Book Seven 2012: Townie by Andre Dubus III

Townie by Andre Dubus III is the kind of book you can't help thinking about when you aren't reading it.  You live in its scenes while you are eating dinner with your kids or riding in the car, thinking about the narrator, wondering what is going to happen next, considering the plot development and the foreshadowing and how successfully the author ends chapters.  You find yourself missing what your husband said because you are still lost in the mill town bar fights, the father/son storyline, and the coming-of-age hunt for identity.

I was hooked from beginning to end, couldn't fall asleep last night until I finished it off.  What a book.

On top of the thrill of a great read, Dubus is going to be here for the Ashland University summer residency at the end of July.  And, a piece by him about writing memoir will be included in the next issue of River Teeth. I am one lucky gal.

I'm not sure what I'm reading next off of my 30th year book list.  After reading such a great book, it is hard to jump into another memoir, so I think I'm going to read some poetry for a bit.  I'm also reading a manuscript for a friend and want to dedicate some time to it this week while I am off of work. 

In the back of my mind is the hope that I'll also find time to write this week, maybe in the evenings after the kids are in bed, but I'm also aware of the kids laughing in the backyard pool, painting projects here and elsewhere, and the need to clean - laundry, dusting, bathrooms and all of the other chores that fall to the wayside for too long.  At the end of the week, BW and I are going out of town for a weekend, alone, by ourselves, without children.  Maybe then?  Probably not.  I have plenty of other things in mind for a weekend alone with my husband.

I might not be able to get the words on the page this week, but I am promising myself to at least think about the next essay, and maybe jump in next week, when we're back to the normal schedule.

For now, I'm going outside in my bathing suit with the kids to enjoy the non-writing hours.

Book 6, 2012: Beautiful and Pointless by David Orr

I just finished Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr, and now I am sad.  It isn't often that I come across a person who cares so much about poetry but is equally as honest about the state of contemporary poetry, and that willingness to illuminate the reality of modern poetry and call it like it is was refreshing, humbling, and entertaining.  I'm not sad because of his honesty or the bleak portrait of modern poetry.  I'm sad because he was light, funny, and accessible, and now it is over, and now I must go back to actually reading contemporary poetry (ha ha ha).

Y'all know that I love poetry (really, I love poetry, not just like).  I come to poetry mostly from Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein and the simple pleasure of the way words felt in my mouth as I learned to read.  The music of poetry and the written word is unlike lyrics in that the rhythm resides solely in the words-- it cannot be buttressed by notes and chords, by percussion or strings.  That's where my love of poetry starts-- in play and in joy.  Plus, I am tone deaf, and while I will sing (badly), singing is a distinctly different kind of pleasure that involves high notes, low notes and all that fall between, while one focus of poetry is on the way the words rub up against each other, in stresses and unstressed syllables, in alliterations and rhyme. It sings without vocal range (thank God for that).

Next I find the poems I like most offer a magnified glimpse.  At something.  Anything, really.  Like a photographer, the poet zooms in and says, look what I found.  Or, listen to this experience I had once.  Or, doesn't this remind you of this other thing?  I love the metaphor.  I love the hidden truth revealed.  I love the "ah ha!" moment when I discover what the writer discovered, and I love to be on the writing end of that "ah ha!" moment, experiencing the surprise, too.  I like poems that invite me over for a cup of tea.

But I also like poems with depth and feeling, poems that struggle with questions-- big and little ones--poems that make demands, poems that are so personal they fold in on themselves and become universal.  I love poems rich in detail and rooted in scene.  I love storytelling and narrative, form and freeverse.  I even love the poems that require several run-throughs before the meaning reveals itself, if at all, poems with complex syntax that I have to cut into small pieces and digest slowly before I have any idea what's really going on besides initial awe.

So these are some of the reasons why I love poetry.  What is brilliant about Beautiful & Pointless is that Orr does not set out to defend poetry as the Art of Arts.  He shares with the reader a panoramic shot of the world of modern poetry, and he nails it, all of it-- the ego, the rubbing of elbows, the academic world, the private world, the public poet, the business of endorsements, the poem about the poem, and, most importantly, the reality that is so often forgotten in poetic circles, the fact that all of the people who actually read and value poetry could comfortably fit into one large athletic complex. 

