Tag Archives: Olga Tokarczuk

In residence

It’s been some time since I was away at a residency with other artists and writers. Conferences, yes, but residencies are different–more intimate in scope, less social-life activity, more one-to-one conversations, and a great many overlaps in interests, inspirations, and approaches. The intensity doesn’t feel at all like the intensity of a large conference such as AWP, where I often feel I must cram my schedule with panels, meet-ups, and attendance at presentations and where the exchanges, while often intellectual, generally require the context of careers and situational details. At a residency, we certainly don’t avoid topics like families and day jobs; but such getting-to-know-you chats are secondary to conversations about art, artists, reading, technical methods, responses to environment, discussions about intent and audience, aesthetic and artistic philosophy.

A residency also offers that key component of creativity: unstructured time (or, time one gets to structure to one’s own liking). I cannot stress enough the value of reflection, contemplation, and woolgathering; the residency I attended in Spain offered this to a degree I haven’t had in quite some time, and I relished it. I took along Olga Tokarczuk’s book Flights, perfect reading for a plane-bus-train trip, and Mark Doty’s Deep Lane, contemplative and fearless poems that urged me to spend the necessary time with my thoughts and my environment.

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It was interesting to hear about the methods and processes of other participants who were there the week I was. While all of them write in some form, their creative work is visual: Photography, film, digital art (animation, 3D, comics), performance/performative art, painting, multimedia. At first, I felt a bit out of step since what I “produce” is…well, abstract, I guess? And the means a person uses to create poems is mostly invisible; it’s not as though you can see us at work. A person at a desk, sitting on a rock, or lying under a tree doesn’t appear to be in the process of making anything and, except when the written work appears in print/online, the “artwork” isn’t something one can show to others. As I began to converse more with the visual artists, however, once again I experienced the joy of discourse with fellow creatives, no matter their discipline. I certainly have friends who are sculptors, painters, photographers, ceramicists, dancers, musicians, actors, & craftspeople of all stripes–and I don’t feel out of step when talking with them. I suppose it is my initial hesitation around “strangers” that kicks in. Shortly into the residency, we were no longer strangers.

The word la joya is Spanish for “jewel,” and it can also refer to a geographic hollow–a bowl-like area, which is fitting since the cortijo is situated in a sort of high valley surrounded by the mountains of the Parque Nacional de Sierra Nevada. On my last day at Joya-AiR, we held an artist talk to inform one another of our creative work and processes, influences, and possible future directions we imagine our work going in. Some of the other participants will be working there for another week or two! Which would be lovely, but I could not extend my stay at this time. Nonetheless, the residency has been very useful and productive for me. I feel so grateful to the people at Joya and to my Best Beloved for encouraging me to attend.

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.