Where You’ll Find Me

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On my to-do list for today is “write blog post.” So, here goes. What I’ve been up to, and a little of everything else.

I have finished my poetry manuscript. “Finished”? I finished it last April, too, and sent it out, then withdrew it from several contests. I couldn’t say why it didn’t feel ready, it simply didn’t.

A friend suggested that I not think globally, condemning the entire ms, but to instead focus on individual poems. What I actually did was ignore it. I took a class. I worked on my send-out practice. I (finally) returned to my mystery novel. Then, in October, I finished the rewrite of the mystery.

And the poems were still sitting there, muddy and neglected, their unwashed faces looking up at me.

I again found useful distractions. A short story re-write, notably. Then, I broke my arm and was unable to type.

I had been fantasizing about a writer’s retreat, or just a week anywhere in an Air BnB alone with my story and…maybe…my poems. With the retreat option off the table, I made a decision to resort to my practice from when my three daughters were small and writing felt like an edifice without a door, impossible.

I would sit with my poems for 15 minutes every morning.

Even in that first awful week with the immobilizing splint, when I couldn’t type, I could page through poems and reread them. I could mark them up and scribble revisions. After a day or two, I began setting my timer for 25 minutes-on / 5 minutes-off (the Pomodoro method) and I often found myself putting in an hour or two.

Every. Morning.

Even Christmas Eve. Even Christmas Day. If I didn’t break through to the hours, I at least set my timer and did the 25 minutes.

Last summer — while working on the novel — I gave up some time-wasting habits (TV on my iPhone; Spider Solitaire, which is my crack cocaine; listening to audio books). Or, I mostly gave them up. While working on the poems, and perhaps feeling sorry for my poor broken self, I slid back into all these habits. It took several weeks before I recognized I was self-medicating.

During my halcyon months on the novel, I had hit on a method of reworking a chapter, then recording it, sending it to my phone, and listening to that (instead of an audio book by anyone else) on my walks. This was genius, by the way. I don’t know if it will work for you, but it was a huge breakthrough for me.

At some point early in January it dawned on me that I could record the poems — especially the most troublesome ones — and listen to them while I walked. Again, big breakthrough. I was almost … there.

Then, sometime in the last week or so I found myself back at that edifice — the big, blank, doorless one.

Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this, but it felt as though I wasn’t at the foot of a blank wall, but stuck up high, poised to jump. It was despair. The poetry book — which is about the extremely emotional topic of my childhood on a farm, my parents’ deaths, the loss of the farm —  would never be done. I was trapped. The book would never be good enough. I would never be that person, that writer, who can do my story justice. Then, like someone waking up from a bad dream, I recognized where I was and I knew I had been there before.

In the past, whenever I felt this sort of despair over a writing project, I floundered around searching for someone to save me, maybe a whole committee — my steering committee — some august body to weigh in with all their considerable authority and tell me what to do.

I woke up one night — from a dream? into a memory? — of sitting in the hayfield beside our barn, and watching a foal die. (“A” foal? The foal, Brandy’s foal.) I experienced exactly what Bessel Van Der Kolk describes in his book, The Body Keeps the Score. I wasn’t remembering it, I was living it. My heart was pounding. I was wide awake, terrified, horrified. I could see my uncle’s face, hear his voice: “That mare has plenty of milk.” I could not just see him turning to walk away, I could feel him walking away from me. I could feel my own words stuck in my throat, choking me.

I am strongly considering not posting any of this.

In essence, in my pit of despair with the poetry manuscript, I saw that I needed what I needed when I was a kid on a farm — what I wasn’t able to do when I was that skinny, freckled girl who couldn’t or wouldn’t speak up and insist on her own voice, her own truth.

I needed to listen to my own counsel.

That foal was not the only loss I’ve experienced in my life, and I’ve often tried to deny its importance. But the truth is it was important, and early, a preface to adulthood and adult cares. It changed who I was, who I would grow up to become. I’ve written this story before — in poetry and prose — and sometimes I think I will never be finished writing it. The foal is (perhaps strangely) absent from this new book. In short: including her this time around seemed to tip the book over and unbalance it. Even so, whenever I fall back into this visceral memory, I know that I’m being asked to wake up to some reality and, well, own it. I am being asked to speak up.