This reality, for me, isn't discouraging.  There are plenty of niche groups in the world who are passionate about interests I have no desire to pursue (i.e., Star Trek. Basket Weaving. Hot Air Ballooning. Rowing. Etc.), and none of them are bemoaning the state of the world, the general neglect of their Art, or why collecting stamps hasn't entered the realm of popular culture. 

At the end of the century, maybe a dozen dead poets will find their work in the Norton Anthology tortured college freshman will read and be confused by.  The likelihood that I am one of those dead poets by 2100 is pretty, pretty slim (the likelihood that I AM a dead poet by 2100 is almost guaranteed, unless I live to be 118), SO, I think I will write whatever the heck I want to write, however the heck I want to write it, and I better darn well have a good time doing it, because chances are me and a handful of my closest friends and family will read the things, and then just two or three will actually care, so if I'm not having fun along the way, then why, why keep it up? 

I love poetry.

Read Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr.  You might not walk away wanting to jump into the latest issue of Poetry Magazine or jump online to order a subscription for Rattle, but you will have a fresh perspective on the wild and crazy world of the contemporary poet, you will laugh a little-- mostly at yourself, if you are a poet.

(Chiseling away at my book goal for 2012! Have you read any good poets lately?  Or good books about poetry?)

Books 4 & 5, 2012: A Double Life and Bring Down the Little Birds

In the quiet hours after my children fall asleep, after the whining and the bickering, after the requests for snacks and meals and drinks and games and puzzles and cars and hold me and carry me and tuck me in and sing me a song and just one more song, after all of that, I am the mother in Bring Down the Little Birds by Carmen Gimenez Smith.  All I want is me for a minute.  Me.  Who is that?  Separate from mother, distinct, other-- is there such a division?  Can there exist such a division?  Bring Down the Little Birds is a quick and unsettled memoir searching for identity, balance, and some kind of reconciliation... or perhaps at least a handshake... between the many roles, wants, and needs of a mother who is also a daughter who has a mother who had a mother once too, who all had other selves they protected or neglected or hid or buried or dissolved entirely from their lives as mother.

I hear Edna Pontellier.  In those quiet hours alone, sometimes I hear myself.

---

Tonight I rolled on our bed with Henry, blew raspberries on his belly and he laughed and squirmed and laughed. He patted my face with his pudgy palm.  He concentrated on the blank screen of my phone and pushed with all his might to make it do something.

Earlier, I watched Miss Lydia kick a soccer ball and felt my heart swell with pride and wonder at how she's gotten so tall and fast, how determined she is, and I wondered at the complicated blending of personality and skill sets and talents and looks and how similar and different she is from her brother, and how much alike and different the boys are from each other, and so on.  How we are a unit.

I was frustrated to be standing out in 40 degree weather watching a soccer game with my kids and also proud of myself for managing all three kids, proud of her competitive drive, proud of my boys under blankets in the wagon, proud to give this to them, this part of myself, this time.

The more I give of myself the more I seem to get back.  The more I give of myself while retaining my self, my identity, the fuller I experience my life.  It is not this or this or this, not one piece of myself exchanged for another without negotiation.  It is this and this and this and this.  And all of these things make me.  This is the reality echoed in Lisa Catherine Harper's book, A Double Life.  In it, she celebrates with awe and wonder the changing self, the changing sense of who she is as writer, wife, and now mother, how each feeds the other, and how both home and self/career are good and important places.  She shares with the reader the transition of becoming mother and what that can look like.  It is a memoir that celebrates a relatively normal pregnancy, a relatively normal delivery, and a relatively normal first year.  It is a memoir that celebrates.

Two memoirs about motherhood.  Two vastly different approaches, both real and true and beautiful.  I recommend both.

