Dear Reader,
Yesterday Word Raccoon and I thought there was a dead robin in a bush. It turned out it was very much alive and annoyed at being disturbed.
We wish all life situations could be like that, false reports of death.
Anyway.
WR and I were reading Mike Rucker’s excellent newsletter, (we did some work for him via a book marketer a few years ago), and he mentioned the best analogy for when you’ve gotten out of the habit of something. He quoted Steve Kamb: if you miss a shower, you just shower the next day. You don’t make a plan, get accountability, coaching, whatever. You just shower the next day.
While clearly life has gotten in the way of poetry and all manner of writing the past few days, and rightly so, and today especially will (my eyes are filling as I write this), I have still written a little, but not deeply. I’m still going.
This morning, for a bit, I am back on the porch. Tenderhearted, but I am here. No, I will not be attending and have not attended the virtual residency. Maybe tomorrow.
No, I will not be attending the final Twelfth Night discussion today.
I may well not make it to the gym or hit my move goal today, either.
And that’s okay.
It’s time to grieve, with family.
For the next hour, though, I will write.
On the latest episode of Dear Hank and John, guest hosted by John’s longtime friend, poet and author Paige Lewis, John and Paige spoke about the value in having created work to be “ashamed” of in their earlier years, because that’s how you grow as a writer.
Several things occurred to me, maybe related, maybe unrelated, to any of this. The first is that while I have had my Submittable account for a long time, if I look back, I didn’t have anything accepted there until I started submitting poetry.
I had short stories published, and essays. But those were on other submission platforms. IDK if that means anything, but it’s interesting.
I’m reminded that during my first workshop with Spalding, headed up by K.L. Cook, he said one of my flash fiction pieces was flirting with poetry. (It was brief.) He also said, when we talked later about my short stories and how I’d thought of writing a linked collection, that if I could write a novel, I should.
I did.
At the time, shorter work was easier to write because it wasn’t as painful. I hadn’t learned how to handle it, how to channel it. I’d get in and get right back out. (So much was going on in my life! I pity that young woman, but I also admire her. She never gave up.)
I still like what I wrote then, even though I’d write many of those pieces differently now. Lewis spoke of watching poets change poems on the published page before they read them in public, and I’ve witnessed that as well. Poetry is living, breathing.
It’s clearly not that I lack the patience for novels. I’ve written them, and I’m writing another now.
But listening to Green and Lewis talk about early efforts, about “failures,” and about the value in imperfection makes me want to revisit one of my unpublished short stories, just one. I want to read it, sniff it, see if there’s anything alive in it.
That’s the thing about me and revising poetry. Often I pluck its heart while trying to make it stand up straight. Maybe it doesn’t want to stand up straight. Maybe I should let it droop.
I watched a decluttering video (I know, I know) yesterday while folding laundry (and maybe a while past that. Okay fine, I played two in a row.) They were decluttering an artist’s studio, and it was fascinating to see not only the materials this lifelong art teacher and artist had accumulated, but also her art.
Now, if I’m being strictly honest, her art was not to Word Raccoon’s taste. But the artist clearly knows, in her 70s, I’m guessing she is, who she is and what she enjoyed creating, and yet she is still open to new projects. I salute her.
I want to be like her with my writing.
(The squirrels are so playful today. There are three circling the tree out front, and they are just chasing one another up and down the tree, around its base. They are young and full of life. Life goes on, yes, life goes on.)
In closing, John did surprise me (okay, disappointed me a little) by revealing that he’s a fan of the Twilight books. That’s okay, John. I’ll give you one. But just one.
To the rain falling right now (literally) as the sun shines. Yeah, that’s life, isn’t it?
Drema
P.S. My poem, “Comfort Eagle,” has just been published in the latest issue of The Louisville Review. If you’d like to read it, you can purchase a copy of the journal here.