Food Writing

I'm going to teach a creative writing workshop in the fall on "food writing."  I've always loved food fiction and I thought it would be fun to explore food poetry and non-fiction as well.  One of the best parts of my job is getting to read books that I might teach, and I spent all winter reading foodie books to get ready.  It was such fun getting into this genre.

Yesterday in class I had my students write a haiku in two minutes.  I sat down to do it too (I always try to do the exercises I assign) and all that food reading must have been on my mind.  Here it is:

My Mom’s Old Recipe Box

I slide out a card

and flavors explode on my

tongue:  Love.  Longing.  Regret.

Poetry Between the Lines

I have a month to go in the semester, and I've hit that inevitable moment I hit every semester when my writing takes the backseat to grading.  Every semester it seems to happen right about this time, and as much as I swear I'm going to not let it go, I do. The massive, tilting, guilty stacks of student papers take over and I lose all will and motivation to write.

This week I've been delighted by how many friends and writers are posting poems or parts of poems on Facebook for National Poetry Month.  This morning I've been wondering if there's a way to slip a little poetry into my life in these times when it's impossible (ok, not impossible but clearly difficult) to sit down and write.  Most writers I know go through periods like this when we just can't get it done.  And we miss it terribly. 

So, here is my brainstorm list for how to get a little poetry in between the lines of my life. I'd love to hear your ideas too:

1.  Poem in Your Pocket.  I bought this sweet book at AWP this year put out by the Academy of American Poets.  It's a "book" that's really a large tablet full of poems. You rip one out and put it in your pocket and carry it around all day.  How perfect is that?

2.  Hand Poetry.  Write one line of a poem you're working on on your hand.  Preferably the back.  Just think about that line all day, tinker with it, read it aloud often.

3.  Poem Flow App.  I found this great app for my phone called "Poem Flow"  It gives you a new poem every day.  

4.  New Word.  Yesterday on Facebook Terry Tempest Williams asked everyone to post their favorite words.  She got everything from "moss" to "spatula."  Find one new word and play with it in your head all day.  How would I use that word?  Could I open a poem with it?  What are all its derivations?

5.  Daily Haiku.  I have to confess I adore haiku.  I'm thinking if I set myself the task of writing one haiku, that would feel less daunting than a longer poem. I could take all day. I could work on one line at a time.  But I'd write one haiku every day for, say a week.  Or a month.  However long I need to get back to my regular writing time.  It might be kind of fun to work on a theme for the haiku of that period.  Birth haiku?  Coffee haiku?  Cat/Dog haiku?

So now I'm lecturing myself back into writing, in some way, every day.  Please do post your ideas and thought--I'd love to see them!

Book Preview, Part 2

It's been a crazy week for this writer...so I'm going to take the easy road and offer up another poem from Liveaboard.  

Dock Ramp, Shelter Island Marina

Our bridge of sighs

is a metal ramp with foot holds:

on one end, the wooden

dock, the green river, sweet with grasses.

On the other, a parking

lot, an industrial complex, a highway.

We traverse ours

every morning, the ring of boots

a gavel striking

another small pock in our bodies.

But every night

we reverse the journey as well,

stepping from oily asphalt

onto the ramp that sways a little

with our good weight.  We step

through air, across water,

back into the quiet cells

where we live our nights, trying

for some kind of pardon

for the way we spend each day.

Reading on the Radio or in Person?

I love reading on the radio.  I was on KTOO yesterday afternoon with Pat Moore and it was so much fun.  I love sitting behind that big, plush mike.  I love watching all the lights and little sliders on the sound boards.  I love looking out the window watching a raven fly by while we talk.  The radio has such a perfect blend of intimacy and privacy. I love not wondering if I've missed a button on my shirt.  And for poetry, it feels so perfect because the focus is so much on the language itself, and on the voice.  Here's a link to the radio show if you want to hear it.  I'm on 2nd, so it's about 15 minutes into the show:  http://www.ktoonews.org/2012/03/26/juneau-afternoon-32712/

This is not to say I don't like doing readings in person.  I'm giving one tonight at UAS and I'm looking forward to it, but I feel more anxiety about reading in person.  There's so much more to think about, and as a rather shy poet, the idea of all of those people  looking at me for 45 minutes is a bit unnerving.  I'm very grateful that they want to, of course, and so glad to see support for poetry in Juneau, and excited to see who will come, and what kind of conversations we'll have.  But I'm still nervous.  What if I flub a poem?  (I probably will.)  What if I get the hiccups?  (My irrational, persistent fear before all readings.)  How do I not look nervous?  

I remember the first reading I gave in Juneau--this was years ago and it was at an Evening at Egan on campus so it was a pretty big crowd. I have a good poetry friend who came, and who knew how nervous I was feeling.  Right before I went up, she pulled me into the women's bathroom and handed over an airplane bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream.  She had one for herself too, so we did our shots and then bravely went back out to face the crowd.   It was perfect.  (Since then I've either been pregnant or breastfeeding, so I've had to learn to do readings without that little sweet helper.)

