getting there--

This--

 

And this--

This is my mother when she was pregnant with me.  Isn't she beautiful?  I remember this photograph.  We were looking for baby photos of me, to compare to my own children, and for my mother to attempt to embarrass me with my husband, those bare-bottomed photographs, maybe the ones where I wear my father's dress socks hiked to my hips, no underwear, some strange woolen hat on my head.

When I began to write what is currently called Tethering (previously was P I N E, and before that, nicknames, like (in)fertility book, and I hope a better title crashes into me soon because Tethering isn't quite electrifying me either), it was just going to be about my body as medical object and the journey would convey from there.  But my mother, who also has (had) PCOS, began to creep in.  And my relationship with my mother, which had blips that were difficult in ways that are relevant to the book.  There's none of our high school years screaming up and down the stairs, none of the lock-myself-in-the-bathroom poems, but maybe one day, when I have teenagers instead of toddlers, I'll write those poems.  For now, I am thinking a lot about my own mother's journey to parenthood.  I thought a lot about it when I read Ghost in the House, which is about depression and parenting and began to understand why things happened the way they did and how I can try to control my(self) relationship with my own children in a positive way.  I begin to understand self through the lens of other.

So the book is still about that (in)fertility journey of my own, but there's also how I learned about womanhood through her, how I learned about the body.  The mother is the source of all that.

In some ways, I question myself for wanting to generate again.  This book could be many, many times the size it actually is, and I'm grateful that it is not.  So many poems have to be written to get to the actual manuscript.  So much needs to be discarded.  I always told my students that writing exercises are as relevant as theatrical rehearsals or sports practice or anything else you could compare this to.  You must keep your brain a-buzzin' and you have to be ready to let go of so much work because it won't all make it to the end.  And that's OK.  Because what you'll have in the end, at least I hope, with Tethering, will be something to be proud of.

This one will come from a sequence of questions I asked my mother, and she kindly responded.  I hadn't thought to do this interview until I was sitting in workshop with Susan Power, who had us create interviews for fictional characters, just to see where it would lead us.  Mine led me to pushing my own mother to help me generate material.  I wanted to create a more three-dimensional mother; who else to help me do that than the person herself?

OK, new poem, I'm coming for you.

weekend seminar with susan power

I've done an awful job transcribing notes from my experiences with the Loft mentorship, so I will start here, with our last meeting with fiction writer Susan Power.  And I must say, before I delve into my notebook, that I highly recommend her work.  We read Roofwalker for our mentorship group and all of us absolutely loved it.

This was a reading weekend, and at the Q&A, she spoke of how there's that saying write what you know, but a writer once told her she ought to write what you need to know instead.  (I love this; it's so critical to what I'm in the thick of Right Now.)

When asked about writing pain, she confessed she's attracted to the juicier parts, so she writes those first, leaving the connective tissue to writing later.

On the business of writing
- In thinking of change or letting a book go:  "I'm not going to give up on my characters.  I'm not going to give up on my stories."
- As a judge, she's concerned about carelessness.
- Never forget what you are serving, first and foremost.  Portrayal of authenticity / clear vision backed with reason.  In creation process, simply follows, doesn't understand reasons at the time, but in revision.  Often stands ground when she feels she is being edited culturally.  Watch when we / our work is being treated as a product.  What we do is sacred.
- Manage expectations.  Aim for the world, but don't expect the world.  Always be on guard for agendas of others--pressures from business or even family members.  Know what is reasonable for you.  Remember that your job is to be as authentic as you can be about your writing.  Don't apologize for your process, your journey.  Each writer, each project is different.  Realize you are called to do different things and each needs something different.  (Be OK with that.)
- One writer, when talking about the way we compare ourselves to other writers (or reviewers do):  "It's like there's no more room at the table."
- Another writer said she "enjoys the ancestry," and that it "causes [her] to feel less alone."
- Somewhere in there, we talked about the conversations we have with books--about how, when we are pushing to do something unique, to think of our work as conversing with what came before, and know that everything on the shelf is speaking to something else on the shelf.

I wrote to myself:  This discussion of Getting A Book exhausts and depresses me, this honesty and wishing.  I think it's because I've been wishing so hard and long for my full-length.  I'm worrying about so many things.

We had two writing exercises:

- Interviewing.  This one can be adapted in many ways, but Susan uses it to help jumpstart a stuck place.  Often she'll set up an interview for one of her characters to get at answers she cannot logically come to on her own.  Sometimes, as in a piece she's worked on recently, another character entirely shows up to answer the questions.  The response was complicated, but good.  It can be a generative exercise:  write ten general questions and see how they get answered by a character, a not-even-a-seed character, no-one in mind.  Just go.  Or, if you are writing nonfiction, a way to imagine how someone might have answered those questions, or someone else, just to get a better understand of the situation.  Another way to do this is to do it in role-playing with a writing partner.  For me, during the exercise, what called me was to really follow the development of the questions themselves; I'd like to interview my mother about her attitudes towards her pregnancy with me and my sister to see what it might do to my current poetry manuscript.