Is the poetry manuscript now perfect? No, not even close. But it has reached a point where I’m pleased with it, where it feels possible to share it. It is out to four contests, and I have a spread sheet with several more to send to as they open and deadlines loom.

I had planned to say more — maybe something about how AI apps can’t write with your peculiar history, your emotional depth, or your brilliant sarcastic humor. I had meant to share a poem. But — for today — I think this is enough.

So that, my friends, is where you’ll find me.

Giving Thanks for 2022

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This afternoon (Dec. 31) I helped pick up fir and cedar limbs in our backyard and now my arm is twanging. It’s been 4 weeks! Isn’t it fine now?

But I promised myself I would do an end-of-the year round up of my submissions, and I’m not going to let my arm stop me.

If you’re looking for on-line and print venues for your poems and other writings, maybe this post will be of interest to you, too.

In 2022 I made 101 submissions of poetry, and 28 of prose pieces.

Sixteen venues said yes to 22 poems, one story, one CNF (creative nonfiction piece), and two book reviews. If you’re new to sending out your work, this is actually a very good return.

One poem won a contest: Edmonds Arts Council, Poets Perspective; one poem was Pushcart-nominated; and one received a Best of the Net nomination.

In an earlier post this year I shared that I had a goal of 100 rejections in 2022. I didn’t make it. I heard a firm “no” only 71 times and among those I had a number of encouraging notes and invitations to resubmit. (It’s all good, in other words.) A large number of poems and about 4 essays are still out, some from as long ago as February, 2022, so I could (conceivably) get to my 100 rejections.

Of course it’s way more fun to look at the acceptances. I’ve shared a few of these over the year, but recently the mail brought my contributor copy of Catamaran, a journal which, if you don’t know it, you should. As their banner says: “West Coast themes, Writers and Artists from Everywhere.” My poem, “A Mask of Forgetting,” is paired with art by Elizabeth Fox, and the whole thing is beautifully put together, well worth the trip.

This month I also received a contributor copy of Peregrine, from Amherst Poets & Writers. They picked up two of my poems: “Reading Andrew Motion’s Biography of John Keats,” and “Every Cell of Me.” I appreciate all the on-line journals now encouraging writers, but it’s still a treat to get a copy of a real, flesh-and-bone journal.

Speaking of poems-paired-with-amazing-art: check out my poem, “Lessons in Beekeeping,” at Open: A Journal of Arts & Letters. The art, “Old Bee Farm,” by Clara Southern, is perfect.

And, though I’ve mentioned it before, I want to tell you again about Escape Into Life, which I consider one of my luckiest finds ever. Kathleen Kirk and the review editor, Seana Graham, have been incredibly generous to me. (Not to mention the prize nominations. Well, okay, to mention them.) Over the years they’ve published quite a few of my poems, and book reviews, always pairing the poems with gorgeous art, as in their recent Dog Days 2022 feature, with art by Elke Vogelsang.

I’ve been sending out poetry for decades, and I have very little ego invested in the process. Prose send-outs, however, and prose acceptances, are fairly new for me. For a long time, I would once in a while (every other year or so) send a story out, and then I’d be discouraged and forget about it. Taking a Creative Nonfiction class where we are REQUIRED to submit work to journals has broken me of that bad habit. Earlier this year I was hugely proud to have an essay about my mother, “My Mother’s Birthday in Ireland,” published at Chautauqua; and to see my fourth published short story picked up by Kithe (another gorgeous print journal).

 

Kithe (kai-the) is an old Scottish word that means to make or become known. At Kithe, we believe that all creative endeavors are an effort to be made known. We show through our language and our art what and who we are, and in doing so, we are made known to one another.  –from their website

Very recent acceptances — and definitely journals or websites for you to check out — are Descant, The Bookends Review, Empty Bowl Press, and Braided Way: Faces & Voices of Spiritual Practice. 

All done bragging. I hope this is helpful to you in some way. Now, to put my arm back in the sling and find the ice pack. And maybe sneak out for one more walk today.

