Tag Archives: Books

Some awe

In 2015 (I think), I posted about the University of Berkeley’s professor Dacher Keltner‘s studies examining the experience and emotion of awe. Now he has a book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. The subtitle’s unwieldy and promises a little much–I’m sensing a publisher’s or publicist’s input there. Keltner’s a psychologist, not a popular self-help author, but whatever…

The ways scientists attempt to study human emotions amaze me with their inventiveness. How does one conduct empirical experiments on anything so wildly subjective? (And honestly, I question whether empiricism is always as objective and reliable as scientists believe it is–though we haven’t developed a better method yet.) This book answers some of my questions about the “how” of studying emotion, which includes a good deal of physiology; after all, human emotions are based in human bodies. Qing Li’s book on forest bathing touches on some of these methods of study as well. Blood pressure, heart rate, breath rate: those can be measured, and there’s exhaustive research that shows how such aspects of our physiology connect with feelings of well-being, even before looking at the roles hormones and neurotransmitters play.

But what about awe? Isn’t that usually a feeling that takes your breath away? That might raise the pulse, that might be fear as easily as joy? Keltner writes about the line between fearful shivers of the Halloween-night kind and goosebumps that appear when humans feel awed. Also our tears–of joy, grief, physical pain, and those tears that we feel when we are “moved” by an act, a place, a work of art. He cites Rose-Lynn Fisher’s photos of tears, which I was happy to see mentioned because I love her work (a poem about those photos appears in my book The Red Queen Hypothesis). He cites Ross Gay’s poems and prose poems/essays of joy and gratitude, in books I happen to love. And Keltner offers an anecdote about poet laureate Robert Hass and the “whoa moment” that arises in “myriad cultural forms.”

Among those forms is poetry, and here’s where this text got me considering what I love in reading poetry and what I may be aiming for when writing it: the term he uses is everyday awe.

Deep awe–I’m not enough of a genius with words to create a sense of deep awe with a poem, though I admire the geniuses who have been capable of such art. But everyday awe? That’s a feeling with which I’ve been familiar since my childhood and which I have never lost sight of. For me, it arises from my favorite pastime: observation. The fog-mantled tent-spider web in tall grass, the sparrows sipping from city-street potholes, the toddler showering his baby sister with dandelion flowers, the smell of honeysuckle early in June, or campfires or cinnamon. Sea spray in my face. Sand in my shoes. The way my mother’s 90-year-old skin stretches and smooths when I stroke her arm. Skunk cabbage unfurling with the morning sun behind it. These things I can write about; the words are everyday words, and this is my everyday world. That, for me, is where the art of poetry and the experience of living intersect.

Poets, horses

My local public library’s poetry section is on the sparse side. However, after renewing my card today, I felt determined to borrow a poetry book. I considered taking out one of Louise Glück’s collections, but I already own copies of the two on the library’s shelves (Wild Iris and Meadowlands). I chose Maxine Kumin’s 1992 book Looking for Luck instead. When I returned home, I learned that Glück has died (age 80). There will be time to return to her books and to seek out her most recent collection, which I have not read; but hers is a voice readers of poetry will miss.

One thing that her poems do is to face, without shying away from, sorrow or grief. They seldom offer sociably-conventional consolations. The consolation is in the spare beauty of her observation, her control of language. That is difficult to do. When I write from despair or deep grief, I find I want to bring some kind of–call it hope?–into the last few lines. I wonder whether I’ve a tendency to want to comfort; maybe my readers, maybe myself.

I haven’t gotten very far into the Kumin book yet, but it’s clear that this collection includes numerous poems featuring horses, one of Kumin’s lifelong joys (she and her husband raised quarterhorses in New Hampshire). Her poems have taken me back in time, so to speak, to when my daughter was learning to ride. I have had a sensible regard for horses’ size, prey instincts, teeth, and hooves from early childhood–not quite a fear of horses, but pretty close–so when my then-tiny nine-year-old expressed an unwavering and stubborn interest in riding lessons, I held off until persuaded to let her “just try it.” Of course she knew what she was interested in, and of course she loved riding, despite frustrations and beasts who didn’t want to cooperate and being pitched off and stepped on while I watched and encouraged and soothed, swallowing my fears for her safety.