One student suggested writing with a non-dominant hand.  She said she was surprised at some of the results she got.  Another writer spoke of how she would let herself lose complete control in freewriting and once dreamed up a daughter for couple-friends who had no plans for children and were heading into unbearing years and not long after, that friend called with News.

Other exercise suggestions:
- Create a list of characters such as the patron saint of liars (after Ann Patchett) and see what roles come out.
- What if your character walked to the "wrong" end of the rainbow?  Let the character contend with that object.  (Not a "wrong" object--but, say, a baby)
- Another writer suggested the technique of mind-mapping

Each session we've had with Susan, I've come away rethinking my manuscript deeply, and that surprised me.  I thought, perhaps, nonfiction would influence me--after all, this is confessional, very naval-gazing stuff, but fiction certainly isn't a realm I'm comfortable in.  But, as with many things, it does depend on the instructor and her ability to draw in students.  I found her energy inspiring--she looks to opening yourself up to receiving your creative impulses.  Characters arrive and speak to her.  She follows, doesn't question.  Generation is a magical thing.

thesis defense

One of my friends who graduated a bit ago described it best:  the MFA hangover.

There is a something-like-slamming-into-a-door about the aftershock of the defense.  I'm generally not nervous at readings, probably because there are always other readers, other reasons for the audience to walk away content if I muck it up, and I only have to read what is just there, written on the paper.  A little storytelling, yes, but ultimately, it's about the quiet of the words on the page.

In this case, there are questions peppered at you:  little pings that dredge up decisions you'd forgotten you'd made, a focus on something you'd long moved beyond or never even considered.  On the way from town to the cities, I shook at the wheel, then forced my husband to drive from his work to campus, the car full:  my parents, who drove ten hours that day just to see the sliver that was open to the public, my daughter, who spent the majority of her time on campus shrieking up and down the abandoned hallways, and that husband, steady at the wheel, and me, jamming gummy worms into my maw like a nervous bird.

I came away with some really solid suggestions on revision:  as an MFA thesis, it shines, but as a manuscript for publication, it could stand to grow a bit.  My second reader, fiction-writer Julie Schumacher, discussed some of the very things that had been niggling at me, elements of character and the pitch of the whole thing.  Mood, tone.  And that end-note poem; I had been so set on it being this two page poem called "Out of Sequence" that has the final lines:  "Iasdflkjasdfl / asldfjfsdaj."  But that's not it, and after discussing it with Peter Campion, my thesis director, and Julie, I know now where I want to drive the ms.  I just need to find a span of quiet time to do so, and I suppose I need to recover from this little degree-toting hangover I've gotten.

poetry reading: dislocate's mama fundraiser

This was one of the more unique readings I've participated in:  this time, the literary magazine dislocate (for which I served as poetry editor two years ago), hosted a fundraiser for the campus parenting group.  Kate Hopper read, as did current MFA Elisabeth Workman (hers is the girl, Beatrix, behind Maya in the photograph above).  There was a pinata, there were cupcakes and pizza, animal noses and coloring books.  And the three girls in attendance shrieked and chased one another (or rather, imagined themselves being chased as I don't think they are quite beyond center-of-the-universe status) whilst poetry and prose were being read, and it was delightful to pause between (in)fertility poems to see my little bear jotting up and down the aisles.

ted kooser in town

I live in this little town along the Mississippi River and there happens to be a fairly significant arts center just up the road.  And a poet (Robert Hedin, above) happens to run things.

His wife happens to run the yoga studio in town (my first yoga experience) and I served on jury duty with her.  (Her kindness and sense of good was grounding.)

And on a fairly regular basis, there is an astounding event held at the center.

Joyce Sutphen:  who was already one of my favorite poets, who became the poet laureate of Minnesota, who blurbed me, gave a charming introduction to the poet.  It's safe to say that I adore her.

And then there he was, Ted Kooser, whose book Winter Morning Walks I began to crush on this month, and I copied some lines in my notebook as he read:

"thread of a worm"
"white disk of chicken fat on soup left to cool"
"the guttering candle of my father's breath"
"the indifferent, casual manner of peonies"
"I felt the firm deck of the day tilt"
thunderhead as "dragging its shaggy belly across the fields"
red sprouts of peonies as "birthday candles" (as his birthday is in April)
iris having "dusty, dry fists of roots"

And then there was the surprise of Debra Winger, who read a bit from a book of hers, and the first question from the audience was:  Um.  How did you two meet?

Apparently, Winger was on a date with then-Nebraska governor, whilst shooting Terms of Endearment and to show off, the gov. introduced her to Kooser.  Winger said she thought, "I don't know how it's going to work out with this guy, but him, I'm going to know forever."  (Funny how this is what I thought when I met the man who became my husband.  Honestly.  I thought:  I don't care how I know him, I just know I want him to be a part of my life forever.  Lucky me, marrying him and all.)