In 2023, I hope you write.

 

Winter Solstice Greetings

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Here in my neighborhood north of Seattle, Washington, we have had our second snowfall of the year—about three inches yesterday and the evening before. Today, it’s 27 degrees (low of 19!) and the sun is shining. Outside my window: glittering white.

On December 1st, despite slush and ice, I set out for a long afternoon walk, and I slipped on a patch of ice, fell hard, and cracked the head of my left radius bone, right up there in my elbow. I was in a fiberglass splint—looked like and felt like a big ol’ cast—for 7 days. The initial evaluation suggested the crack went all the way through. I couldn’t use my arm, I couldn’t get it wet, couldn’t practice my Christmas songs on the piano, couldn’t wear my Christmas sweaters. I couldn’t type! It took me four or five days just to figure out how to wear clothes and leave the house.

I saw the orthopedic surgeon on day seven, expecting to be told I’d need surgery. Instead, he said the crack was partial, and “No surgery,” plus—amazing grace—no cast! In his opinion the crack would heal just fine if I didn’t lift, push, or pull with my left arm, or fall down again. He showed me how a single week of having the arm in the splint had weakened my grip, and compromised my ability to move my wrist or do simple things like touch my head. (Try flossing your teeth when you have only one arm.) “That’s not from the break; that’s from having your arm immobilized. If you wear a cast for six or eight weeks, you’ll need physical therapy for a year!”

He said I could do “light kitchen work” and—more important—“you can type.”

I admit to having entirely lost my Christmas spirit. I’m only now getting it back. Partially.

Nonetheless, over the last few weeks I have been co-leader of an Advent study at my church. I committed to it in October, after all, and my primary role in the group is merely to bring poems. Easy peasy. I’ve collected both traditional Advent poems by well-known Christian writers such as Madeleine L’Engle and Oscar Romero, and poems that might not spring to mind when we’re talking about Bethlehem, gentle donkeys, shepherds guarding their flocks by night, and the birth of a savior in a stable.

Not that such poems can’t be wonderful. (Of course they are.) I guess what I’ve been after is to broaden our context, to make us see the Advent season in the light of our own lives.

Advent first began in the 4th century as a period of penance for new converts. It didn’t lead to December 25, like an Advent calendar with little chocolates inside, but to Epiphany (January 6). Advent comes from the Latin, adventus, meaning “arrival” or “coming,” and from the Greek, parousia, which is also translated as “presence,” especially, “presence after absence” (or second coming). Back then, Advent was sometimes referred to as “the Lent of St. Martin’s” (and began on St. Martin’s day, November 11). Also, it was considered heretical to associate the Christian season too heavily with the winter solstice—too pagan. Sorry, but for me that’s exactly what’s evoked, and why I was drawn toward wanting to take part in the class. Well, light and an adventure.

I’ve made some surprising discoveries. In the book my co-leader assigned, Jill Duffield’s Advent in Plain Sight: A Devotion through Ten Objects, the first object is “gates.” I love that—I did a little digging and learned that the word “gate” appears 418 times in the King James Bible. In my introduction to the poems, I talked about how a gate can seem to be a barrier, but it’s really an invitation. A gate marks a path to be followed.

Poems, too, are gates. In my college teaching career I often encountered students who hated poetry. They saw a poem as a gate with a “no trespassing” sign hanging on it. But isn’t a poem, like a gate, an invitation? Open this. Walk through. See the world the way I see it. The first poem I brought was Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Kindness,” and the study group climbed onto the bus with me. “There’s communion here,” one participant gleefully noted. And another: “it’s a story of the good Samaritan!”

I found this short poem by Richard Bauckham on an Advent website, The Adventus Project. Details such as keeping vigil, a turn of the tide, and the cattle-shed roof lend it an Advent gloss, yet it’s multi-valent. A Druidic heart could be happy here. Bauckham is a theologian and poet who lives in Great Britain, but he could be my neighbor here in the Pacific Northwest in my house in the woods.

