AWP

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Gary Snyder

I am exhausted. I’ve been attending AWP in Seattle, courtesy of Poetry Northwest and my college. My brain is full. I came very, very close to leaving after dinner last night, but this man — Gary Snyder — who I have never seen in person but have read forever — was reading. He is getting up there, and I can’t really imagine that I will have another chance to hear him. So I stayed.

Robert Hass, Eva Saulitis, and Gary Snyder on nature and science. It was wonderful and made me want to get up this morning and work on poems.

Which is, after all, what it’s all about.

 

 

 


How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

-Gary Snyder

 

And then we could read…

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Listing 14 books by women that I’d like to reread, just made me think of more.

“For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of — to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others… and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Stumped

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At my 3-day workshop in November I was given a handout called “What To Do When You Feel Stuck.” I have referred to this handout dozens of times in the last few months, and it has really, really helped. So I’m going to share it with you, in particular the 6 steps borrowed from Conscious Loving by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks.

1. Say “I’m stuck” over a few times in your mind [I say it out loud, but I am out here in a cabin in the back yard where no one can hear me], listen to the tone of voice and ask: Whose voice is it? Where is it coming from, the front, back, or side of your mind? (no right or wrong answers)

2. How are you experiencing the feeling in your body? What are the sensations associated with being stuck? (e.g., knot in stomach, queasy, neck tight, pressure in chest)

3. What do these sensations remind you of? How is it familiar? With whom are these feelings associated? When in your life did they first begin?

4. What do you need to learn from being stuck? [I like to ask, “What’s my assignment?”] What message do you need to pay the most attention to?

5. What do you need to do about these feelings of stuckness? Do you need to talk with someone? Are there actions you need to take?

6. Who can best support you in attaining real freedom right now in your life? Who will be unflinchingly honest with you? Who will you be unflinchingly honest with? How can you get the support you want in becoming free?

If you have any tips to add, I’d love to hear them!

 

 

Happy Valentine’s Day

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Apparently there is something afoot on the web, or in the TwitterVerse, called #READWOMEN2014 (look up the Huffington Post article for more information). The idea made its way to me via Kathleen Kirk’s excellent blog, Wait! I Have a Blog?

So, for you, for Valentine’s Day, 14 novels by women, recommended by moi. These are all books I have read, reread, and/or plan to read again. They are not all contemporary novels, though I tried to stick to at least the 20th century. I could have listed LOTS more, and I decided to limit myself to one title per author. That was hard, too.

1. Paradise, Toni Morrison
2. Olive Kitteridge  Elizabeth Strout
3. The Beginning of Spring,  Penelope Fitzgerald
4. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,  Rachel Joyce
5. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,  Helen Simonson
6. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,  Anne Tyler
7. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
8. Winter Wheat, Mildred Walker
9. The Moonflower Vine, Jetta Carleton
10. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, Rumor Godden
11. The Optimist’s Daughter, Eudora Welty (I’ll have to save Grace Paley for my list of favorite short-fiction writers)
12. The Outlander, Gil Adamson
13. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
14. The Madonnas of Leningrad, Debra Dean

Currently I am reading Elizabeth’s George’s Just One Evil Act. Next up, Cuckoo’s Calling, which (despite the “Robert Galbraith” on the cover) is written by J. K. Rowling. Then, Have His Carcase, which I have read before (by the way), by Dorothy L. Sayers. I am on a mystery binge. 

Now, back to writing. Happy VD!