Category Archives: Poetry

Legacy vs the present

For National Poetry Month, I’ll be posting a poem here every few days…something from one of my books and chapbooks.

First, though, musings on why it matters to me that my poems get collected in book form. I’ve been asked about this by a few people recently, sparked by conversations about the changing technology of “print,” and also artistic purpose, and even the concept of legacy. If I were a visual artist–say, a painter–there would be objects my hands had produced. Even a mediocre painter creates something apparently lasting or worth something. You die, and your paintings go to family members or to flea markets where people can purchase them (for the frames if nothing else…). A ceramicist may make truly useful things such as bowls and mugs; those items can last and be used, even if they end up in thrift shops or post-apocalyptic archeological digs. Maybe the painter or potter isn’t remembered, but the product endures for awhile.

But poems? So many people leave behind sheaves of unread, unpublished, perhaps private writing, much of which won’t resonate with anyone. Even if it could, the chance that anyone would care enough to sort through before burning or recycling and uncover a heretofore unknown genius is vanishingly small. I, for one, am not writing for eternity or for the future. I write for the now. The main reason I want to get books in print is that the product (a book! I love books!) matters while I’m here. After I die, no one will want my pile of drafts, old journals, revisions, false starts–not even my children. And why should they? Will future society value archives of anyone, let alone very minor poets of the early 21st c? Maybe the demise of technologically-based societies is right around the corner. All the more reason to work in and for the present moment. If I garner a few readers today, I feel blessed.

~ Today’s poem is from my 2011 FootHills Publishing chapbook The Capable Heart.

No Long Farewells

The weedy field.
On the rise beyond,
armies of brown corn,
ready to fall.
Willow looses streamers,
yellow kites
floundering in
tall grass.
I look at my hands, 
fingers gold. We
walk past grapevines.

Later I think of this day
as a drafty barn,
sun on its walls,
clouds high beyond rafters:
roofless. 
Nothing blocks our vision
for once. No blinders.

There is little time
for long farewells.
A light goes on.
Your bus is leaving now.
Moon follows you home.

Gratitude

Fountains of gratitude are flowing in my heart today despite the gray, humid weather that seems to set off every imaginable ache my body could have. ❤

Wow, that was a sentence of hyperbole and cliché, for which I apologize; let me begin again. I’m grateful for a number of reasons that I want to mention so I can give appropriate and public thanks to the people who have added to today’s happiness. The list starts with Dave Fry of Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse & Listening Room in Bethlehem PA, who hosted an evening of poetry–with musical interludes and conversation–this past Wednesday evening. Two members of my long-time writers group and I read our poems and talked about a few poetic forms (haiku, waka/tanka, tanka prose, and short forms generally). Dave supplied some comments to encourage audience reflection and performed interludes on guitar. One observation he made is that the classic blues song follows a structure that has similarities to a short poem form: Line, Repeated line, Commentary line (often like a poem’s “turn”).

It was a lovely event and great to share the writerly camaraderie of a long & successful critique group onstage: Marilyn Hazelton and Susan Weaver are often the first readers of my own poems. I’m grateful for their support and for the way Dave gave us the opportunity showcase poems and maybe teach a few audience members new things about poetry. Another plus was that I sold a few books! Grateful to those folks, too. That’s one way to support the arts.

Thank you as well to my Best Beloved, who attended despite feeling a little lousy from allergies, and to those of my local friends who came out to hear us. The venue charges a cover, and not everyone’s willing to shell out for poetry. Therefore, I bow deeply to you all who do.

Today I also received a kind gesture from poet, scholar, educator, and blogger Lesley Wheeler. On her blog (which you really might want to follow), Lesley wrote a mini-review of my book The Red Queen Hypothesis and Other Poems, last summer. I’m thrilled that this week she included a mini-review of my brand-new book, Abundance/Diminishment (“ectoplasmic micro poetry reviews“). My book was in such good company! See the link above, between parentheses, for her comments on books by Diane Suess, January Gill O’Neill, Elizabeth Savage, and Jen Karetnick.

