IWSG: Choosing favorites

 

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the October 1 posting of the IWSG are Beth Camp, Crystal Collier, and Cathrina Constantine!

October 1 question - What is the most favorite thing you have written, published or not? And why?

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 Now that's a doozy of a question isn't it? 

 I mean, if I pick a favorite, am I denigrating the rest of my own work? I love all my book-children and their story-siblings!

 But I think I actually do have an answer: it's a poem. 

Happiness—

that elusive animal,

that fluttery, giddy bird—

can only truly be held

when your chosen love

chooses you.  

Strange how slight butterfly wings

so delicately built

(on trust, on faith, on love)

can make you fly.

I don't generally seek publication for my poetry. Poetry is more something I write for myself and those I love, than something I wrote to share with the world.

That's what makes this one special. I wrote it for my husband when we got engaged. We used it on our wedding announcements. He *glowed* when I showed it to him…and the kiss I got afterwards? (fans self). That's how mushy-sweet we are :-)

 

And here we are quite nearly twenty years later, still flying. 

Art is Essential: Shakespeare in Quarantine

Critical Read put out a call recently for short nonfiction posts about art that is seeing you through the pandemic. They rejected my submission, but were kind about it and invited me to submit something else, with a focus on an American artist. I probably will. In the meantime, I highly recommend checking out the posts on their site (and, of course, mine below).

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Shakespeare in Quarantine

I often turn to poetry when my soul is troubled, especially older, metered poetry. The rhythm soothes me while the language pulls me out of my here and now and transports me to another time and place. This time, it’s Shakespeare seeing me through the quarantine.

Shakespeare’s birthday, April 23, is also the day that my husband and I had our first date, on which we watched a movie production of one of the Bard’s plays, 10 Things I Hate About You. We’ve made a tradition of celebrating our anniversary with a Shakespearean performance every year since as near to the day as we can manage, live when possible, recorded when not.

So, it seems apropos that it is Shakespeare in a thoroughly modern context that is pulling me through right now. Each day, I wait for Patrick Stewart to upload his daily sonnet video to social media and I find a quiet space to sit and listen alone, just me and Sir Patrick and the day’s verse. As I write this, he’s been recording a sonnet a day for nearly two months.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Patrick Stewart (@sirpatstew) on Mar 21, 2020 at 4:25pm PDT

He began with Sonnet 116 “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments” which of course, I already loved. I fell in love with it when I first read it as an undergrad, and again when Kate Winslet’s Marianne of Sense and Sensibility quoted it breathlessly, and yet again when Sir Patrick Stewart read it to his wife who held a phone to record the moment for us.

Words written more than four hundred years ago are performed for me by a spaceship captain in the privacy of my own home. What a gift!

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What art is seeing you through quarantine? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

IWSG: Setting Sail on the Literary Seas

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking.

If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

The awesome co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSG are T. Powell Coltrin, Victoria Marie Lees, Stephen Tremp, Renee Scattergood, and J.H. Moncrieff! I hope you'll check out their blogs as well as some of the others on this blog hop after you see what I have to say. 

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January 8 question - What started you on your writing journey? Was it a particular book, movie, story, or series? Was it a teacher/coach/spouse/friend/parent? Did you just "know" suddenly you wanted to write?

My first inklings (ha!) that I might be a writer came very early.

First grade. I had this teacher (so many great stories start that way, don't they?): Mrs. Asdorf or maybe Alsdorf.  I remember thinking she had a weird name.

To my memory, she was very short. She had to be because she didn't seem tall to me, and I was in first grade! 

I also thought she was very old.  I have no idea if she actually was or not. This is a kid's eye view after all.

When I try to picture her, her face is all mixed up with my great-grandmother's face, in the way that many childhood memories are mixed up and distorted. She might have been all of thirty. She might have been eighty. I don't know.