The fun thing about getting ready for a reading is the time I get to spend with the poems again.   Thinking about performing, and about who will be there, is a whole new way to look at the work. The poetry starts to become a very real conversation in my head.  I always intend it to be when I'm writing it, but the thought of reading, of speaking it aloud, makes that even clearer for me.  It's interesting how some poems naturally feel more appropriate for reading aloud--the ones that are stories, or ask questions, maybe, or in some way engage the audience.  And other poems feel more like armchair poems--the ones we want to read quietly when no one else is around.  

It also makes me think of all the readings I've been to and the way readings change my understanding of the poems I hear.  I love hearing a little background on the poems, or hearing the stories behind them.  This is especially nice if it's poetry I know well and love; hearing them read and talked about by the writer gives me a whole new relationship with the poems.  I hope I'll be able to do that tonight too.

So this morning I'm just reading through poems, trying not to think about hiccups, and getting excited for the conversations that will happen tonight.  Hope to see you there!

Book Trailer!

So apparently the new fad in book promotion is book trailers.  I think it's kind of a cool idea, actually.  I secretly really like making home movies, so I jumped right on this one and had a lot of fun with it.

There is a really great e-book written by Poets & Writers about book promotion (The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion) that is well worth a read.  It has chapters on various ways to help promote your work on little-to-no budget.  One whole chapter is on book trailers.  They talk about using trailers to really introduce the idea of the book, and to help readers get a sense of what the book is about.  It really works the same way movie trailers do.  I think right now it's more of a fiction thing, but I found a really great trailer on  YouTube by Alaskan writer Vivian Faith Prescott (The Hide of My Tongue is her fabulous book of poems).  That trailer gave me some good ideas to get started.


I think this one might be a little long, and I'll keep working on it, but here it is.  I'd love any feedback! 

Writing to Terry, Visiting William

Today I put my book in the mail to Terry Tempest Williams.  I know, bold move.   I sent her the book because one of the poems is dedicated to her, and because her bird writing inspired so much of the book. I wanted to find a way to say thank you, and maybe find a way to start a conversation.  I know I probably won't ever hear from her.  And that's ok.  I've met her twice and I know she's fabulous and sensitive and grateful and all the things we hope for from our favorite authors.   And if she writes a brilliant paragraph in her next book instead of an email to me, I'm good with that.   

But of course a little part of me is hoping anyway.  When I was a sophomore in college my then-writing teacher, Ira Sadoff (a brilliant poet--if you don't know his work you should) found out I was from Oregon and told me I should write to William Stafford.  At that time Stafford was teaching at Lewis & Clark College, which was just a short bus-ride from my house.  So I did.  I emailed him a letter telling him how much I loved his poems and including a few of my own.  And a few months later I got a letter back from him, inviting me up to see him when I came home for Christmas break.

Naturally, I was over the moon.  That Christmas I rode the bus up to see him, and we had a lovely talk, sitting in the library, about poetry and my plans.  He was as generous and amazing as you'd expect him to be, if you know his work.  I don't remember everything he told me, but I remember he told me to keep writing, and that he treated me as a real writer.  As an undergrad, that meant everything to me.  

After he died, one of the poems published posthumously was about that day in the library.  I don't know, of course, that this poem is about me, but I think it's a pretty safe bet.  Here it is:

Emily, This Place, and You

She got out of the car here one day,

and it was snowing a little. She could see

little glimpses of those mountains, and away down

there by the river the curtain of snow would

shift, and those deep secret places looked

all the more mysterious.  It was quiet, you know.

Her life seemed quiet, too.  There had been troubles,

sure—everyone has some. But now, looking out there,

she felt easy, at home in the world—maybe like

a casual snowflake.  And some people loved her.

She would remember that.  And remember this place.

As you will, wherever you go after this day,

just a stop by the road, and a glimpse of someone’s life,

and your own, too, how you can look out any time,

just being part of things, getting used to being a person,

taking it easy, you know.

                                                            William Stafford, The Way It Is

Of course I deeply treasure this poem.  And feel so blessed that even after his death Stafford has continued to give to us in so many ways.  And this experience, miracle that it is, has given me the courage to send my book to Terry.  Who knows?  Maybe someday we'll sit in a library together, and talk about writing.  Fingers crossed.

Melting Clocks at AWP

I just got an email from a writer friend from Wisconsin and he says:  "My lord, wasn't Chicago a bit surreal?"  That's maybe the perfect word for it.  How to even begin to parse such an experience?

If it was surreal, maybe a collage of images would work best:  walking along Wabash street, under the thundering El, headed back from a night of drinking with two writers.  Listening to Alison Hawthorne Deming teach us about creating poetry in our communities.  Reading poems to a packed room at the Chicago Cultural Center.  Asking two men, new friends, for their birth stories.  Sitting at the Salmon Poetry table with Patrick Hicks and finding out we both lived in the same college in Oxford, ten years apart.  Sitting exhausted on the floor with a sandwich, almost too tired to eat it.  Meeting the publisher of Salamander who published a poem of mine.  Buying a pair of sexy cowboy boots.  Falling asleep, every night, very late, to the vision of the Sears Tower, rising like mist outside my window.

It was incredibly rich, and deeply exhausting.   It's something to be in a hotel with 10,000 other writers.  Everywhere you go, someone is talking about meter or publishing or promotion on Facebook or quoting a line from a poem.  It's the only time in my life that I don't feel poetry is marginalized.  It's pretty heady.  I can't wait for next year.