For promotional reasons, (ha!), I’ll close with what Lesley says about the collection:

“I have a similarly eerie sense of connection with a sympathetic mind reading Ann E. Michael’s Abundance/ Diminishment. This book tallies losses and bounties: it’s full of mathematical and scientific language, but what it counts and categorizes is deeply emotionally freighted. In ‘Filling Out Forms at the Gynecologist’s Office,’ she subtracts the number of her children from the number of times she’s been pregnant. In ‘Tongues,’ a child of six, mocked by classmates for the tongue sandwich in her lunchbox, prices out peanut butter–even as she loses her immigrant mother’s language. Also like Seuss’s book, this is poetry of maturity, from a time of life when a person has to begin giving it all away. I’m especially grateful, these days, for books from midlife and beyond. I learn what I need to know by reading them.”

I’m grateful, too, Lesley!

Throwing mud

This week, I got the potatoes in the ground; last week, it was spinach. In between, a lengthy late-March cold snap and yes, more rain. But also a visit from a Dear One and a trip to parts of Pennsylvania I seldom have had reason to explore. Although I have lived in PA’s Lehigh Valley for nearly 40 years–longer than I have lived anywhere else–I confess a lack of familiarity with many areas of the Keystone State. Philadelphia and its suburbs I know well, and Reading and Lancaster, to a lesser degree; and our family often visits Gettysburg. We travel west and north to go camping now and then. I’ve been to Pittsburgh a few times and seen Falling Water and the Cathedral Trees and both branches of the Susquehanna River. Penn State just twice, once when I was chaperoning high school sophomores to History Day competitions.

Pennsylvania is a big commonwealth: 46,055 sq miles. It’s a good place for poetry, though I leave it to poets such as Harry Humes and Jerry Wemple (among others–looking at you, Dave Bonta) to explore its varied climate, geography, history, and culture. Mostly I stay within the confines of my own back yard, which is large and varied enough to inform me for a lifetime.

But the Dear One had planned to give her dad a pottery workshop with a well-known potter, Simon Leach, as a 70th birthday gift. That birthday fell during covid, however; the long-delayed weekend in Millheim PA thus did not take place until this past week. I have never placed my hands on a potter’s wheel (though I ought to try it sometime) and just went along for family togetherness and to visit the arboretum at Penn State, slightly out of season but still a very pleasant place to walk, by myself, on a cold but sunny Sunday. It rained on Saturday, so I sat by the fireplace at our B&B and read novels. Could anything be more perfect?

The task of Leach’s workshop was to practice making cylinders. It was a muddy job indeed. Here’s a photo of some of the student results. Dear One is quite adept at cylinders; indeed, she’s a good potter and sells much of her work, a skill she enjoys when she’s not providing emergency medical care to dogs and cats.

Leach uses the slogan “Keep practicing!” Yeah, that’s how you get to Carnegie Hall, right? But it is also how people get better at any skill, even those who are preternaturally talented in music, art, dance, etc. That includes writers. I have to remind myself that it is now time I got back to my routine of writing, revising, and the practice practice practice part of composing poems. The garden, the daughter, the travel, and the novel-reading have been splendid distractions, but as National Poetry Month approaches (April!), I ought to get myself back into routine.

A routine’s generally looked at as mundane–a tedious necessity. It needn’t be that way, I keep reminding myself. It can be as fun and messy and surprising (or frustrating) as throwing mud.

clay cylinder practice in Leach studio

House concert

I can only recall ever attending one house concert. It was during my college days–1977 or ’78–and took place at a large Victorian house in Ann Arbor, MI. We sat about on chairs, sofas, stairs, and the floor to listen to blues/folk singer and guitarist extraordinaire, David Bromberg. It was a pleasant environment in which to hear the musician–an intimate and attentive audience, a sense of camaraderie and shared appreciation, and quite comfortable. But I never managed to attend another house concert…usually, such events are fairly private and by invitation (as I think that one was), so you don’t hear about them until after they’re over.

I was therefore delighted when friends suggested that they hold a “house concert” or, in this case, a house reading, so that they could share my poems with some acquaintances. A new audience! A comfortable, non-intimidating space, terrific food, and the kindness of people willing to listen to a bit of poetry…what’s not to like about that? There were over a dozen folks in our friends’ pleasant home, and at the close of an evening of wine and food and conversation, I was asked to read and talk about my poems. And promote my new book (which is now available to order on Amazon).