Mrs. Asdorf loved poetry. We had this project where we copied poems neatly (we were still learning the mechanics of writing after all), and made illustrations for them, then collected them in a folder made out of wallpaper scraps.  My first blank book.

I loved this project.  I'd always been drawn to poetry. Before I even went to school, I memorized my Mother Goose book and, thanks to my mother and all our hours in the library, had a love for Amelia Bedelia and Dr. Suess, children's books in love with the sounds of words.

I loved writing. I liked the feel of the pen or pencil on paper. I'd get this urge I thought of as "itchy fingers" and have to draw or copy something. (It still happens, though now, mostly I type).

At some point, Mrs. Asdorf came by to check my work. I'd picked poems by William Wordsworth and Emily Dickinson and was dutifully copying them down.

I don't remember exactly what she said, but I walked away with the realization that I could write poems myself, that it was okay to make up your own! So, I did.  I wrote a little set of rhymed couplets about Beauty (capital B Beauty; very high-concept). Here are the ones I remember:

Beauty is in the great, tall trees
Bending over in the breeze

Beauty is in each butterfly
That just happens to flutter by

It ended with one about "smile" and "while" that I can't remember fully anymore.  It was very well received and I began my first career as an occasional poet.   I wrote poems for birthdays, holidays, seasons, thank yous.  They were published in little school newsletters and once or twice in the teeny tiny local newspaper. I read them over the announcements for the school to hear.

After that I always wrote. I kept journals. I wrote poems and stories. After reading Little Women, I thought I could be Jo March and earn money to help my family with my stories. Of course, no one pays children for their stories, but I did get lots of positive attention. In high school, I even wrote most of a novel about a tennis team romance.

By college though, I had been doused with enough realism to know that I needed to do something else for a living. So, I trained to become a teacher. 

English of course. And Spanish. 

I still wrote. I just didn't think that writing was something I could do for a living. Especially not since my form of choice was poetry. I figured I could still be a writer, on the side.

Then I was off into the world, making my way as a teacher, learning what it meant to be an adult, finding new people, places and things to love.

As many women do, I hit a lull in my public writing when I became a mother.  My first daughter was absorbing and most of the writing I did at that time was about her.  Teaching and mothering were my top priorities, so writing took a decided backseat, though I still managed to create a few essays and poems and even see them published. Life went on, as it does. I divorced, moved, lost people I loved, moved, remarried, moved, became a mother again, moved.

I wrote my way through all of it.   The writing was all very personal.  It was how I worked my way through whatever I was working my way through.  How I made decisions. How I cherished things. How I grieved and how I celebrated. It was how I found out what I was feeling and thinking. The thoughts and feelings just whirled around unformed until I recorded them, sorting them out, pinning them down and analyzing them.

Then, after the birth of my second child, when I was going through postpartum depression, my husband encouraged me to reconnect to my writing and I joined a group of writers.  All of them were writing novels, so I decided to give it a try.  It was hard, writing something so long.  In fact, it took me four years (not counting the abandoned first novel) to write the first draft of my first novel, another year after that to shape it into something readable, a few months after that to make it good.

That book is not published, though I'm hoping it will be someday. Currently, it's shelved for revisions. I've learned a lot since then, so I know I can make it better and then I'll shop it around again.

But I've written more since then. Three of them have been published. You can get them at bookstores and everything! I'm writing another one right now.

I am a woman who writes every day, who sees the world through the filter of her art, who doesn't know what she thinks until she processes it in words. I'm making a writing life, and my work is published and read. I'm working towards someday earning my living from my words alone.

So, thanks, Mrs. Alsdorf. In a way, this was all your idea. I'm so lucky to have had you as my teacher. Your nudge took :-)

A to Z: Letters to Dead Writers: Anne Sexton

 This month I'm writing one post for each letter of the alphabet, all on the theme of "Letters to Dead Writers." You can see my theme reveal post here and learn more about the blogging challenge here.