First Light

After all the false dawns,
who is this who unerringly paints
the first rays in their true colours?
We have kept vigil with owls
when the occult noises of the night
fell tauntingly silent
and a breeze got up
as if for morning.
This time the trees tremble.
Is it with a kind of reckless joy
at the gentle light
lapping their leaves
like the very first turn of a tide?
Timid creatures creep out of burrows
sensing kindness
and the old crow on the cattle-shed roof
folds his wings and dreams.

Richard Bauckham

https://richardbauckham.co.uk

My apologies for a somewhat wobbly, all-over-the place post. (Consider that I was told I wouldn’t be able to type for 6 weeks!)

Sunday evening at 11:00 my dog desperately needed a walk, so, despite the falling snow, we went out (with every caution for secure footing), and one reward was an owl hooting continuously from the snowy woods. No wonder my dog was restless. No wonder I love Bauckham’s poem: “We have kept vigil with owls.” Me, too.

It’s a gorgeous time of year, when you’re not all broken and needing a nap and a cookie (did you know that when you have a broken bone your body burns 20-30% more calories? Someone told me so—maybe just indulging my natural inclination).

When I first began gathering poems for the Advent class, I had a notion that the study participants would want to write with me. That didn’t happen (with the addition of a co-leader and the book, it became more conventional, which is fine), but it hasn’t kept me from writing. Early on, I came across a poem by Laura Walker titled “Psalm 100” (follow the link to read it for yourself). It made me open my Bible and reread Psalm 100. And then I wrote my own poem. Is it an Advent poem? Not really, unless you see it—like Bauckham’s poem—in a tradition of praise.

So, for solstice, here’s my poem in praise of light. From here on out, each day enjoy those extra few seconds of daylight.

Morning at Glen Cove

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
–Psalm 100, NIV

After a night of wind the cove sings.
Under cold water, a skein of herring,

above, a skein of glaucous-
winged gulls. Scraw of bald eagle

and great blue heron, sky
brimming, unfurled. In the early morning half-dark

sea lions bark, hoarse with so much praise.
Sunrise offers a kingfisher

chittering down the pink light.

Bethany Reid / 2022

I Made a Place for You

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One cool perk of blogging is that occasionally complete strangers contact me out of the blue and ask if I would like to have a book. My answer is always, Yes! Book, please!

This week’s mail brought me a chapbook of poems from Atmosphere Press, a debut collection by Damian White, of Columbus, Ohio. When I receive poetry books, I often set them aside until my April poetry blogging binge (a book a day), but I Made a Place for You was just released, and I told Damian I would blog about it right away.

The poems are short—“language poetry crossed with gospel,” as one reviewer puts it—but they well up from the poet’s own life and are a testament to how dire circumstances (in White’s case, homelessness) can be “channeled … into poetry to heal a fractured identity.” Predictably the poems are often ontological, a chronicle of a spiritual journey.

God’s Typewriter

The Golden Rule of speech is
to speak when spoken through

Be a prophet of God’s whispers
sacral thoughts
resurrect the spine
unveil the stature of man
and poise his pen

Am I the poem or the poet?
words linger on my tongue
forlorn and ephemeral

I am more written than writer
an opus of cathartic scribble
unfurling my fleshiest truth

—Damian White

The first time through this poem I thought “sacral” was an error, but right after we get “resurrect the spine” and suddenly it’s all wordplay. The poet raises the old question (how do we tell the dancer from the dance?) but embeds it in the language arts. Poem or poet, more written than writer. We shape our writing, and writing shapes us. This of course is the secret that all poets know. We are our own opus.

Many of the poems are dark—“Pain gushes,” “Words abet,” we encounter “despair’s vile grip”—but in “Good Mourning,” the poet turns the darkness we are made of upside down: “We are soil. / Basal, vital, and better suited for / sunshine.” The darkness turns out to be only one edge, with the other catching the light.

I Made a Place for You is whimsically and colorfully illustrated by Francesco Orazzini, an Italian artist now living in Mexico City. And the book might be taken as whimsical (when you’re not fixed on the aforementioned dark edge). But there’s also that deepness to the poems, the wellspring of life experience, and a sense of poetry, once again, redeeming a life.

In the poet’s own words, one learns to speak “when spoken through.”