My gratitude overflows, Don and Jeannie. You’re the best!

An unexpected aspect of the house concert event was that it was delightful to meet the “audience” first, before the reading–a reversal of the usual order, and very helpful in getting me to feel more comfortable not just in presenting my work but in deciding which poems to read. In addition, the cozy atmosphere meant listeners felt free to ask questions and continue the conversation to include thoughts on song lyrics, “private” poetry (that people write for themselves alone), favorite poets, and the context of the work of poetry in the world.

That was such a marvelous evening. And up ahead, somewhat similar in nature: on March 27, at 7 pm, I will be joining poets Marilyn Hazelton and Susan Weaver–two members of the writing group that I’ve been part of for decades–and folk singer, radio host, teaching artist, and community arts leader Dave Fry for one of Dave’s monthly “Dave’s Night Out” events at Godfrey Daniels, a listening room in Bethlehem PA. Dave has been generous enough to have hosted me with other poets on stage at the coffeehouse before, and the experience was terrific. His guitar accompaniment enhances the sonic delights of poetry. I’m looking forward to this one. Tickets are $15, I think, and they keep Godfrey’s running as a non-profit arts venue in our region.

I’m happy to see this book in the world. Copies can also be ordered from Kelsay Books.

~

https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Diminishment

Wet lion weather

Early March, but February’s doldrums appear to be hanging on with clouds and heavy rain in our weather (though it has been fairly mild) and my mood as well. If March comes in like a lion, it is this year a very damp panthera leo. Crocuses, yes; iris reticulata, yes; winter jasmine, yes; hellbore, yes. And the robins are chirping like mad every evening as dusk arrives–and it does arrive later each day.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-day/photo/african-lion-rain

I should feel merrier. There are some poetry-related things coming up this month, an informal reading at our friends’ house, a bit of recognition perhaps, a visit from a beloved before the month closes, and maybe even the new book. In addition, I have managed to collect and organize the first draft of yet another collection. (Don’t hold your breath–this one will be a long time coming.) My physiology has been annoyed by the rain and humidity, however, which keeps me out of the perennial beds where the winter weeds are having a party in the chilly mud. There’ll be hell to pay for this later if I can’t get out there pretty soon. But it would not be the first time–which is why I know there will be hell to pay!

I did take advantage of the many rainy, achy days by reading an amazing novel by (Nobel Prize winner) Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob. Dare I call something a masterwork? This marvelous historical novel is over 900 pages long, beautifully rendered in English by Jennifer Croft, and based upon 18th-c Polish history and the idiosyncratic Frankist religious movement. I’ve been thinking about it for days–reflecting on words, names, letters, philosophy, and even metaphysics. Several times I found myself setting the book down in admiration, wondering how on earth Tokarczuk manages to keep the thread of her numerous narratives together so beautifully.

When a book gives me that kind of joy and evokes so much wonder, I feel that being a writer might actually be a worthwhile occupation. And if the rain keeps up, I’ll be at the library looking for her other books soon.

Process: shosin

Ah, the manuscript process! It interests me even when I’m not in the midst of putting a collection together, because it seems there is no consistently efficient way to go about it–no matter what people claim. It’s fascinating to read, in interviews, articles, and blogs, how poets decide on the poems to gather into a book; I have put together three full-length collections, and yet I can’t say that I have developed a method I can rely on. Each volume seems to have had different inceptions and different means of getting to an end.

My first approach is to choose several dozen poems, about a third of which have been published in literary journals. After that, no system: I ponder possibilities. My last two books had titles early on, which helped a little, and my chapbooks have had themes that guided me about what to include or exclude. Not so this time. The process this time reminds me of how I put together Water-Rites, which evolved from my MFA thesis in 2003. In other words, I don’t really know what I’m doing! Which feels edgy and uncomfortable, and is probably therefore a good thing. I don’t want to get too confident or at ease with writing. Creativity sometimes thrives on obstacles, or on the prompting to do more, to try new things, to solve problems.