Today's writer is Anne Sexton. I'm cheating a little, using her for X since she has an X in her name, but I don't have a favorite writer whose name begins with X, so here we go!
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Dear Ms. Sexton,

 What a voice!

When people talk about a whiskey and cigarettes voice, they mean you, I think, whether we're literally listening to a recording of you reciting your poetry, or reading it for ourselves on the page.

It's scratchy and hard-edged either way, sounding as if there had been a lot of shouting to get to where we are now.

Some people praised your work for its confessional nature, others use the very same words to dismiss it. But "confessional" is just the right word.

Reading your work gives a feeling like someone is sharing a secret with you, something not normally said aloud, something subversive and strange and fascinating.

 You weren't a good person. After your suicide, the sexual abuse of your daughter was revealed. It gave me a strange feeling when I heard about it, as it often does when you learn that someone you admire has done something that isn't admirable.

It brought up that whole art/artist controversy. Can I still admire the work, when I know something ugly about the creator? My answer, is yes, I kind of can. Art after all isn't necessarily about what is comfortable and easy. Sometimes, it's about confronting uncomfortable mixtures of emotions and conflicting beliefs.

And you Ms. Sexton, if nothing else, were certainly all about ambiguity and contradictions.

Thanks for disturbing my complacency,
-Samantha

A to Z: Letters to Dead Writers: Sojourner Truth

This month I'm writing one post for each letter of the alphabet, all on the theme of "Letters to Dead Writers." You can see my theme reveal post here and learn more about the blogging challenge here.

Today's writer is Sojourner Truth
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Dear Ms. Truth,

For the longest time, I thought poetry was supposed to be decorous and calm.

The classic poems I'd been shown in school as a child were probably selected for their inoffensiveness above any other criteria.  Not to put down Mr. Wordsworth, but "I wandered lonely as a cloud" is definitely on the sweeter side of things.

But then, I found you. I wish I could remember the context more fully. But I do remember that I heard your famous spoken word piece "Ain't I a Woman?" performed by someone costumed as you. It must have been at some kind of history event.

It blew me away.

It was raucous. Loud. Funny. Angry. Sarcastic. Definitely not decorous.

Completely new to me. I was enthralled.

Since then, I've become a fan of good spoken word poetry. There is something special about poetry that is performed (not read) by its creator, where the voice and rhythm, appearance and movement, and words all combine to create the experience. I wish I could have heard you speak.

Reading about you later in my life, I was amazed by all you had overcome and how tirelessly you worked for social reform. Truly you were a woman. I'd love to become half the woman you were.

-Samantha

A to Z: Letters to Dead Writers: Dorothy Parker

This month I'm writing one post for each letter of the alphabet, all on the theme of "Letters to Dead Writers." You can see my theme reveal post here and learn more about the blogging challenge here.

Today's writer is Dorothy Parker
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Dear Ms. Parker,

I first came to admire you for your quick wit and unapologetic snark. People quote you all the time without knowing it's you they quote:

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone

Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses.

I hate writing, I love having written. 

If you were writing today, you'd be a superstar on Twitter for your brief and expressive poniards.Your Constant Reader reviews are works of art in and of themselves, though I'm glad my own work never passed under your laser eyes. I'm not sure my skin is quite that thick yet!

Your short stories and poems capture the brave front in the face of disillusionment. I suspect your black humor was a coping mechanism for a lot of pain. Your suicide attempts showed that "Enough Rope" --the title of one of your poetry collections--was not just a joke. Your struggles were real and difficult, even when hidden behind a witty remark.

Once you moved on to Hollywood, you worked on so many amazing projects, writing for A Star is Born and The Little Foxes, bringing your sharp tongue into play on some very memorable dialogue. Your words in Bette Davis's mouth? Whew!

I didn't really know about your political life until recently, but you were never afraid to take a stand, even an unpopular one. The world needs more women like you.

