April Showers

It is the end of National Poetry Month today, and while I wrote not a single poem for the month, I have been busy chiseling away at my memoir-in-essays, which has its own sort of lyricism and poetic turns, and that totally counts, right? I have done much to celebrate poetry in April, however, giving readings and talking enthusiastically about iambs and line breaks to ever-patient audiences.

I'm also celebrating the end of the spring semester today. There were many leaps forward made this semester in the Ashland MFA Program for me. I even have the first draft of my memoir-in-essays all saved in one Word document. This is a slight hazard to my health, because every time I make a change in an essay, I then have to go in and make a change in the book-length document, which drives me slightly batty.

I was thinking about "book-length" the other day. A few summers ago, I posted to Facebook or Twitter how daunting the idea of writing a book seemed. I told myself, better to write a sentence. And then a paragraph. And then maybe a couple of paragraphs. And then maybe an essay. And then start over. And then see what happens from there.

So that's what I did. Little bites. Just like every single other thing in the world, just take it in little bites.

More things happened this month-- I went to my best friend's Orthodox Church for a service during Holy Week that was lovely and refreshing; the kids and I tagged along with Brandon to South Bend, IN for Easter weekend; I spent a hilarious weekend with writer friends in Grand Rapids at the Festival of Faith and Writing, where I twisted my ankle dancing to American Pie; I read loads and loads of poetry to people.

And I've been thinking about a lot of things. I've been thinking a lot about bravery and bearing witness in writing and the power of vulnerability. I've been thinking about how my garden needs to be tilled. I've been thinking about how I'd really like to write some poems again someday. I've been thinking about how I'd really like to go to yoga or maybe even exercise again. I've been thinking about how I am changing to a nine-month contract beginning June 1 and what that means for our family financially and what that means for our family's health. I've been thinking about how we teach our children faith and hope and love and mercy and patience and how those methods differ from teaching them to study the Bible. I've been thinking about budgets and patience and stability and contentment and when you feel called to a place and how to tell when you've been released. I've been thinking about friends and community and large backyards and sandboxes and neighbors. I've been thinking about grilling out and being barefoot. I've been thinking about what a great winter and spring it's been, and how the tree outside my office window is sucking up the precipitation and pushing out leaves right now, right this minute, dripping and growing and greening up as if it takes nothing at all to do these things, nothing at all to recover from winter, to grow and to thrive.

Building Community

This past weekend, I spent some time in Indiana with about a dozen other writers who mostly met about three months ago at the Festival of Faith and Writing.  We decided to come together because we're all at similar places in our careers, like-minded in ideology and vision for our poetry, and we're all outrageously funny.  At least we find ourselves to be.

I think it is unusual to find and make fast friends with people, but especially other writers. There is a competitive air that surrounds most writer gatherings (except for the River Teeth Nonfiction Conference and the Ashland University MFA Program, but then again, I'm a smidge biased...), a chance to name drop, a chance to prove your superiority or make yourself feel better by pointing out the faults in well-known poets' work, a chance to spread your feathers and strut about with one's accolades ablaze.  This is of course a generalization; not all writers are this way, and not all retreats and conferences take this tone, but we all know those writers who seize any opportunity to establish themselves, sometimes at the cost of other poets.

This retreat was not that way, though we leaned that direction a time or two, mostly in good fun.  What we did was laugh a lot, share our passion for language and poetry and our belief that words have the idealistic power to change people.  We talked about ways we might collectively use our words to make an impact within groups of people who are not as inclined to buy a collection of poems or pick up a literary journal.  We shared meals and drinks together.  We got to know one another and traded stories from each other's lives, and we left eager to meet again, hopefully soon.  And then we began emailing and Facebooking each other to continue the conversation.

That is what community is about--taking the time to feed each other with laughter and truth and common concern for each other's well being.  Community, even across state lines, is sustained by the simple, "Hey, I was just thinking about you and..."  I am ever so grateful for having found this particular set of friends to mutually encourage and challenge as we work toward our personal and collective goals.

