Creative writers are often asked where they get their ideas from. In my own case, the answer to that varies a great deal. Sometimes ideas arise from personal experience, of course, but one’s life offers only so much material if you are a relatively staid person like me. Topics for poems can arise from recent headlines or from histories, written or oral; from conversations overheard in a grocery line; from stories other people tell me; from folk tales; from science books; from dreams; from works of art, and numerous other sources. It’s this wide array of possibilities that make the concept of the creative-writing prompt so popular. A quick Google search for “creative writing prompts” offered well over 20+ pages of entries, in several languages.
I have written pieces based upon prompts, especially when in a workshop or class, or when I feel rather tapped out of my own imaginative source material. I’m especially fond of writing that stems from viewing or experiencing a work of art–sculpture, painting, musical composition, dance, installation art (ekphrastic poems). Generally speaking, though, that’s not from whence my poems originate.
I can’t really say why I feel an urge to put down in writing specific reflections about something that’s caught my attention–or even what sort of experience evokes my response. Maybe I feel intrigued by an image, a detail, or an ambiguity–a question arises in my mind that I tussle with for awhile. Then, I may compose a draft and let it sit. Two days. Two years. Longer. Lately I’ve been revising some old poems and have realized I no longer recall what their incipience was. Which can be a good thing, because I am no longer wedded to the “reason” I wrote them and can instead consider whether they can be crafted into decent poems.
I am also working on a manuscript that I let sit for at least six years. An idea got into my mind after reading Robert Burton’s 17th-century book on depression, The Anatomy of Melancholy, quite some time ago (2017, perhaps?). I took a stab at writing what seemed to be evolving into a historical fiction story, which is not my usual approach (I have zero practice at plot and dialogue). Then, I stopped. As one does. But the topic lodged in me somewhere, I suppose, and early this year I returned to it. What if, I wondered, the draft could be restructured into a series of prose poems? There might be a sort of hybrid novella-poem in the earlier draft.
That’s more or less what I’m developing, at least for now, and we’ll see what if anything emerges. It’s keeping me interested, which I like, and the experiment feels fresh compared with “writing what I know,” or writing “how” I know. Because yes, of course we ought to write what we know; but we also know about human beings, and we have imaginations, and anything is possible.
At one of our local used book stores,* I found a copy of William Gass’ 1976 On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry. Gass writes in a style one might term prolix; but if you are like me and sometimes appreciate lists, wordplay, allusions, lengthy sentences, and fine distinctions in your sentences–as well as humor–while exploring the limits and the stretches of words and language, this book-length essay on the word/concept/color/iconography/sexual innuendo/moody attitude and conflicting meanings of the word blue might appeal. I’ve been feeling a bit on the blue side lately, hence my attraction to the book (though I do like Gass as a writer, as long as I don’t have to read too much of him at one time). And guess? It cheered me! [I will caution the reader who avoids the use of “bad language” that Gass employs such words in this essay, for purely intellectual reasons…]
Granted, my feeling blue has a different tone from other uses of the word: blue postcards, sexual meanings of blue–I’m reminded of the movie “I Am Curious (Blue)” which was considered racy and given an X rating when I was a kid, though the blue in that title referred to the Swedish flag, apparently. My blue is the blue of songs like “Baby’s in Black” or Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album. Or just that classic music form, the blues.
And I’ll get over feeling this way. That’s what moods are: feelings that come and go, transitory. It always seems as though low moods stay around longer than neutral or cheerful ones, but many scientific studies show that it is our perception and memory of the negatives that make us think we are sadder for longer. Even Wikipedia has an entry on negativity bias, with some sources if you want to check things out yourself. As I age, I realize that bad moods and sad events and past mistakes don’t need to stick around as much as I used to think. A bit of mediation, some practice and readings in Zen and in psychology, a lengthening perspective on life’s vicissitudes, some counseling and even some medicine; whatever it is that’s brought me here, I recognize that before long the depressive hours will lift. Also I know some methods of thinking that assist me to move to more neutral ground.