Thanks for teaching me that it's okay not to be nice sometimes.
-Samantha

A to Z: Letters to Dead Writers: H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

This month I'm writing one post for each letter of the alphabet, all on the theme of "Letters to Dead Writers." You can see my theme reveal post here and learn more about the blogging challenge here.

Today's writer is H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
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Dear H.D.,

It's hard, being a woman ahead of your time. Your life reflected that. A woman loving another woman and, at the same time, a man still has the power to evoke shock in the populace an entire century later, so I can only imagine how it must have been for you in the early 1900s.

Yet your poetry sang with exuberance. Everything you felt, your poetry seems to tell me, you felt fully, strongly. There were no half-ways and maybes with you. I think it was that passion that spoke to me.

Like Oread. You give yourself over so much to the power of nature, asking to be overtaken, overwhelmed. I've felt that, too.

You wrote it all, from tiny poems that pack so much into so few words, to wide sweeping poems that lay it out long-form. Your work captures so much of the era you lived in, fragmented, wounded, broken, and beautiful.

The more I read of you, the more of you I want to read. You had so much to say about gender, societal roles, and deep-rooted assumptions in our society. I wish I could have talked with you. I'm sure you would have opened my eyes to things I don't even know I'm still blind about.

Love,
Samantha

A to Z: Letters to Dead Writers: Gwendolyn Brooks

This month I'm writing one post for each letter of the alphabet, all on the theme of "Letters to Dead Writers." You can see my theme reveal post here and learn more about the blogging challenge here.

Today's writer is Gwendolyn Brooks
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Dear Ms. Brooks,

I came to your work rather late. I encountered your words in the 1990s, when I was a young poet and English major at Morehead State University, when I was young and naive enough to believe that the Civil Rights Movement was over, having accomplished its goals.

It took a while for me to realize that we'll still be fighting those battles for many years to come.

The first of your poems to catch me was your most famous one: "We Real Cool."

Deceptively simple, but so loaded. Such bravado in the voice and such fatalism. Laughing in the face of pain and hopelessness. Damn. You were so good.

I found so many heart-rending stories in your poetry. "The Mother." "The Vacant Lot." "A Song in the Front Yard." "The Lovers of the Poor."

These were poems that begged to be read aloud, to be held in the mouth, the ears, the throat.

This was all new to me, though I'd been writing poems since I was a child. The "spoken word" tradition hadn't made it to my little town in Kentucky and the English classes there.

 You showed me the power in expressing anger, and the importance of keeping a sense of humor in the face of utter nonsense.

Thank you,
-Samantha

A to Z: Letters to Dead Writers: Emily Dickinson

This month I'm writing one post for each letter of the alphabet, all on the theme of "Letters to Dead Writers." You can see my theme reveal post here and learn more about the blogging challenge here.

Today's writer is Emily Dickinson
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Dear Ms. Dickinson,

I was only six when I met you--through your work. My first grade teacher, in an attempt to improve our minds and our penmanship had us copy and illustrate classic poems.

I don't remember for sure which of your poems I copied now. I remember that two of my early favorite were the one on solitude and one that starts "Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me." I remember that I thought you were a kid because the picture of you provided in my book showed you looking so very young.

I was already a word nerd by age six, raised on Mother Goose, Dr. Suess, Shel Silverstein, and Amelia Bedelia, with a love of rhyme and wordplay. I was fond of puns and enamored of long, elegant and unusual words that felt nice in my mouth. Our librarian helped me find a collection of your poems and I loved reading them out loud. Something in the rhythm and diction made my heart sing even when the content was beyond my comprehension.

When I talked to Mrs. Alsdorf about how much  I liked your words, she said, "You know, if you want to, you can write poems, too."

I felt like the top of my head had come off. What an idea! So, I did it. I wrote so many poems. My relatives were probably tired of me asking if they wanted to hear my poems, but they were nice about it. A lot of them sounded like you: quatrains with an A/B rhyme scheme and a philosophical bent (as much of one as an elementary student can have).

