F is for Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Beat Poet

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 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one of the last of the uncensored, free-wheeling poets of the Beat movement, exemplified by Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen, Marie Ponsot, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Kaufman, Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan, William Carlos Williams, and Gregory Corso. (See how I snuck in the names of lots of other poets I admire?).

My favorite of Ferlinghetti's work is A Coney Island of the Mind. It includes my favorite of his poems: "I Am Waiting" which seems to some a rambling string of bon mots, some deeper than others. It puts me in the mind of what a conversation with Oscar Wilde might have been like:

"I am waiting for someone/ to really discover America
/and wail" isn't that different from "America never has been discovered...I myself would say that it had merely been detected."

And despite the extemporaneous feel, it's not without structure and the things Ferlinghetti is waiting for build on each other and join into thematic sections.

A lot of the Beat poetry plays better aloud than on the page, and "I Am Waiting" is at its very best performed aloud by an impassioned speaker, much like contemporary spoken word poetry.

It's very different than the careful, formal work of sonneteers, and speaks to a different shard of my soul. I'm glad to have such a variety of poetry in my life.

E is for Emily Dickinson: Dwelling in Possibility

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 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Emily Dickinson was the first poet I fell in love with, way back in first grade ("There is a solitude of space"). I turn to her again and again in my life when I need something thoughtful, challenging, and a bit odd. She speaks my heart more accurately and often than anyone else I read. (side note: if you're also a fan you should check out the White Heat project, exploring her work in historical context. I wrote a response for them recently)

Listing the poems of her that *don't* speak to me would be shorter than listing my favorites, but here's one I come back to again and again: "I dwell in possibility."

That opening line is gorgeous. A girl could go her life and never write anything that perfect. Dwell is perfect. Not live, not exist, but dwell with that combination of both “to live somewhere” and “to linger” or “to think about.”

Then picking up from possibility into windows. Quel metaphor! Possibility is all about seeing openings, views, horizons. Much better done through windows than doors.

And possibility becomes an actual house, a home. Cedars for rooms, guaranteeing privacy. Gambrels of the sky …a word that sent me to a the dictionary: “a roof with two sides, each of which has a shallower slope above a steeper one.” The sloping sky as a roof, nothing to block the view of possibility. Her visitors are “the fairest” which I read as people who also value openness.

That last line goes straight to the heart again. Emily, with her narrow hands-she was such a physically small woman-nonetheless reaching out to the wide world to bring in all that might mean paradise to her.

Obstinate, headstrong girl!

Welcome to the first Wednesday in April, or as I like to call it: confess your insecurities day! (at least the writing ones).  If you're not already familiar with this blog hop, I recommend checking it out, especially if you're a writer. 

The awesome co-hosts for the April 4 posting of the IWSG are Olga Godim,Chemist Ken, Renee Scattergood, and Tamara Narayan!

April 4 question - When your writing life is a bit cloudy or filled with rain, what do you do to dig down and keep on writing?

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I rely on my stubbornness. 

Honestly, that's true in a lot of aspects of my life. I'm intractable that way. Obstinate. Headstrong. Jo March is my spirit animal, or maybe Maureen O'Hara. 

I refuse to cede a battle with a manuscript. Oh, sure, it might have me on the ropes sometimes, but I'll come up swinging and eventually I will win. 

Sometimes this means a sneak attack, like coming in from an unusual angle, from a different point of view. I'm also willing to fight dirty, jumping ahead to the ending or another pivotal scene and just ignoring the slag pile of scraps of a scene in front of me until later. Fight smarter, not harder, right? 

I've also got a great support team of critique partner ninjas whose insight I value highly and will also consider deeply, even if it is painful. I'm not afraid of hard work. If something is important to me, I'll work for it. And writing is important to the core of me. 

So, it's not much of a secret really. I'm just too stubborn to let it go. 

D is for Rita Dove: Different Angles

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 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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The thing I enjoy about Rita Dove's poetry is that sideways view, that stepping in from a different angle. Like in this one: "Heart to Heart" where she compares her actual heart, the organ, to decorative hearts and metaphorical hearts.

I especially like the ending stanza that plays with idioms about hearts: the key, the on the sleeve, the bottom of it.

In the end, all the hearts are offered to the listener: the muscle in the chest, the representation of romance, and the metaphorical center. But, she'd practical: you can't take the heart without taking the woman, too.

C is for Lucille Clifton: Unapologetic

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 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Poetry sometimes has this image in people's minds, a rather ridiculous one with flowing clothing, impractically bare feet, and ethereal looking half-starved people nattering on about finding the universe in a flower. I think that's part of why people don't read it enough. They think it's silly or an intellectual exercise, not for "regular" people.