I will note there are many kinds and hues of blue, enough for Gass to write 112 pages on it and for the word to appear in 85 files of my own poetry during the past 12 years–I did a quick word search just to find out. That is in the files alone, and each file contains many poems. so I can only imagine how much I have over-used the word in my writing life! Certainly, not all of those blues are sad. Many are beautiful, sunny, the blues of blueberries and balloon flowers, the New Mexico sky, mountains and oceans; teal-blues and turquoise, the bright royal blue I like to wear, the pale color of robin’s eggs.
Blue. It has always been my favorite color.
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*The bookstore is Apport, in Emmaus, PA. Ben has an active Instagram feed and really cool catalogues of odd books, art, and ephemera.
*The first “blue” above is an encaustic painting by Deborah Barlow; the second is at Bandolier National Monument; the third is of the Blue Ridge Mountains; the last was taken at an inlet bay, maybe in Delaware–I’ve forgotten.
Last year at this time, I had covid and was languishing in bed, unable to tend to the garden. A regional drought meant I really should have been watering the new plants; and it also kept the weeds firmly rooted, fighting for dominance in the vegetable patch. This year, I timed a trip to New Mexico just when I ought to have been harvesting spinach and planting out tomatoes, beans, and squash. Oops. And then it rained buckets the whole time I was away (much-needed rain, but…). Therefore, the garden situation was not ideal. But garden situations seldom are ideal because Nature does its own thing regardless of my plans.
At any rate, eastern Pennsylvania finally moderated its weather enough that I got the weeds and the seeds and transplants more or less under control this past week–“control” being a general term subject to, well, Nature. The peonies bloomed gorgeously on schedule, as did the nefarious multiflora roses and Russian olives that plague the hedgerow. The catbirds and Eastern kingbirds are back; the robins’ first brood has hatched; the orioles are insistent in the walnut trees and brilliant in the garden, chasing the barn swallows. I’m not doing much writing, though I drafted one or two beginnings of poems. Outdoors takes precedence–not that I can’t write out of doors, I often do so. But poems can wait in a way the garden cannot.
The new anthology, 20 years after the initial one, has poems by about 180 poets–yes, I am one of them–covering the corners and the center of the Keystone State. I like it even better than the first collection, and it is clear the editors learned much from the experience of curating poems and creating a cohesive “experience” of the regions. Granted, since I know both of the editors personally and appreciate their poetry and their visions, I may be biased. But that’s okay. Objectively, I truly get how huge an undertaking this was and how well it has turned out. For educators, there is a section at the close of the anthology full of suggestions for reading, writing critically, and writing creatively based on this anthology, and even in comparison with the previous one. As both editors are college professors who teach creative writing and critical writing, these appendices are well-thought out and worthwhile.
I miss the aridity of New Mexico, which seems to benefit my overall health. And I miss my daughter immensely. But springtime in eastern PA has many compensations, not the least of which are blooming even as I write.
….and the drought continues into mid-November. This is a very long stretch of dry weather, and the rivers I’ve crossed recently–the Delaware, the Schuylkill, the Lehigh, the Susquehanna–are looking mighty low. Little islands are showing up in the center of the riverbeds. Tree roots visible along the banks. I found this government website that filled me in concerning the current situation. Looking at the charts, wow.
My low mood continues, for a number of reasons: the recent political news, the continuing wars, my mother’s consistent decline, the drought, my physical distance from my grown children on the other side of the continent, a friend’s death, a bunch of recent poetry rejections, the fact that I can’t go into a store without hearing Christmas music…granted, some of these reasons are not earth-shattering but the effect is, well, cumulative. Han VanderHart’s recent blog post speaks to the rejection, reminding me of things I know and should keep in mind. The challenge is just getting through and occasionally finding delights at which to marvel, for the delights surely endure. Ross Gay’s Book of Delights is my book group’s next selection, a book I’ve read before but which–at this particular moment–will probably benefit me when I re-read it.