Your poetry still speaks to me today, forty-some years later. I have several different editions of your poetry and more than one biography. When my mind feels unsettled, I can choose one of your poems at random, and I am instantly soothed, intrigued, and inspired. I'm so glad your words made it out into the world and across so many years into my young hands. It's part of why I write today.

Love,
Your life-long fan,
Samantha

MLK: Poet of Justice

We had a school holiday on Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. There are only a few Americans who stand high enough in our country's esteem to warrant a day away from work and I hope enough of us stop to consider the reason for the observation.

There's a lot to admire about this man and the lasting good he helped usher into our country.

It's worth remembering, too, what it cost him.

But when I think about Martin Luther King, Jr., it is his words that echo in my heart and mind.

When my daughter was in 5th grade, I went with her class on a trip to Washington DC. I've been several times to see that fair city, but I had never before visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.

It does him proud. The statue is grand, and striking. Visually, the way the man seems to be emerging out of the unformed stone behind him speaks to strength and struggle, the unfinished nature of the work of justice, and of dignity.

The best part, though, is all the quotes.

The walls are lined with many of his words.

It was a joy to stand there listening to 5th graders reading them aloud to each other and nodding with the truths that echoed in their own hearts.

The man had wonderful ideas, but more important to his legacy, he expressed them well: memorably, poetically, powerfully.

Some of my favorites:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

#17 of 31 Days of Halloween: Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is an author I can enjoy all year round, but the rest of the world joins in with me at this time of year, and it's nice to have company. Even people who aren't otherwise particularly literary will quote the opening stanza of The Raven in their best Vincent Price voice:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Besides the Raven, there's also all the creep-tastic fiction. My personal favorite is The Cask of Amontillado, but The Tell-Tale Heart runs a close second. When I taught American literature or general literature courses, I'd always work in a little Poe at this time of year. The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum. So much macabre goodness. 

I also enjoy the lore of the man himself. The questionable circumstances of his death make for some great imagining, too.  In fact, his ghost is said to haunt more than one place. Apparently, it's not enough that he haunts us with his words years beyond his demise; he has to become an actual phantom as well. 

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the few authors that remains universally popular when assigned in the classroom. There's nothing like being TOLD to read something to take the joy out of it, but The Masque of the Red Death is chilling even when your teacher goes overboard on color symbolism. 

Got a favorite Poe story or poem? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

Z is for Lisa Zaran:

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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As was true for my entries for the letter I and the letter Q, I didn't come to this AtoZ project with a poet in mind for Z. So, once again, I took the opportunity to read someone new (to me). I found Lisa Zaran, an American poet living in Arizona, best known for her book, The Sometimes Girl.

If you've been reading my other posts in this series, then you already know that I am a sucker for an intriguing opening line when it comes to poetry. Zaran has some humdingers in this regard:

Death is not the final word.

-from "Talking to My Father Whose Ashes Sit in a Closet and Listen"

In the room

where I learned how to lie, 

-from "Rivers"

She said she collects pieces of sky, 

-from "Girl"

As if we have

any answers.

-from "Hair"

Simple, declarative, sure. Each of these lines caught my ear and eye and pulled me in, made me want to read the rest to see what that line might end up meaning when it was fully explored.  I'm so glad I took on this challenge which let me visit 23 old loves, and find 3 new ones. Thanks for traveling with me! 

Y is for Yusef Komunyakaa: Revealing a deeper layer

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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Most of the Yusef Komunyakaa poems I've read are intensely personal. Through his verses, I've learned more about his childhood, his war experiences, and his joys and disappointments than I know about people that I see every day in real life. In each poem, the speaker is there, front and center, no distancing, letting me know what has happened and how he is affected. And I, in reading the lines, am affected, too. 

Here's one of his poems, about visiting the Vietnam War Memorial, an intensely emotional experience for many, but I can only imagine how intense it must be for a veteran of that war.

