Dearest bots,
If you have a chance to attend these Zoom readings, I highly recommend them. An amazing poet friend of mine recently organized a reading via Zoom with a few of their fellow writers and it was a treat. If there were ever a time to support the literary business, now would be it...
Another treat: A reading with Camille Dungy and Sigrid Nunez on Feb 24 with the
Bryn Mawr College Reading Series (shameless plug, I work for them). These readings are live-streamed but they cost money for non-BMC (or Bi-Co, if you know what that means) folx. To get the link you need to purchase a book from one of the evening's featured writers at the college's bookstore. It costs a pretty penny BUT the books come signed.
Nunez and Dungy were incredible to listen to. Both read from either recently published or unpublished works and had fabulous craft wisdoms. When asked how they knew a piece was completed, Nunez said "if this is what you're doing...if you want to be a writer...whatever you're doing won't be the last." Similarly, Dungy said, "it calms me to think I can keep returning." I think writers so often fixate on perfection; the right word, the right sound, the right form, the right punctuation. Nunez argues that it is in our best interest "not to overthink it." This gives me great peace for overthinking it is something I am too often want to do. I kill my work over and over again, and find myself reflecting on the first or second drafts wondering where they went...(cue Once In a Lifetime by the Talking Heads). To be unfinished in a novel is a gift--so say they, award-winning novelists. In other words, they got where they are by giving themselves permission to witness the progression of their own work.
I now understand what writers mean when they say they give up after the second or third draft: if it's not working by then, it will never work. This is something I've heard and loathed many times. The idea that one can simply excrete a good poem without much effort was confounding to me. Although, as a chronic work-killer, I now see my own faults more clearly. The practice of writing, perhaps, should be one of gentleness, of kindness, of breath. 'Trust your instincts.' 'Let your subconscious drive you.' Etc., etc. I suppose I have nothing to lose by trying...and if you, like me, are a self-proclaimed Rejection Specialist, neither do you.
I wonder if I might achieve this through Haiku. My dad, an avid poet himself, loved haiku. I find clarity in these bite-sized pieces of art if I can even call them such. He subscribed to many magazines and read avidly. Take this one from the Feb 2021 edition of
GEPPO Magazine, one such subscription:
December dusk
my mother tells all
the stories I don't know
While this is not my dad's work, there is something here that knows me. It's compact, simple, part of a sentence you might hear spoken in real life (in life off the page). I find this poem quiet and precise; a haiku that makes me want to write haikus. These, too, grant me some solace...
rice paper and pen
the white page
becomes a poem
and
a bow
to the hospital lights--
close of the year
and
no light
of its own
the moon
and
not a word
passes between us
thin ice
Hiroaki Sato says of haiku that it is "instantly recognizable, more mobile than a sonnet, and loved for its simplicity and compression, as well as for its ease of composition." I believe one might also say this about a good sentence...that perhaps there is much to learn from haiku that is understated, underrepresented. Why I wonder do lit mags not incorporate haiku into their poetry sections? Why must there be magazines dedicated solely to haiku in order for this form to breathe in poetic conversation?
My infatuation with the haiku form may also be that it has a way of eliminating divisions. I am reminded now of Camille Dungy, whose work seeks to "eliminate divisions between people, race, and the environment." Haiku seems to have a way of bringing breadth and depth into the landscape of a poem, establishing fluid ties between time, place, and body. Such questions are, too, the heart of environmental art.
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| Joiri Minaya, Container #4, 2020, from I'm here to entertain you, but only during my shift |
Other not-news-worthy-news includes:
1. I researched the 'no poo' movement and very critically considered going 'no poo'.
2. I recently dyed my hair for the first time (imagine Kurt Cobain with tiny boobs) and am scared to mess it up with the whole 'no poo' thing.
3. The Reddit community is NOT supportive of 'no poo'. I find this very upsetting.
4. I continue to 'poo'.
Until next time, lunchers!
BLT
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