I also feel creatively dried-up, and that’s dismaying. Reading novels (see my last post) offers peasant distraction but seldom gets me writing my own work. I’ll never be a novelist. I’ve been reading poetry, online and in books, as I always do; yet right now, the poems I have been reading, no matter how wonderful, have not inspired me to work on my own.
I’m not even revising! This is not my usual self, not my poetry “norm,” not a space in which I feel happy or well-regulated or at least inspired. Perhaps I have encountered the dreaded writer’s block. Or rather, a drought of some kind, an inner sluggishness of the imaginative flow. Despite the glorious stretch of sunny days and moonlit nights, the incessant blue sky reminiscent of those high-altitude desert environments I seem to love, despite these delights, I’m discontented.
How very human of me.
Listen, there’s a trio of redtail hawks along the woodlot. Their nasal “screeee” and their graceful swoops between the bare branches catch my attention. Sunlight on the field tells me, “You could at least get outside and take a walk.” Okay. Can do.
Last week took a lot out of me, many reasons for that, mostly keeping those reasons to myself. I needed some rest from exertion and from social media, so I’m re-reading Les Misérables. In which Hugo seems to be trying hard to convince readers that compassion and goodness can be awakened in the hardest of hearts through the process of gentle persistence and genuine decency. Radical decency, as a friend of mine put it. Well.
I won’t write that off as an impossibility, since lord knows many things that seem impossible are not. But yes, Hugo was writing fiction, and one turns to fiction for escapism but also for reference, and for understanding human actions and feelings, and for perspective, and for information. I just completed Richard Powers’ Overstory, which offers a vast range of perspectives on the above-mentioned and adds ecology and forest infrastructure and the psychology of groups into the mix. Novel-reading has been giving me a sense of overarching historical range that lifts me a bit from my too-close focus on my own small life and my ability to sustain hope and make art. That acts as a form of recuperation, if you’re me.
This week, though, happens to be full of poetry. Tomorrow, I’m attending a reading at a nearby public library, where I’ll see many poetry colleagues, the sorts of folks who create a community of local writers. Friday, I’ll be reading with Montgomery County’s Poet Laureate, my friend Lisa DeVuono, at the retirement community where my mother resides. Saturday, I’m heading down to Philadelphia to read with another long-time poetry community in celebration of Philadelphia Poets, a long-running zine established decades ago by the late Rosemary Cappello.
It is good I have had some reading-novels time, and it is good I’ll be having some reading-with-poets time ahead. Both are nourishing to my soul. I haven’t been writing much lately, but I will be eventually. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for the drought to break…we got a fraction of an inch of rain a couple days ago, and I really hope there is more ahead.
Whatever you happen to need to nourish your own soul, make time for it.
The temperatures here in this eastern Pennsylvania valley have been mild, even warm, which isn’t that unusual for October, anymore. What’s different is the lack of rain. Northern New Mexico had more rain the past three weeks than our region did. Now that is unusual, and a bit worrisome. Our local trees have been enduring numerous stresses in recent years: irregular rainfall, invasive insects, road construction and housing developments, run-off, and viruses. Droughty autumns and winters do not make for resilient, happy trees and other perennials, unless they are desert varieties.
I love the desert, but the Lehigh Valley (where I live) is not primed to be a desert. We need the temperate moisture of rivers flowing down to sea level and 50″ of rain each year. It would be interesting to learn xeriscaping and how to garden in low-moisture regions, but only if I were living in one. I’ve been concerned for a long time about the climate changes I see occurring around me, noted the differences year by year in my gardening journal, tried to limit my own water use even in this temperate, damp-ish area. But. On my own, I cannot conserve enough water to keep the 70-foot-tall tulip trees and large oaks and colorful maples healthy. Nor the soil and its microorganisms, fungi, understory plants, and useful arthropods.
True, sometimes the long days of rain and overcast skies we get in autumn, winter, and spring feel oppressive; and they make my joint pains flare. But I count for little, whereas the earth counts for a lot. I’d gladly trade some low-barometer aches for a vibrant, healthy local climate.
~
The frosts, though light and few, are arriving now. Maybe we will get rain by Election Day? I have too many hopes for next week. Best not to speculate; I can wait.