Equine grace, strength, personality did not quite win me over; I’ll never be much of a rider myself. But contending with horses and learning to love and commune with them was good for my child, and reading Kumin’s poems brings back how human animals can have relationships with other animals. I never quite got over horses being an “Other” for me, but observing how my daughter loved being with them inspired me to write quite a few poems of my own [see my chapbook The Capable Heart]. Reading Kumin’s work takes me to a familiar and important place in my own life.

Restorative

I often start a post with a mini-weather report; I guess that’s one way I prepare myself to write, centering myself in the environment I inhabit. Our region received much-needed rain this weekend, but I was out of town–and the weather in Chicago was glorious: cloudless, crisp, mild, a light breeze. Odd, though, how weather conditions can evoke strong memories for me. The amazing clarity of the sky and air reminded me vividly of September 11, 2001, and the two days following it when we had a run of glorious weather and a mood of intense disturbance all around us…and no plane traffic at all. It took a few moments for that recall to settle in, and a few minutes more to let the memory go so I could enjoy the present moment.

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I was in the Chicago area–Highland Park– for the book launch of The Red Queen Hypothesis. Many thanks to my publisher, Julie Dotson, and the welcoming and supportive group of poets and audience; the reading went well, and we sold some books (always a satisfying thing). I met quite a few interesting people and learned a bit about the city of Highland Park, its relatively long history, its parks, architecture, the storied Ravinia Festival, and how the city’s been coping since the July 4 tragedy last year. Travel always offers perspective. In this case, travel offered community as well: a lively community of people who support the literary arts.

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I even got to be recorded, with Jennifer Dotson as the interviewer–a first for me. Here’s the link:

My generous poet-host, Julie Isaacson, knew from my writing and my biography that I would enjoy a walk around the Chicago Botanic Gardens–and she was so right! The gardens offered just the respite I needed after airplane travel. We hadn’t the time to stroll all 280+ acres, but the chance to walk amid trees and beside water in the middle of an urban expanse was genuinely restorative.

Now I am pulling weeds and pruning for the approaching autumn, activities that allow me to settle into myself internally and which sometimes result in poem drafts. Please wish me luck on both endeavors!

Aft a-gley

Today marked the first day of the Fall semester at the college, but I had no reason to be there. Instead, I enjoyed the surprisingly fine August weather, harvested tomatoes and basil, and began the much-delayed task of weeding our numerous perennial beds. At 4 pm, I rested in the hammock after a walk and spent a few minutes reveling in retirement; though generally I’ve been too busy to find myself in reflective or relaxation mode, it was nice to pretend for awhile.

Yes–I wanted to read books in that hammock, and get to the community pool, and hang out with friends on the patio until the bats came out and the last fireflies gleamed over the meadow. Ah, but Robert Burns nailed it: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” There were so many other things to do.

That said, while I did not do the Sealey Challenge this August, I managed to read several really terrific poetry books–and the month’s not over yet! To keep this post brief, I’ll just mention the book I’m reading now, Jennifer Franklin’s stellar new collection If Some God Shakes Your House. Lots of (mostly) non-rhyming sonnets, a series of memento mori poems, and lyrically linked poems titled “As Antigone–” connect anger, grief, and suggest that anti-authoritarian acts are often more about love than bravery. The speaker keeps denying that bravery’s behind her disobedience, but these poems are brave. I found many of them utterly heart-breaking, so it may not be an “easy read” if you want something cheerful to uplift a low mood. Nonetheless, Franklin’s poems secure hope to love so intensely I could not look away and keep returning to them even before I have finished the book.

I grew up confusing opinion
with oracle. She reminded me
all men are dangerous, each time
I left the house alone….