Putting Abundance/Diminishment together at the “lighthouse” in 2019

This past weekend, I started curating in earnest, laying out poems and reading them to find out whether there are resonances and “conversations” between them. One method is to try grouping the pieces by theme or style. The overall book may then be divided into sections, which is a not-common approach in contemporary poetry books. But my first attempt arrived at seven sections, which strikes me as maybe two or three too many divisions for a manuscript. Also, the sections were wildly divergent in tone and context. Some divergence keeps a book from being tonally monochrome, but I don’t want my text to throw my readers from port to starboard willy-nilly, either. As a reader, I like poetry collections that have chapters/sections. How necessary are they, though? Maybe I don’t need them.

I was thinking about Louise Glück’s book Wild Iris, which is not divided into sections and which even has many poems with the same title (seven called “Matins,” for example). But the poems appear naturally, with a sense of flow–and there are not a lot of twists from poem to poem, though there are twists within the poems.

Billy Collins’ books are not separated into sections, either. He has said he doesn’t work towards a theme or arc, just chooses poems that he thinks are good enough; and yet his latest collection, Musical Tables, is full of short poems (um, a style or theme? Possibly). I have been doing a bit of research on this through my bookshelves and online, seeking further direction. Clearly, there’s work ahead, and even though I’m in my 60s I’m still a novice when it comes to manuscript-making.

Shosin: 初心 , or “beginner’s mind,” may serve me well here. (See Suzuki’s classic book). Wish me luck? I think I’ll need it. And if you have some advice, let me know.

Waiting

Trying new things, slowly. I made a profile on Chill Subs, even though I am about to take an extended break from submitting poems to journals. The task I have recently set for myself is to curate (?) collect (?) another set of my poems to make into a new manuscript. Generally, I start with a selection of about 100 poems and winnow, revise, and substitute from that initial batch. It takes time. Eventually, though, I will get around to exploring the Chill Subs platform to see whether it makes sending out poems any easier. My guess is that it won’t help all that much, since my real problem with submitting work is a lack of motivation and uncertainty about whether a poem suits the editorial tastes of the journal–or whether the poem is even a good poem. I have trouble judging my own poems, though I feel I am fairly adept at critiquing the work other people compose. It’s that log in my own eye, perhaps (Matthew 7:3-5).

The days are lengthening, but February remains a long month, typically a time of year I feel achy and low in mood even as the woodpeckers “laugh” their noisy calls high up in the trees and sun shines brightly on the not-melting-much snow. But the snow feels right; last year we had an “open” winter, and that lack of natural snow-mulch takes a toll on the kinds of plants and animals that reside here. In another week or two, the urge to put a few seeds in seed trays will likely take hold of me. For now, however, the seeds stay nestled in their unopened packets under the desk in my kitchen.

Waiting.

This superbly handsome pileated woodpecker photo was taken by my friend Fred Zahradnik at nearby Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.

lìchūn

As is not uncommon in our region, we have a warm and sunny spate of days that evoke thoughts of spring…often thoughts that are dashed by late-arriving snow and ice storms. The days are an hour longer than they were at the December solstice, and some plants bloom or start to bloom: witch hazel, snowdrops, hellebores, skunk cabbage, winter aconite.

In the Chinese lunar-solar calendar, these weeks mark the start of spring: 立春 lìchūn. (Hence the new year commences, celebrated this year on February 10.)

I love the emergence of new growth in springtime and enjoy looking for buds and leaf-tips, but winter’s crucial to this environment. It plays its role by enforcing dormancy and restful, unperceived rejuvenation. Nonetheless, sometimes I resent the way it teases–knowing that the freezing will return and that mid-March snows are not uncommon here. That has made me think to post my poem “Spring Lies,” which appears in The Red Queen Hypothesis.
~~

Spring Lies

Sun through fog. The leaves of beech trees gleam
low under the tall expressive line of ash and poplar
whose topmost reaches, feathered by the mist,
wait budded but un-leafed. The starlings stop, are
tethered to their twigs for brief collective
breaths and urgent calls that rally all
to action once again—a whir, black-speckled sky,
the poplars barren after the birds’ brawl
moves off. An hour goes by. The meadow’s damp
expanse reveals patches and threads of green.
Here, mud seems harmless: winter has decamped.