In the meantime, I have just finished reading Cindy Hunter Morgan’s very beautiful new collection,Far Company, and I recommend it, especially if you like poetry with an environmental resonance and poems of memoir and recalled experience. Purchase it from Wayne State, not Amazon, if you can. To frustrate a certain billionaire, not that he will notice.
I have experienced two autumns this October: one in New Mexico, one in Pennsylvania. In the American Southwest, high up in the world, the cottonwood trees that hug every available water source were going a brilliant gold while I was there. Any view above a creek or river revealed a winding path of yellow–along the Chama, along the Rio Grande. The tiny-leaved oaks were turning brown-leaved and dropping scads of acorns along the paths. The oranges and reds are mostly there year-round, on the mesas and in the canyons.
It was wonderful to experience a poetry workshop with Anita Skeen and Cindy Hunter Morgan and to learn how books are made by hand, wonderful to draft some poems using color imagery and ekphrasis, wonderful to meet some fascinating people with whom I enjoyed pushing past my/our comfort zones and into art forms we may have been a bit less comfortable with. These are reasons to attend an instructor-led workshop, seminar, or residency. I spent part of last September in New Mexico, but it wasn’t the most spectacular time for autumn coloration–whereas October certainly gleams in northern NM!
When I returned home, I had missed “peak season” for color in Pennsylvania; my husband said that came a bit early this year because of drought. But it’s still very bright here. The maple leaves haven’t all fallen, most of the tulip trees are still yellow, the hickories haven’t reached peak gold yet, and many of the sassafras are that warm coral color I love so well. The burning bushes? Ours hasn’t dropped its bright fuchsia-maroon leaves. It’s a vivid presence at the corner of the house.
~
Therefore, I have two autumns this year, one sea-level Mid-Altlantic East, and one high-altitude Southwest.
Which strikes me as an abundance of beauty and color. So I am continuing the theme of last week’s workshop. Here’s a new draft of a new poem just for the joy of it. [This fall, those of us in the USA could use a bit of joy.]
I don’t have a title for it yet. Maybe you can help me think of one.
~
The difference between orange leaf color and orange rock color. Between the greens of grass and juniper, the pale dun of meadow’s die-back and beige sand stretching westward to the mountains. Even the clear sky’s blueness on fair, mild mornings differs by an almost measurable degree. Something to do with altitude and aridity, the science of which I don’t really understand. Life’s variations and hues— striated like cliffs, buttes, mesas, like hills of maple and hickory in fall— beautiful and strange. Even when I close my eyes, color- memories, all those shades I can’t define, sift through my skin. Into blood. Into bone.
I’m taking a break from the garden and from the news cycle and indulging in a different form of work: “Making Poems, Making Books,” a 4-day workshop with poets Anita Skeen and Cindy Hunter Morgan at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM. Yes, I’ll be making my own book–a small accordion book. There are about a dozen of us in the workshop, which is centered around the idea of color. Autumn in northern New Mexico offers a range of hues somewhat different from the post-equinox colors of eastern Pennsylvania. Perhaps that will inspire me. The last time I took a workshop here was in 1993, and I learned how to draw/paint in chalk pastels. A long time ago–and yet, walking around the dusty alfalfa field in the center of the Ranch’s office and dorm buildings, I felt completely at home. As if I’d been here just last year.
This week differs from the artist residency I attended at Joya-AiR in May because I’m part of a class getting instruction in how to make a hand-made book and also participating in feedback on our writing. Nonetheless, every afternoon there’s a nice stretch of time to work on solo projects, hike, drive to some nearby sites of interest, or nap. I will admit I have been doing more napping than I had hoped. The high altitude, dry air, walking more than usual (on rocky trails) and the emotional energy it takes to learn a new skill and meet new people have conspired to creep up on me some afternoons.
That’s fine with me, though, because I’m banking many images, quotes, anecdotes, ideas, prompts–all the things memory can do.
And I am drafting some new work, so there’s that as well.