Jennifer Franklin

It can be difficult to avoid comparing such strong poetry with…well, with what I write. I think that most writers do this occasionally, some more than others. If one is a competitive or ambitious person, analysis and comparisons may be second nature; I have known poets who feel dismayed by their own inadequacy compared to the “greats,” and poets who felt bitterly overlooked because they didn’t get the attention or lauding other writers garnered. Either way is a trap, though. In general, I look to admirable literature as something to enjoy, learn from, admire, and to analyze to figure out how it can be done. If I have ambition, it is the ambition to learn. Oh yeah, the autodidact in me again!

And speaking of ambition, or lack thereof, I am far behind in promoting my book. Next post should contain details of the book launch in the Chicago area (September 9), and perhaps other writing-related newsiness.

Classification

An admission: I’m barely competent at the promotional aspect of The Writing Life and would prefer to hole up in my house and garden and just… write. But writers need readers, and writers benefit by meeting other writers (and readers); and I’ve always been interested in learning new things, even things that are not particularly fun or that I am not naturally adept at. Such as educational learning management systems (ie, “portals”). Such as recording audiofiles of my poems. Such as contacting potential poetry-reading venues or reviewers. Or coming up with clever ways to let people know about my book.

I got a couple of responses from my initial forays, which is lucky. One of these sent me a sort of writer’s questionnaire about my book, and one of the responses I’m supposed to give is to say how I would classify my latest poetry collection. That got me mulling over the whole idea of categorization, classifying, and stereotypes. Genre–that’s easy. It’s poetry. But the sub-category of this book? uh…

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At the beach earlier this week, we found a much-broken up rock jetty that teemed with creatures. As I sat back on my heels and peered into the mixture of sand-water-rock-mullosk-kelp, I found myself thinking about Aristotle’s immanent realism (epistemology/natural philosophy), ideas he likely nurtured while examining the tide pools of Lesbos. Or I imagine that he may have done so. We humans observe, and then classify or categorize based upon these observations: similarities, differences, various adaptations–in environment, habit, behavior, construction of the being or entity itself.

I think if I had known as a child and young woman that there was a career path called “a naturalist,” I would have pursued it.

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Unclassifiable doesn’t strike me as much of a selling point. However, there are always art forms that are, to use a current term, intersectional or interdisciplinary, and creations that repurpose, alter, or reimagine the known or customary into something new and intriguing. Fellow blogger and talented poet and novelist Lesley Wheeler‘s books come to mind, as do works by Anne Carson and books from Coffeehouse Press and Tarpaulin Sky (among others).

My poetry is not experimental nor groundbreaking, though it is a little quirky; so here is my recent attempt to classify The Red Queen Hypothesis and Other Poems:

Touching on a range of topics and employing variety in poetic craft—free verse, metrical verse, rhyme, and classic forms—the poems in The Red Queen Hypothesis play with invention, science, and the environment of the everyday.  One example of these juxtapositions is the title poem: a villanelle, based on an evolutionary theory named for an episode in Alice through the Looking Glass, that sums up the corporate rat race. Sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes disturbing, the poems urge readers to observe and to reconsider what is beautiful.

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I dunno. Does that seem like a remotely interesting description?

(Really not adept at the promotional biz.)

Aristotle, supposedly.
from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/world/europe/greece-aristotle-tomb.html

Autobiographical?

Although poems can be anything–philosophies, arguments, histories, internal monologues, passions, information, invention, dreamscapes, jokes, narratives, parodies, you name it–poems sometimes parallel a writer’s individual experiences in the world in a way that would, in prose, be termed memoir. When readers think of poems that are “from the heart,” they usually mean work that authentically describes what appears to be personal acquaintance with environments and behaviors: something autobiographical, or “true.” I have tussled with this perception in some of my own work, for example, my chapbook Barefoot Girls, in which the poems describe fictional experiences that in many cases were not my own but those I heard as a teen; and yet, some of them are memoir-ish.