Meanwhile, a small town near a river bank
sighs beneath a dank slide, silenced, loses
all but longitude and latitude.

People want to feel the home they choose is
safe but, at best, they stake a compromise—
fire, flood, crime rate, mud. Spring’s temperate. Spring lies.

~

Patterns

I recently finished reading Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison, a series of essays that considers the structure of written narratives in fiction, mostly in novels. Alison’s background context is the Western-developed Aristotelian dramatic arc, that “exposition/rising action/climax/falling action/denouement” plot that generally follows chronologically. She then examines several novels, modern and contemporary ones mostly, that don’t adhere to the classic structure.

I’ve read some of the books she looks at, and have decided to put others she mentions on my to-read list, but mostly what I took away from her text is my own recognition that poets have been varying structures for a very long time. I don’t mean just the patterning difference between, say, a sonnet and a pantoum or free verse but a poem’s narrative structure, its approach to chronology, imagery, argument, world-building, and more. When I was reading, I thought of examples of poems that spiral, meander, make wavelets, are fractal in nature, or explode (to use some of Alison’s terminology).

In particular, the cellular or networked ‘form’ of storytelling seems basic to poetry–each cell a room or stanza, interlocking or sitting nearby with space around each one. The space connects as well as makes gaps, leaves room for reflection and recombined connections and new patterns; sometimes the stanzas float like little blocks on the page (or screen)…interrupting the narrative and enhancing it as well. Poetry’s narrative is often collage-like, and I notice this aspect in some newer novels as well–but I read much more poetry than fiction these days. Maybe it’s time to plunge into more novels again? At any rate, Alison’s book has made me reflect on narratives, lyrical narratives, literary structure. Maybe even the structure of a new manuscript? (I ought to get to work on that.)

If you want a taste of this book, you can read part of her opening chapter, which appeared as an essay in The Paris Review, here. I don’t teach in a classroom anymore, but if I were instructing a creative writing class I might put this book on the reading list.

Cover reveal

Earlier this week, I went to a neighboring city–Reading–to record a TV segment for the local station, BCTV, that hosts a program about poetry! The host and interviewer is poet Marilyn Klimcho of Berks Bards (a non-profit poetry group in Berks Co, PA). It was truly pleasant to read a few of my poems in a professional setting (studio), but the best part of the day was just chatting with Marilyn about poems, poets, and poetry. We began our conversation half an hour before the cameras rolled and continued it afterward, so the 25 minutes that were recorded seemed just to be part of a longer, casual discussion.

I appreciated that. I’m part of a long-running critique group, but it’s seldom that I get the opportunity to pick someone’s brain and share ideas, influences, and general enthusiasm about the art of poetry the way I did in grad school. Probably could work on getting more such discussion into my life.

The “Poets Pause” segment will air in March and then reside on YouTube, so I will post that link at some point. It was kind of Marilyn to highlight The Red Queen Hypothesis and to give me a chance to mention my next collection, forthcoming from Kelsay Books later this year. Speaking of which, I do now have a photograph of its cover:

The photo is by Don Schroder, a friend who’s got a website full of lovely images from his numerous travels to the African continent as well as good shots of festivals of many kinds and floral beauties from arboretums and gardens. Go check it out!

The cernuous tulip seems appropriate to several themes I evoke in these poems–elegies and the sense of impending losses but also appreciation of beauty and brevity and life’s many colorations. Initially, I thought that I was using fewer of the animals, plants, weather and the “nature stuff” I tend to populate my poems with, because so many of the poems in Abundance/Diminishment are for or about humans. But…nope, just took another look through the manuscript in the final approval/editing process and realized that I cannot seem to leave the planet’s environment out of my work. I probably should have been a biologist, ecologist, or a science teacher instead of an instructor of English, but oh well.

Frankly, I love the simplicity of this cover, and I’m excited to have the book in print later this year…especially since it took me a decade to get The Red Queen Hypothesis into the world.