On the surface, Komunyakaa is only describing what he sees: what is and isn't reflected in the glossy stone of the memorial, but the still-biting experiences are in there, too in the word choices, the descriptive details. Hiding. Reflection. Bird of prey. Profile of night. Depending on the light/to make a difference. Flash. Smoke. Cutting. Lost his right arm. 

There's a second poem in those details, giving you the ghostly after-image of his service experience. That deeper layer that pushes forward, almost feeling like he let it slip by accident and revealed more than he meant to. 

Genius.

X is for XJ Kennedy: Bringing the Fun

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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XJ Kennedy's verses are fun. Sometimes leaning towards sardonic, but always with a eye to the humor in a situation. Maybe because he also writes for children, he's held onto a playfulness with language and imagery that pulls me in.

I like him better than Shel Silverstein because the underlying feeling is more positive. I guess I'm attracted to the energy and joy that runs through much of his work.

This poem, for example, has a man imagining himself as a dog and plays with that metaphorical dog of a man who won't commit and marry.

It's a silly idea, but the punny language and imagery is appealing.

When I want to look on the lighter side, I turn to XJ Kennedy.

W is for Walt Whitman: Always in Love

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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In 2017, I decided I would read a poem every day and post about it. Poetry was such a central part of my life when I was younger, but it had drifted almost entirely out of my life, and I realized I missed it. The inspiration for that project was Walt Whitman. My eldest daughter was reading Leaves of Grass for a literature class she was taking, and I LOVED talking with her about the verses of his I loved most, and about his place in the history of American poetry. It seems fitting that it was Whitman who brought me back to reading poetry after an absence of many years.

One of his poems that I remembered fondly was "I Sing the Body Electric." There's that part in Bull Durham where Susan Sarandon remind us how sexy some parts of it are when she reads it aloud to her lover.

When I revisited the whole poem, the first thing I noticed is that it's a lot longer than I remembered. It's a nine part poem! 

The next thing I noticed was the range of it. It's all a celebration of human form, but it waxes philosophical, scientific, personal, and political in turns. It's a sweeping, epic vision, and you can get pulled up into the beautiful maelstrom of words. 

Whitman in his verses always seems to be love. His joy, fascination, and celebration are contagious. Reading him, I fall back in love, too, and see my fellow human beings as the wondrous creations they are. 

V is for César Vallejo: The Personal and the Political

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.
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I'd heard of César Vallejo before, but not read his work until recently. When my former poetry professor lost her battle with cancer last year, I revisited her work and found a poem she'd written "after César Vallejo." That sparked my curiosity so I looked him up. My curiosity is still sparked, so I'll be looking for more by this poet.

The nineteenth century was politically rough in a lot of Spanish-speaking countries, including Vallejo's homeland of Peru. Every poet or writer I read about from that time period faced a great deal of turmoil and persecution, sometimes for their art, sometimes for their lives. Bohemian artist-types are not always welcome. That pain and tragedy is reflected in his work, which is both personal and political in tone.

U is for Miguel de Unamuno: Quiet Passion

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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I haven't looked deeply into the life of Miguel de Unamuno, but I get the impression he was a quiet, scholarly sort of man with deep passions running beneath. The embodiment of "still waters run deep."

He saw tumultuous times in Spain's history, suffering exile (without his beloved family) and returning in triumph only to get himself in trouble with the next government and die while under house arrest. Throughout it all, he wrote: plays, essays, novels, and philosophy.

What his poetry is like depends on what part of his career we're talking about, but a lot of his work has a serious bent, with a touch of mystic and melancholy. Here's one of my favorites.

T is for Sara Teasdale: Timeless Universality

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Sara Teasdale was my grandmother's favorite poet. When I first told her that I wanted to write poems (when I was six or seven years old), that's who she said I should read. She showed me some of her verses on greeting cards, including a mushy one from Grandpa.

I wasn't much of a judge when I was seven, but I always smile when I come across one of Teasdale's poems, thinking of Grandma.

