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Year’s End

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It is New Year’s Eve — though this will post as January 1. Anyway, just a few thoughts to wrap up 2024 here at A Habit of Writing.

BUYING BOOKS?

Earlier this year, a reader asked me, Where do you find your books? The library, I think I said, or friends give them to me, or people send me a book with a request for a review. Thriftbooks.com is a good source when I need to purchase a book.

Well, forget that. This year I lost my mind and spent a ton of money on poetry books.

I’ve read a couple of these (see pic) — I have reviewed none.

My best excuse is that it was self-soothing behavior. Remember my spring CRI course, “Good Poetry for Hard Times”? Months ago I was already freaked out about the election, about Ukraine and Gaza, about climate change, and so on (and on).

Unsubscribing from a number of news feeds has helped. And poetry has helped. As a nutritionist once said to me, Why do we crave comfort food? Because we need comfort. At least there are no calories involved in reading poetry.

POETRY SUBMISSIONS

Not much to report this year. I began in September to send work out, but it was a half-hearted attempt and has not, so far, resulted in one single acceptance. I can report that I was invited to submit to several venues, and those poems found homes. More in 2025 when they are published.

THE POOR NEGLECTED BLOG

We will not feel too sorry for the blog — I came close to posting every week this year, and wrote a number of book reviews that appeared here, and elsewhere.

I did NOT do a good job keeping up the list of publications (see my CV tab). In March I contacted my webmaster and we made plans for new pictures, some new formatting, etc. — I had high hopes! — and then that fell flat, too. Somehow, the energy never appeared.

Voracious Reading and Writing, in General

I mean, I do after all have a Ph.D. in literature, and — from girlhood on — “reader” has always been the main listing on my calling card. So if this is my year-end brag post I should let you know I read more than poetry. I read mystery novels, of course (research!).

I also read some literary novels: Haven by Emma Donoghue, Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardviashvilli, Pearl by Siân Hughes (a debut novel by a poet! it took her 20 or 30 years to write! I think we might be twins separated at birth!), and Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor. I reread Bring Up the Bodies by the late great Hilary Mantel. I’m happy to recommend any of these.

As for writing — that continues, every day. I am within a week or so (maybe a month) of having my second mystery novel ready for beta readers. I’ve also kept up with my poem-a-week practice. (Not that all the poems are “good” poems.) I think I’m on the verge of cobbling together the next poetry book. We will see.

TEACHING / COACHING

Now, this category, I can brag on. I worked with two poets in 2023 and 2024, and each of them has a book coming out, early in 2025. I reviewed John Egbert’s book here. I’ll review the other when I have the final ms. in my hands.

I already mentioned my first Creative Retirement Institute (CRI) class, and I am happy to report that my two proposals for 2025 courses have been accepted.

Winter quarter: “Emily Dickinson in the 21st Century”

Spring Quarter: “May Swenson and Friends”

CRI courses are inexpensive, and the whole catalog is worth a look. I highly recommend them.

My CRI offerings are sort of low-key lit courses, but I’m thinking about running my own zoom writing workshop alongside. I’ll keep the cost very low (in keeping with the doable cost of CRI courses). Contact me soon if you have a specific request about days and times.

Labyrinth at St. Hilda’s / St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church

So that’s it — soon I WILL update the blog, including my list of publications. And you can expect me to be back in 2025 with more reviews of good poetry. For hard times, and for joyful times, too.

Good Poetry for Hard Times

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I have mentioned my upcoming class, Good Poetry for Hard Times, to you before, and posted the announcement on my Home page with other events, but this evening I’m taking a moment to promote it again. In short:

My Creative Retirement Institute (CRI) class begins May 24 and continues for a total of four Fridays, on Zoom, 1-3:00.  As far as I know, anyone can take a CRI class (do you have to prove you’re retired? I don’t think so), and they are inexpensive.  This class is $58.

For some backstory, I first proposed to teach a Zoom poetry workshop. CRI doesn’t do craft classes, it turns out, but rather than simply say no, they asked if I would consider teaching a class about poetry, and I said yes.

The first title was Your Memorable Poem (like my workshop last year), but someone at CRI didn’t like that title. We came up with Good Poetry for Hard Times because I had been thinking a lot about Gaza, Ukraine, Nigeria…political division in our own country, mass shooti… Okay, I’m going to stop there. My thought was, Who has time to read (or write) poetry? Does the world need another poem? Shouldn’t I be doing something?

When I asked my journal that question, these are some responses my brain came up with:

1. Reading poetry (writing poetry, too) is doing something. It makes us pause and catch our breath. It can bring us joy (it definitely brings me joy).

2. A good poem, shared at the right moment, brings breath and joy and hope to the recipient, too.

3. To expand on that, poetry (all art for that matter, and joy, too) is not a luxury. We need it.

For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence … The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.

—Audre Lorde

4. How is poetry a necessity? William Stafford called it a way of paying attention, and what could be more useful today than a habit of attention? Not distraction, not self-medicating. Attention.

5. Poems help make sense of loss. They are vehicles for emotion, and when we see that this poet — famous, obscure, long long dead — felt what we feel, then at the very least we feel less alone.

6. In times past, when poets retreated into the mountains (Basho, Yuanming) or into monasteries (Gerard Manley Hopkins), or into their upstairs bedroom (Emily Dickinson), what were they retreating from? How did their poetry help them to survive? (How might their poetry help us to survive our times?) Nothing too shocking or earth-shattering, but these are the questions I would like to sit with for a while.

What will each class look like?

I’m cobbling together a handout of about 50 poems that inspire me. At each session, I’ll read several poems aloud, pausing over each poem to introduce the poet, and offering context I find useful. I will also talk through what I find intriguing, healing, inspiring, memorable about each poem. Other participants (are they students if there’s no prep and no homework?) are encouraged to break in with questions or to add their comments and insights to mine. (I am HOPING people will want to talk about the poems.)

I predict that the time will fly by. So, here’s why I’m promoting it:

The class is a go, but it is slightly under-enrolled, and I’m really really hoping for a few more people. All motivations welcome:

  • The person who slept through poetry class in high school, but is ready now to see what all the fuss is about. “What’s this I hear about poetry being good for your brain?”
  • Someone who read Priscilla Long’s Dancing with the Muse in Old Age and could use an introduction to poetry before beginning his own writing practice.
  • Anyone who has been reading and writing poems for years, but, like me, finds this particular conversation timely and intriguing.

The creation of art, okay, just the attempt at the creation of art, as well as the appreciation of it, is both an enlarging of the world and an expanding of consciousness.

—Dean Young, The Art of Recklessness

If you — or someone you know — fits into any of these categories, here’s the link for CRI: https://www.edmonds.edu/programs-and-degrees/continuing-education/creative-retirement-institute/

I hope to see some of you there. White hair not required.

 

[I believe this link will take you directly to the course description: https://www.campusce.net/edmondsarts/Course/Course.aspx?c=1491]