How to decide what categorizes memoir-ish poetry collections? On the one hand, maybe everything ever written by any poet, since connecting the personal with the so-called universal has long been considered the job of poetry. Even narrative and heroic epics, when they are lasting and successful in their aims, contain some aspects we might call personal (motives and emotional responses to a situation, for example), though the writer’s life and its events may be obscured by centuries.

But memoir is not autobiography; readers should keep that in mind. Maybe it’s Vivian Gornick who said that autobiography is what happened and memoir is how it felt–I’m sure I am misremembering, so don’t quote me on that. In a past interview in the New York Times, Sharon Olds derided her own poems as narratives–even personal narratives–but sidestepped the term autobiography; she still refers to the first-person in her own work as “the speaker.”

…even though her poems have been called
diaries, “I don’t think of it as personal,”
she said. “These are not messages in a
bottle about me,” said Ms. Olds.

“The Examined Life, Without Punctuation” by Dinitia Smith, 1999 (New York Times)

Where does that leave us as readers? I don’t know–and I think it’s okay not to know. That said, I have recently read a number of poetry collections that fall decidedly on the memoir side of the continuum and found them interesting, informative, well-written, at times beautiful and also at times hard to read (i.e., profoundly sad). If you, my reader, are intrigued by the challenge of what is or is not memoir in poetic form and are open to experiencing the circumstances and knowledge of other lives and perspectives that such work offers, here are a few books you might investigate. There are many, many more–this list is just from my more recent perusals. Not one of them is anything like the others.

Edward Hirsch, Gabriel, a poem; Jeannine Hall Gailey, Flare, Corona; Emily Rose Cole, Thunderhead; Daisy Fried, The Year the City Emptied; Sean Hanrahan, Ghost Signs; Lisa DeVuono, This Time Roots, Next Time Wings.

is or isn’t is memoir?

Novels & words

When I was about seven years old, I discovered books offered me a way to immerse myself in adventure and temporarily escape life’s discomforts. Novels, and later, poetry, were the genres I turned to most often. Though I also liked history, science, biographies, and art, there was something about a piece of sustained fiction that enthralled me so deeply I could easily ignore anything around me: the television, my siblings’ bickering, the vacuum cleaner, my parents’ calling me to dinner. In later years, immersed in a book, I risked going late to class or missing my stop on the F train. The only area of my life where I understand what is meant by hyperfocus has been reading.

Then I had children, which changed everything. I remained an inveterate reader, but I found it far easier to get through non-fiction, poetry, essay or short story collections, and literary memoirs than to devote myself to novels. It was simply too easy to get lost in a book of fiction, to wrap myself in those worlds to the detriment of my own. Too easy to become irresponsible to life’s requirements, which were suddenly so many and so urgent. If my situation had been different–let’s say, commuting by train for half an hour or more daily–I might have continued reading a hundred or more novels a year. But I was home in the rur-burbs with two young kids, and I could read only in short spurts throughout the day. Granted, I read a lot of books to my son and daughter, some of which were new to me and most of which were fictional…but a bit below my grade level.

Those children are in their 30s now, but I became so accustomed to the non-fiction genre that only recently have I begun to turn back to my first love, the novel. Granted, I did my reading-all-of-Dickens stint during covid, and I never completely abandoned reading novels; but I got out of the habit. Because my workplace office is now in the library, however, I have been picking up the occasional, usually contemporary, novel that appears on the library’s New Acquisitions display. This is where I found R.F. Kuang’s book Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution. Imagine an alternative Dickensian-era Britain, with the underlying power struggles between education and political power as per Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, and the almost-believable otherworldliness (and creative footnotes) of Susanna Clarke’s fiction…with the late-adolescent outsiders who bond over knowledge that cements the Harry Potter books…and add some genuinely academic background on linguistics and etymology.