Book Three 2012: Pitch by Todd Boss

So, I finished another book toward my thirtieth year goal to read ten books, A Double Life by Lisa Catherine Harper, but I just started Bring Down the Little Birds by Carmen Gimenez Smith, and I think it'll be fun to blog about those two together, since they are both on mothering.  Instead, let me tell you about Pitch, the second collection of poems by Todd Boss.

I love Todd's work.  There are not many poets paying as close attention to the music of poetry as Todd. Because I have so much fun reading his poems, it seems clear to me that he had to have had a blast writing them.  They are tight, twisting, leaping little things, short lines jammed and enjambed with rhythms that drive you through the poems and straight on through the book.  There's nothing laborious about this collection - every page makes me want to find out what fun Todd is going to have in the next piece.

This is not to say that the poems are all sunshine and butterflies; Todd's subject matter is deeply felt, familial poems, subjects familiar to any reader who has ever had a father or mother, or been a father or mother, or had a childhood, or bore a child.  They ricochet off each other like marbles, as in "Marble Tumble Toys," and they consider the commonplace right alongside the cosmos, as in "Lordship."  There are really too many good and lively poems that seem to be jumping on a trampolene to cite them all here.  In fact, I think I'll leave you with the words of Robert Root, whose endorsement I just discovered on the inner jacket of the book:

"A poem by Todd Boss will often delight me, amuse me, stir me, surprise me, and startle me. All that from a single poem, from almost any poem. What seems to promise something commonplace ends up offering something profound, an unexpected insight in the slightest turn of phrase."

There it is. I aspire to that kind of writing. For me, a great collection of poems makes me want to try to write great poetry, compels me to my computer or my notebook or the back of a random receipt.  Like a wild-haired conductor, Todd's work spurs along the desire to draft my own music. 

Book Two 2012 - Celebration of Discipline

Our small group worked through Richard J. Foster's Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth the first few months of 2012.  In an effort to put spiritual disciplines into practice, our group spent a week on each chapter trying out the Inward Disciplines: Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, and Study, and the Outward Disciplines: Simplicity, Solitude, Submission, and Service.  The third section, the Corporate Disciplines: Confession, Worship, Guidance, and Celebration, we didn't practice as a group but read through nonetheless.

As Foster repeats over and over throughout the book, spiritual disciplines are not meant to enslave us to rigid guidelines but rather are meant to set us free in all of the ways that we are to be free in Christ (if Christ has set you free, then you are free indeed!).  This freedom is important to remember throughout each chapter and throughout the practice of each discipline; otherwise, we start practicing each discipline for the discipline's sake rather than growing closer to God through the disciplines, which is the true goal.

There are far too many gold nuggets worth quoting to list them all here.  I appreciated each chapter immensely, felt challenged and encouraged each reading.  This is a book worth reading and returning to.

Book One - Best Spiritual Writing 2012

Well, I finally finished a book.  It took me a while, mostly because I've been a lazy reader, but also because this fine book was just thick with the stuff that gets you thinking.  The Best Spiritual Writing 2012 is a diverse and stimulating collection that includes both poetry and essay, work about wonder and awe, politics and chapels, evil, light, Cesar Chavez and the Dalai Lama, Judaism after the Holocaust, apparitions and visitations, and much much more.

The advantage to an anthology like this and the other Best Ofs that come out each year is that it's likely the reader hasn't really thought much about the majority of the topics, at least not recently.  I can't say I've considered how to reconcile faith in God after the Holocaust as a Jew.  And besides those things that I haven't thought about there are the subjects I wouldn't have even known about if not for the selections made by the editor.  I love this kind of stretching, this kind of push to understand more of the world, spiritual and otherwise. 

I was particularly moved by Tony Hiss's "Wonderlust", originally published in American Scholar, and Billy Collins's poem, "Gold" has stuck with me.  Also "A Chapel Is Where You Can Hear Something Beating Below Your Heart" by Pico Iyer (from Portland).  And "Rescuing Evil" by Ron Rosenbaum, from First Things is an extremely accurate reflection on what happens when we eliminate the concept of evil and write it off to all sorts of other things, as if crimes and violence are biological and not choices we make.  The essay ends with a powerful line I'd hate to share and give away too much of what is so good about the work.