In ten days, I get to participate in yet another writing community, this one in my own backyard.  Sixty students and about 20 visiting writers and faculty will descend upon Ashland, Ohio for the annual two-week summer residency (writers' boot camp), and I can hardly contain my excitement to see students and faculty that have become more than colleagues--many are friends.  Even though it is a stressful two weeks involving a lot of administrating, it is also one of the highlights of my year. 

AND, I get to read from my new book for the first time.  Insert several smiley face emoticons here.

Festival of Faith and Writing, Writing Process, and Writing Writing. Writing.

This week I am heading north to the big mitten for the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing.  I am looking forward to giving a presentation on "Poetry as Worship, Poetry in Worship: Inviting Creativity into the Worship Experience" - and with a title like that, who could skip it, right?  I'm also moderating a small poetry press panel Saturday on the joys and challenges of publishing poetry.  It should be a great weekend - as always it'll be a stretch to step out of my introverted tendencies and pretend to really, really like social engagements, but it'll be worth it to mingle with a bunch of like-minded people.

April poem-a-day hit a small wall over the weekend, but on the plus side, I got my really super cool and neat presentation all set and read lots of really super cool and neat poetry in order to prepare for it.  We're half way there now, and I've gotten a few good poems out of it already, maybe a few potentially good poems, and a handful of crumbs that might make good compost out in the garden later on this spring.

I had a great conversation today at lunch with some folks from Ashland University's English Department and Richard Hoffman, who was the nonfiction visiting writer that presented this afternoon.  Part of our chit-chat was about writing process, which is inevitably the topic of choice with a writer.  Am I writing enough?  Should I be writing more?  How do you do it?  When do you do it?  Pen and paper or computer? Revise right away or wait a few weeks/months/years?  Can you teach it?  Help me! 

My writing process is pretty basic: live in and be awake to the world around you so that the stuff of poetry and writing can get lodged under your gritty fingernails to be picked out when the time is right.  "The time is right" when there is some of it - when the kids are asleep and the husband is watching sports, or when the kids are asleep and the husband is out of town, or when the kids are watching a show and you just can't wait until after they go to bed for the good idea itching in your head to be scratched and placed on the page.  That's about it.  I got nothin' else except a notebook in my purse and a pen in my pocket, y'all.

Speaking of notebooks and pens, I eked out another poem for poem-a-day today, and since I haven't shared any of the other works-in-progress, I will drop this one in here.  I think it illustrates the kind of thing I'm talking about, re: writing process.

The Inspired Works

During my daughter’s soccer

practice, I sat cross-legged

on a blanket. Something between
the kindergarten giggles
and parent chatter muffled
by wind gusts across the field
sizzled in my mind and I reached
beyond the diapers and teething
rings, fiddled over hardened
gummy bears and crumbs to the pen
at the bottom of my purse. If only I
could write a word or two before
the thought is gone, I thought,
but my drool-mouthed son
came over to consider the paper
and tore off a corner. He frowned
and flopped back on his haunches,
pudgy feet and double chin
working out the wonder of it.
He worried it over in his fingers
then figured maybe it’d be tasty.
A saliva grimace and tongue
delivered the corner into my palm
and then with nothing left
to crinkle or eat, he turned
his attention to the grass,
so cool and green and itchy,
and the blanket, so soft and red
and blue. The sun moved
quicker, the air cooler.
Soccer was almost over but
there was my chance. I perched
my pen above the line, wrote
“I” in a cursive loop, prepared
for the verb but then,
then my other son’s hand
landed hard on my book.
He laughed at how I couldn’t
write around it, laughed
as I darted from finger to line,
top to bottom, then wriggled
his bony body between me
and the sheet, both hands
splayed across the page.
I traced around his fingers,
down the edge of his thumb,
filled the page with his mittens,
his imprint one of many
this evening that leave these
impressions long after soccer
and whatever it was I thought
was more important is over,
the red wagon loaded down
with balls, bags, blankets,
and a wrinkled sheet of paper under
my daughter and my boys.

How are you doing with your poem project for April, if you have one?  Any luck?  Getting stuck?