~
Enjoying the session and the people, third best thing about this trip. Being back at Ghost Ranch, second best thing, though it is perfectly wonderful. Best thing? Getting some time in the Albuquerque area to visit with my daughter and her partner. And their dog. And their cat, guinea pigs, and beehives. According to her, bees kept in hives (apiculture) are considered considered agricultural animals.
Who knew?
It’s time for my nap, I think. But I have wanted to post about this workshop/retreat before I get home again, just to remind myself of how grateful I am to be here, to be writing, to be seeing my child, to be–yes–escaping from the media frenzy as the presidential election looms. If that seems like something you need, as well, all I can do is send a few cheerful photos I took at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.
During the past few weeks, I have been reading–one at a time, with pauses–the essays in Ross Gay’s book Inciting Joy. His earlier book (The Book of Delights) was easier, a bit less complicated. About, you know, gratitude–even though he describes his father’s death in the first essay of that one. He gets to something about grieving in the 13th “Incitement” of this book, however, that made me put the text down and say to myself: This is what I have been trying to get my poems to do for some time now.
(I did pick it up again and finish reading it, by the way.)
He insists that we remember how transforming grief is. Not can be, but is. Always: “When that one thing [that we grieve] changed, everything changed. Light through the trees in October now different. The sound of the playground…cooking a meal. The future. The past. All of it changed. That is what the griever is metabolizing.” He points out this metabolizing can’t be timed, that grieving pays no attention to whether it has been a day or a year or decades: “It seems to me that grief is not gotten over, it is gotten into. And the griever teaches us, or reminds us, there is no pulling it apart. Because grieving, alert to connection, is never only one person’s experience.”
Maybe we grieve for one person, or one beloved companion animal. Maybe we grieve that our youth is over, that our children are grown, that our favorite mom & pop store has been razed to make way for a Starbucks. Or perhaps we grieve for our planet, as Greta Thunberg does: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words…People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.” There are so many reasons why we feel loss. Loss is what life offers us, loss but also transformation. I think what Gay tries to say in his recent essays is that because there is something to sorrow that we all can connect with, our grief itself can connect us, give us understanding–maybe even joy.
A complicated kind of joy. A joy that acknowledges that life can be tough and sad. And instead of reeling away from people who are clearly–and sometimes not so clearly–suffering, we could connect instead, even though we are also terrified of suffering. Maybe that is another reason I became a hospice volunteer years ago, after my dad had been in and out of the ICU frequently, even though I had spent my childhood and many of my adult years being frightened of death and dying.
Good poems offer readers that sense of connection, which Gay and others sometimes refer to as mycelial (Lesley Wheeler in her poems, Robin Wall Kimmerer in her books and Merlin Sheldrake in his, the movie “Fantastic Fungi”…among others). My favorite poems by my favorite poets, now that I think about it, have always had that effect on my heart: recognition of connectedness with other humans or with other beings, with the environment, with the past-and-future, with (thank you, Walt Whitman) the Kosmos. The recent interactions I had and connections I found at the Joya residency cemented this fundamental awareness, that all of us are part of our huge, interconnected experiences in life.
Of course, writing strong work isn’t easy, doesn’t often happen; but here’s the place in our mutual social connectivity where intentions really do matter–because the intention impels us to work, practice, and dream. The intention is to create and, through whatever we create, to extend our human network. NOT our much-ballyhooed “social networks.” Those can go to hell (and we can’t take ’em with us).
Anyway, such are my intentions for working in the world of words, of poetry. And that’s also the reason I read so much poetry, in case you were wondering.
Probably because I have been stalled on my manuscript (see previous post), I’ve been reading blogs and speaking with friends about the whole “project” of publishing poetry books. People sure have widely varying opinions. It had occurred to me there would likely be some controversy over this even in a world as small as poetry; but I am surprised at how heated poets, and publishers, can get concerning the whys, whens, and hows of poetry collections. Whether a poet’s work is ready, for example, or–as some folks might put it–worthy of a book or chapbook, and when in one’s “career” is the time to put a book out into the world…and whether the time it takes and the costs of submitting and contest fees are worth the effort or act as a barrier to the underfunded, the less-known, and the uninitiated (or to people who just are not very good poets).