That’s about as close as I can describe Babel by means of other books, but what I really enjoyed about the novel is the way it got me thinking about how dismayingly interconnected education and scholarly pursuits are with power structures such as governments, politics, wealth, and colonialism. Kuang deftly shows her readers how the focus on knowledge that her characters love and possess talent for inevitably leads to a narrowness in their perspectives that differs almost dangerously from an uneducated ignorance. They are good young people, but they operate as elites in a fundamentally callous system. The system either corrupts or smothers. The “fun” part of her world construct is that power operates on the use of words: on languages and their etymologies, which are magical enhancements.

But of course, power does hinge on the use of words, doesn’t it?

The question this poses in my mind has something to do with poetry, with the writing of it, the speaking of it, its use of words that are not magic but can carry with them a power to evoke that seems pretty magical at times. Reading this novel was not only entertaining (sad, thrilling, surprising)–it got me, after I’d completed hyperfocusing, to reflect on ideas that twine with the roots of poetry. To me, that’s the best takeaway from any reading experience.

Reading friends’ books

One thing about being a writer is that, after awhile, you meet other writers one way or another: sometimes through social media, Zoom events, or in person at book signings and readings; sometimes through conferences, workshops, or various educational programs; sometimes by finding local writers groups or getting an introduction to someone through a friend. When you meet writers, you get the additional privilege of reading their work. It so happens that lately, many of my writerly friends and colleagues have published books, and I’ve been busy reading them!

First, I want to mention that whenever possible, readers should purchase literary volumes from the writers themselves or from their publishers, or–if it’s an option in your region–from an independent bookseller. I do resort to ABE and Thrift and Amazon when a book has gone out of print or when the publisher prints through Amazon, but I want to remind people that the other sources will support the writers themselves or the independent small bookshops and publishers who launch these books into the world.

Now that my virtuous aside has been accomplished, here are a few of the books-by-friends-&-colleagues I’ve been consuming lately–not all of them newly-published (it takes me awhile to get around to the reading).

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The near-abstract imagery and the concrete place-names and lyricism in Heather H. Thomas’ 2018 Vortex Street appealed to me on several levels, from the scientific (a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, see “fluid dynamics”) to the particular: my husband grew up in Reading, PA, where some of these poems are suspended in recollection. I’ve also loved reading Grant Clauser’s latest, the 2021 Codhill prize-winner Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven, a collection of poems that strikes me as both deeply beautiful and tenderly sad. Poet Lynn Levin has published a terrific book of short stories, House Parties, that remind me of the wry sense of humor and wide-ranging knowledge her poems have while proving she’s also a deft hand at plot and character. Maureen Dunphy’s memoir Divining, A Memoir in Trees, brought to mind parallels with Lesley Wheeler’s memoir in poems, Poetry’s Possible Worlds. In both books, the authors have chosen a locus [an American tree, a contemporary poem] and used the exploration of that “trigger” to draw out something personal. What better way to connect with readers than through something we love and value? Which brings me to a shout-out to Jane Satterfield, whose poetry collection The Badass Brontës isn’t in this photo because I’ve already lent it to someone who’s a Brontë fan.

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In addition to the above books, I am eagerly awaiting new works from a host of other poet-friends: chapbooks by Beejay Grob (forthcoming from Moonstone Publishing) and Lisa DeVuono, poetry collections from Jerry Wemple, Jeanine Hall Gailey, and others that slip my mind at the moment. My only regret is that I have all this reading to do just as gardening season gets really underway!

Information from poems

I tried to attend a poetry event on Saturday afternoon, but the weather was against me.

The rain came accompanied by lightning strikes, high winds, falling branches, flash-flooded roads, sleet, and a little hail, all in the space of two and a half hours. I left home only to turn around after three miles. The highway was blocked with traffic piled up due to various “storm-related events” (said the weather sites). Actually, I was grateful for the storm, since our region has been unusually dry and even warm for April–my trees, shrubs, meadow, and perennials needed rain. And upon my return, I got back to reading books of poetry. This past week these included collections by Marilyn Chin, Elizabeth Metzger, Grant Clauser, Jennifer Franklin, and Natalie Diaz. Some wonderful work there.