So there you have it - the first of ten books I intend to read for 2012.

In other news, I think I'm going to give the poem-a-day in National Poetry Month (April) a go once more.  At the least, I'll get back into the habit of thinking poetically, right?

My 30th Year: Read Ten Books

I've been thinking about my thirtieth year list and looking at the growing stack of books I'd like to read in 2012. Rather than get discouraged, I've decided to identify ten books I plan to read in 2012. When I finish one, I think I'll try my hand at reviewing it on here.

In some ways, ten books feels like a modest goal. I love to read, after all, and ten books in 365 days sounds like a breeze to me... until I think about my kids and job and husband and making dinner and sleep and exercise.  Then I chuckle and reshelve the books.

SO, to keep focused, here are the ten books I aspire to read this year, in no particular order:

Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard J. Foster.  This is one we're reading for small group-- working through a series of spiritual disciplines, one by one each week.  I like it for its practicality and application.  We're about four chapters into the book.  It might not be fair to count this as one of the ten, but eh, who's making the rules here anyway?

The Best Spiritual Writing 2012, edited by Philip Zaleski.  This is a carry-over from 2011 (also shouldn't be counted...) that I'm about half-way through.  There are many great poems and essays in this collection, all offering something to contemplate as I go about my day.

Bring Down the Little Birds: On Mothering, Art, Work, and Everything Else by Carmen Gimenez Smith.  Carmen is on the faculty at Ashland, and I have been wanting to read this little memoir for a year now.

A Double Life by Lisa Catherine Harper.  This book won the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize, and again, I've been wanting to read it since it was selected.  It was also a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Best of the Small Presses Selection.

Townie by Andre Dubus III.  Andre Dubus is coming to Ashland this summer for our residency, and this is his most recent book.

Half the House by Richard Hoffman.  Hoffman was published in River Teeth recently, and he's also coming to Ashland, this spring. 

Mountains of Light: Seasons of Reflection in Yosemite by R. Mark Liebenow.  Liebenow was the 2011 River Teeth Book Prize winner, so there you go.

Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry  by David Orr.  This one was given to me by Joe Mackall and I just love the title.

Young of the Year by Sydney Lea.  This is a collection of poems by a poet I admire.

Space, In Chains by Laura Kasischke.  Another collection of poems.  She is coming this summer to Ashland too.

Coral Road Poems by Garrett Hongo.  Also coming to AU (coming to a theatre near you?) this summer.

Since the last three are collections of poems, and I'm cheating by including two books I had already started in 2011, here are two page-through-as-I-can books, and one book I'd like to re-read:

All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification by Timothy Steele.  This guy really excites me, even though I'm sure 99.99% of you are saying, "seriously? versification?" But I loved Tim's poetry at Key West and at West Chester, and while this is textbook-y, I am certain it will be the sort of thing that I can use in my writer's toolbox.  So there you have it.

The Best American Essays 2011, edited by Robert Atwan (series editor).  I mostly want to read this so I know what essays are being considered the "best" so I can aspire to that level of writing.  Also, Bob Atwan is going to be at AU in May for the River Teeth Nonfiction Conference.

Ah, and I just thought of another book I'd like to read this year (do you see how this is a problem for me???) - Bonnie Rough's Carrier.  I might slip it in place of Liebenow's book in the top ten and get to Liebenow if I finish the top ten.

Finally, the re-read.  I read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis back in high school and would love to revisit it.

Alrighty.  You'll know if I'm making progress on this list if I actually report back on the books.  I'm excited to have a goal, even if it seems like a weak one.  Maybe I'll surprise myself and finish ten books by July.  I just laughed out loud, so don't hold your breath.

P.S. An obvious trend I'm sure you noticed: most of these books are work-related texts.  Fortunately for me, my job is literature centered, so reading for work doesn't involve instruction manuals or operating manuals.