Where a writer is in her poetry (career, journey, artistic path, life, whatever) surely makes a difference in whether or when she pursues manuscript-making. Some folks suggest getting a chapbook out as soon as one has enough good poems because a chapbook looks good on a poet’s CV. Others insist it is better to wait and get work published poem-by-poem in journals and literary sites.
Some poetry publishers are more selective than others, so writers new to the process are likely to feel discouraged when they keep getting rejections from these “top tier” places. There are publishers who are less selective, but sometimes writers get warned away from having their manuscripts produced by a so-called poetry mill. “Get your books accepted and published by the best-regarded publishers,” they’re advised; a chapbook-mill press will not look as good on the CV.
But getting that manuscript accepted by the best-regarded place can take a long, long time. (Speaking from experience!!) What to do?
I’d advise poets who want to compile a manuscript to think about what the purpose of doing so is. There are more reasons than you might realize. Are you trying to get a job in a creative writing program? Are you trying to stand out in the crowd? Do you want to publish mostly for your friends and relatives? Or for yourself? Do you need publication in order to stay on the tenure track? Does your manuscript represent the creative output of a difficult time that you want to make art from and share with others? Are your poems gathered together in order to inform, to argue/convince, to entertain, to be relevant in the moment? Is your manuscript a kind of personal document, a memoir in verse and, if so, do you view it as important for other people who may relate to your experiences? How crucial is is to have the book published soon? Do you think it is important to have the book be a prizewinner?
These are just a few things to consider. Other reasons abound. And at any rate, thinking about what you want your book to be or do or accomplish should help you to decide the where and how of getting it into print. Or if that is even necessary. These days, poets can garner quite a few readers by having poems that get posted online in literary blogs, journals, social media platforms, and other sites. Do you really need, or care about, having a book? What makes the process “worth it”?
Then there’s self-publishing–which, thanks to Lulu, Amazon, Blurb, BookBaby, and similar businesses is not that hard to do–and which no longer carries quite the stigma of “vanity presses” (though if you are trying to get tenure, I’d advise against this choice). Not all of us feel up to learning the ins and outs of templates and design limits that these businesses offer. Some presses began their lives as ways to self-publish or to publish the work of a poet whose work wasn’t getting much attention; Lamont Steptoe started Whirlwind Press (now defunct) to publish Dennis Brutus‘ poetry, then started publishing his own work, then morphed the press into Whirlwind Magazine for several years. Of course, there is no promotion at all; poets have to do their own PR even with some very good presses, and self-publishing requires even more.
Then there are the “mills” I mentioned earlier. These would be poetry publishers that, critics note, are less “discerning” than the hard-to-crack literary presses. The ones I know of are not as predatory as vanity presses and are easier to work with than the Amazon-style self-publishing route. Some of them offer promotional advice or social media activity, and some may invite their authors to participate in regional group readings. And in fact, I have had one book and a chapbook or two published by presses I’ve heard referred to as mills. I suppose the publishers might object to the characterization, but it doesn’t bother me.
My feelings on getting my books in print have evolved over the years, and I think that they should. I am no longer a young poet new to the challenge of getting my poems into magazines (they were all print when I was starting out) and thinking about whether I wanted to work in the creative writing field or not. As it turns out, while I did earn an MFA, I never really used it in the academic area where I ended up. But I attend writing conferences, engage in critique, send my work out for publication–singly and in manuscript form–which are all parts of the poet’s career (if you can call it a career).
At this point in my life, I want to make books! I love books, and I love reading poems in books and not on a screen of any kind. It doesn’t matter to me if my books win prizes (though one did!) or are published by top-tier literary presses (er, no…), or if they ever result in my earning anything from my writing (not yet…). Yes, I want my manuscripts to be worthy–by which I mean that a few readers find something of value and enjoyment in them. On balance, that seems good enough for me.
ann e michael 