Teasdale's poetry, like that of Edna St. Vincent Millay, is underestimated sometimes. Simplicity can be mistaken for a lack of sophistication. A lot of Teasdale's work is more contemplative than dramatic, but I still get that little gasp of recognition reading her lines, and that's half of what I read poetry for.

Teasdale's poems have a timeless universality. They're not confessional or philosophical, neither focused on the narrow individual experience nor taking a god's eye view overlooking the cosmos. I don't, at the end of the poem, know why the poet is drawn to broken things at the moment, but I feel with her nonetheless, taking the same quiet comfort alongside her. She finds the emotional center of a moment and gives us room to find ourselves in it. 

S is for Edna St. Vincent Millay: Sincere and Direct

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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When I first encountered the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, I dismissed it without reading much of it. Because it was direct, sincere, and easy to understand, I thought it simplistic and less meaningful than the complex and cynical work I admired at the time. 

I probably inherited a bit of this attitude from the literary scene. She wasn't one of the poets people mentioned as an influence, and some poets were downright dismissive of her work. I can remember one conversation when someone called her work "greeting card drivel."

She had once been so popular and admired a poet, but by the time I was studying poetry, no one was talking about her work.

But more recently, her poems have come across my radar from time to time and I found them beautiful and moving. I am older now, which may have something to do with it, and my views have changed about those complex and cynical works I once admired. A lot of it seems contrived and pretentious to me, and sincerity and honesty is exactly what I'm looking for. She feels like a breath of fresh air to me in that way.

She's better technically than I ever gave her credit for, too. Her formal sonnets have all the right beats and rhyme schemes, yet feel as fresh and natural as free verse. That's quite a feat!

I feel I owe her an apology for judging her when I was younger based on reputation alone instead of reading for myself. Luckily, it's never too late to read her work and admire it.

R is for Robert Browning: Dramatic Monologue

It's April! Time for the AtoZ Blogging Challenge!

For those who haven't played along before, the AtoZ Blogging Challenge asks bloggers to post every day during April (excepting Sundays), which works out to 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet. In my opinion, it's the most fun if you choose a theme.

This will be my 5th year participating.

• In 2014, I wrote about evocative words. 
• In 2015, I wrote about my publication journey and the release of my first novel. 
• In 2016, I wrote about my favorite superheroes. 
• In 2017, I wrote about the places of my heart. 

My theme this year is Poets I Love all about some of the poets whose work has touched me over the years.

For my regular readers, you'll see more than the usual once-a-week posts from me this month. I'm having a great time writing them, so I hope you enjoy reading them, too. Be sure to check out some of the other bloggers stretching their limits this month to share their passions with you, too. With over 600 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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I love dramatic monologues. They bridge the space between poetry and theater, allowing the poet to take on a character completely separate from themselves and put words in their mouth. Like Shakespearean soliloquies, they can give real insight into a character while wowing you with gorgeous language and metaphor.

One of my favorite dramatic monologues ever was written by Robert Browning: My Last Duchess. It's a creepy thing, a slow reveal. At first it seems to be merely an art collector showing off his collection. But there are all these small red flags that creep up, until you find yourself wondering if the Duke in question killed his wife.

"That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive."

It's there even in the opening lines. The ominous feeling. The next few lines have the Duke insisting strongly that the listener sit and examine the portrait, that he notice the look of warmth in her eyes.

"Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek"

Jealousy reared its ugly head. 

"She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere."

Yikes. Dangerous jealousy. I start to wonder if I misread and this is actually by Edgar Allan Poe. 

"Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive."

 Shudder. 

This poem amazes me for all it says by not saying, for all that is suggested, threatened, or implied. When he finishes and it is revealed that the visitor is there to discuss the Duke's intentions to marry again, a Count's daughter, I find myself hoping the emissary has the wit to refuse the match, lest this turn into Bluebeard's castle. Masterful work.