufts of grass - 
like random thoughts, like
innuendos incomplete,
 
ready to be moved
again, ready to
add another location
to this whole view
 
of the yard, which
the newlywed owners
can’t decide on, not knowing
where the flowering
 
nugget of land will
finally flourish, its elevated
status in environs otherwise
flat and commonplace.

-- Shawn Sorensen

Doves on the Moon: a night with the Willamette Writers of Salem

An introverted writer with tremendous public speaking anxiety, I like to take my own poetry-generation advice and ride that edge dividing known from undiscovered, safety from danger, and get up in front of people to talk. It's been a week of doing just that, with presentations at both the Portland and Salem chapters of Willamette Writers. And I had a fabulous time ruminating with poets in both places about what it means to live and write a poetic life.

I'd like to send big thank you to the Salem Chapter for a lovely evening of poetry last night. Marilyn Ebbs and Heather Cuthbertson gave all of us a wonderful, warm welcome. I also really appreciated F.I. Goldhaber's support, encouragement and help finding a private office in which to pump before speaking!

In our exploration of the poetic life, we talked about "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" and did a quick idea-generating exercise. Perhaps this was what inspired an anonymous gift--a poem from one of the participants handwritten on a small piece of notebook paper and left for me by the coffee and muffins. Its final stanza concluded:

She gestures weightlessly
-- doves on the moon.

Ah, poetry. In just seven words, an entirely new, inter-galactic possibility is ignited from one gorgeous metaphor.

When poets gather, anything is possible! A metaphor could rise up and change our world forever! I look forward to our next adventure, poets! In the meanwhile, please feel free to chime in here anytime and let us know what you're discovering along the way!