Through these books of poems, I also gleaned lots of interesting information. That’s something many people who claim not to like poetry don’t understand: you can learn about so many things through poetry! Poems contain fascinating facts, intriguing perspectives, tons of social and cultural observations, vocabulary and terms I would not have known about otherwise…poems have been the impetus for me to learn more about astronomy, theology, historical events and people, the geography and topography of the earth and its oceans, the life cycles of insects and plants, how metal shops operate, how to catch fish or tie a fly, what it is like to “live with a disability,” how the process of dying has differed from era to era and place to place, what it is like to reside in a war zone, the traditions of people whose backgrounds differ from my own, and other so-called “non-fictional” information.

Facts, in other words. Poems may inhere in the emotional or intellectual realm in many ways, but they also can–and often do–inform. They contain facts as well as multitudes. If people did not get so hung up on trying to decode a secret meaning behind everything they encounter that appears to be a poem, they might be surprised at how much they could learn from such (usually) brief texts. Yes, it might help to look up a word or a reference or two. That can get a reader started on a whole trail of interesting and valuable knowledge, widening the worldview, changing the perspective.

It may even lead a person to recognize that facts can change depending on point of view. Contemporary science acknowledges this, but most human beings haven’t accepted it yet. Anyway, this points to one reason poetry has often been considered unconventional, subversive, even dangerous or radical: Poems can challenge the status quo of what is accepted, received, unquestioned in society’s knowledge base. Terrifying the authorities by means of information.

Go for it. Read a book of poems.

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Coming up in May, I’ll be featured once again at GoggleWorks in Reading PA, 6 pm on May 4th…it has been awhile since I was there (2012), and I look forward to it!

Bookish decisions

In the past two weeks, I’ve read two contemporary poetry collections that I didn’t, er…love…or perhaps what I mean is I did not respond to them the way I enjoy responding to poems (and no, I will not be naming titles, though I will be giving these books away). While that is a let-down of sorts, I also started reading naturalist Marcia Bonta‘s Appalachian Autumn–which I do love. The book takes an environmental-diary approach that I have enjoyed in other naturalist writers’ work and which, no doubt, I relate to partly because I am also a near-daily diarist of my own backyard; Bonta has much to teach me, because she has a naturalist’s education and long experience. This is one of four Appalachian Seasons books she’s authored, and maybe I should have started with Spring, since that equinox has just passed. I found myself interested in the story this book tells of her family’s legal struggles with local lumbermen and absentee landlords, however. It’s an experience with which, sadly, my beloveds and I are familiar.

And I also began reading a book of poetry I have found exceptionally compelling–Rebecca Elson’s A Responsibility to Awe. Perhaps more on that in a future post. So books continue to enrich my life. I hope that is always the case, but I’ve seen how changes in human neuroplasticity can affect even the most bookish among us. More reason never to take the joys of reading for granted–and to keep my library card current.

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In future, I plan to use the library card more than the credit card when it comes to books; but I know I’m weak. Besides, many of the small or indie press poetry books I relish are not easy to find in public library collections. One of my priorities this year is to winnow the home bookshelf stacks, to keep only what I really cannot bear to part with or am sure I will read or refer to again. But how can I be sure? The book lover’s dilemma, isn’t it? Nonetheless, there are definitely texts I can part with if I just take the necessary time to go through the collection. I can donate them to a public library, and even though many of them won’t get curated onto those shelves, at least I will be supporting an institution I value. I have been referring to this process of lightening my bookshelf loads as “culling,” but that word tends to have a negative connotation. I’d like to remind myself of the positive aspects of giving some of my books away: good for me, good for other readers, good for the authors of these books whose work may be discovered by other readers. Less to pack if we ever move, less for my children to deal with when that time comes. Yeah, I’m thinking ahead.