This is part of why I adore Lucille Clifton. Ms. Clifton gets to the point, tells you how it is, and challenges you to dare to disagree. She was a short, somewhat chubby African-American woman who took joy in her own body and life, who felt beautiful and strong and appreciated herself. That's amazing. She's grounded and direct, which makes her stand out from other poets.

She's so self-assured and unapologetic in her poetry, so proud of who she is and how she's made, so lacking in all the self-doubt and mincing about that can be so much a part of a woman's life. She's not afraid to take up space, to take credit for herself and her own worth. A powerful voice indeed.

Those ending lines are the kicker though. Come to think of it, it's often her ending lines that leave me grinning.
I have quite a few favorite poems by Ms. Clifton. But the first one I found was "Homage to My Hips." As a wide-hipped girl myself, I connected with the poem as I struggled to come to peace with my self-image. It's even better when you see Ms. Clifton herself reading it.


Lucille Clifton Reads 'homage to my hips from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

B is for Elizabeth Bishop: Raw Heartbreak

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 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Elizabeth Bishop won her place in my heart with a single, perfect poem: "One Art." It's a poem I come back to again and again. It *really* speaks to me. I wrote a paper for grad school on this poem, a good one that my professor liked.

 Look at my scrawl all over that thing-I was, and am, in love with this poem. This poem is so deep and layered and amazing, I feel incoherent even trying to explain why it’s so amazing.

If you’ve ever tried to write a villanelle, then you know what a challenge it is to use the repeats well, to make sure they deepen and change and subvert each time they reappear. No one has ever impressed me more than Elizabeth Bishop with this form.

“The art of losing isn’t hard to master” doesn’t stand out on its own. It’s not one of those ooh and ahh kinds of poetic lines. But it’s the crux of this poem. Each time she repeats it, I hear Bishop lying to herself, trying to convince herself that she can learn to master losing, that if you do it enough, it won’t hurt so much. Like its a matter of warming up the muscles so you don’t pull anything on your run.

The first time, it’s a line about self help: I mastered losing and you can do it too! Here in just a few easy lessons, I’ll teach you how. She begins with small losses that aren’t too painful: door keys and time. The tone is glib and blithe.

Then the losses deepen, get more personal. That mother’s watch. But she still feigns humor. They’re just things, it’s not a real disaster.

Then they get large, hyperbolic even: houses, cities, realms, a continent! Surely if you can lose something that large, then the small losses don’t matter.

Then we get to you.

I can feel the hysteria bubbling under the claims that it’s all going to be fine. Really, the pain is so bad the poem itself is falling apart, with parentheticals and em dashes, even italics. The control is gone. And my heart breaks with Bishop’s.

What a heartbreakingly wonderful work.

A is for Adrienne Rich: Passionate Skepticism

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 geographical 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 400 participants, there is bound to be something you'd love to read.

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Adrienne Rich is one of the first unapologetically feminist writers to come onto my personal radar. I found her work when I was a college student, studying creative writing alongside my education, Spanish, and English courses. That's when I found a lot of the poets that I still hold dear in my heart.

What drew me to Rich's work, though, wasn't her feminism. I was still awkwardly feminist then, hadn't claimed the label, even though I held the ideals. No, what I fell in love with in Rich's poetry was the bold stark statements that she made with utter sureness. They felt like proclamations, like truths.

Lines like: 

"Lying is done with words and also with silence." (from a speech-turned-essay titled “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying.” 

"A thinking woman sleeps with monsters. The beak that grips her, she becomes." (from “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law") 

“It will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
It will be short, it will not be simple” (from "Final Notations")

Some poets I read for the small picture, the individual detail, the personal. Adrienne Rich I read for the big picture, the philosophy, the sweeping vista, the same way I read Ursula LeGuin in prose: writers of IDEAS rather than writers of MOMENTS.

The older I get, the more I find in Rich's work that speaks for and to me. I ran across this quote from her as I was looking at her work for this post, and I think it summarizes that philosophy pretty darn well, a philosophy that is becoming my own, as well:

From Credo of a Passionate Skeptic: "I began as an American optimist, albeit a critical one, formed by our racial legacy and by the Vietnam War...I became an American Skeptic, not as to the long search for justice and dignity, which is part of all human history, but in the light of my nation's leading role in demoralizing and destabilizing that search, here at home and around the world. Perhaps just such a passionate skepticism, neither cynical nor nihilistic, is the ground for continuing."