Through other questions, Kooser revealed he is also "one who paints and draws," which, he said, means he likes to use details you would only know if you were there.  He spoke of how, with students, he would go around the room and ask them to name details--perhaps, he would name an old farm as the setting and they would name a spool of twine, etc.--"a kind of calendar of details"--but then "throw in a bag of potato chips, something you'd only know if you were there."

He also mentioned the "I" in the poems--and how when he was younger, the poems were more ego-centric, but as he grew older, he grew out of that and took on the world.  He then read a poem about a conversation he overhead in (oh, I think it was--) an auto repair shop.

This led me to think of my own beastly manuscript, which was warned to be/come solipsistic by a workshop peer, which I continue to think about in the I-terms, and wonder about confessional poetry, and wonder about my intentions, which are that the world of experience is broad, and here is mine, but I mean it to be yours too, and I never want to be selfish as a poet, but rather:  is this longing discussed enough?  Is there a broadening to occur?

Before the reading, there was the family time:  roots + wings

wordle'ing the manuscript

At an AWP panel, my friend Colleen jotted in her notes that one thing to run your manuscript through before submission is a program such as Wordle--to see themes, etc.  Or, to discover words that might have been put on repeat a bit to urgently; my first attempt had back as large as body or one and like was larger then too.

This also led to a discussion of the simile, where one member of our collective reflected on what she'd been taught:

Simile is less immediate, less connective--by adding those extra words ("like," "as") it imposes distance between the vehicle and the tenor. In some ways, it calls attention to itself as a device and takes the reader out of the moment, prevents the very connection it's trying to make. Perhaps that can be useful, though? Perhaps that distance, that removal, that interruption is a desirable thing in some circumstances?

I had never really fully understood the aversion to simile my fellow MFAers had while actively in the program, but I can understand now; of course, I love the device, both metaphor and simile, and I adore personification, and beautiful verbs and lush language used with restraint.  So there you have it.  I do plan to scrub a few more likes from my ms., and probably body and one and maybe a night or two, but some of those words are so tender and right and shift in meaning, which is a critical experience of the reading.

thinking about pine.

1. Untitled, 2. Untitled, 3. snow capped, 

4. Tongass Mist, 5. Untitled, 6. DSC05980, 

7. short sands beach, 8. 18. april 2007, 9. sweden_countryside14, 

10. frost, 11. Snowfall in the pines..., 12. The Fresh Scent of Pine, 

13. 29.366, 14. Foggy Lake, 15. HBW!

P I N E

Today is a very big day for me.  This morning, I scrubbed and loofah'ed and tidied.  I also snipped some poems right out and even wrote a whole new one (I named it Pine Barrens!) and then.  I sent it out.

My humble little monster of a full-length manuscript is now officially in the world, which gave me such indigestion, I won't even describe it.  There was heavy breathing and pacing and finger chewing, but it's gone now.  I can't take it back.  Hooray!

(And, breathe.)

I decided to give myself three years before I start to panic.  This isn't the way I always phrase it:  sometimes I say, it is my goal to have it published within three years of the submissions cycle. (March twentieth, twenty-fifteen!)  But either way, I have a three-year hope, which feels right in the middle.  I've heard stories of eleven years; I've heard stories of sixty submissions.  I've also had friends whose books found homes without even going through the submission cycle.  So, you know, we all have our own journeys, which is what I keep saying about that nasty acquisition of Maya (oh, and by the way, essentially the topic of this book), and look at how that ended up.

The three of us took the pups to Hay Creek to celebrate.  It was sixty degrees in Minnesota, and even though we've had the mildest winter ever, we still kept checking the temperature-gauge to make certain we hadn't lost our minds.  It's really this warm, isn't it?  My heart feels good.  (Good and scared.)

If you haven't already, scoot on over to roots + wings to see more photos from today.

campus again

I haven't been to campus since I packed up my boxes and tore the calendar from my cubicle.  But I tucked Maya away at a friend's house and went, coatless in February, to Lind Hall, which seems just the same to me, turned a sharp corner, and spent an hour in my advisor's office, came away with a few new books and some good advice.  It's always strange and thrilling to hear someone else talk about your work--to have them beat a good rhythm into your being.

He warned me of his standard-defense questions:
- Why is the book structured this way?  /  How did you arrive at this order?
- Who are your poets of influence?
- Ideas about recent books?  Examples & counter-examples.
- What do you see yourself doing next?
- How did your work change or develop?
(Oh, how I'm ready to answer!  Now!  Which is so good.  I won't mention how he said he'd sign off on me now.)

He told me the heavy carpentry was there, that I could focus on the line edits, the trimming, the clarity, the "quirking."  He said the book is poised between two styles--there is the metaphysical, the dream-like, the Plath-like, the emblamatic treatment of motherhood and the body, and then there is the natural and literal.  (Oh!)  He spoke of the Jungian-belief in central form, dreams yielding toward central vitality, images also photographic and imagistic.  So then:  turn to formal tensions. 

Some issues:  there is the repeat of gesture--one example, corroborative example.  OH!  The articles and prepositions!

This manuscript is obsessive:  see James McMichale with Good Things and Each in a Place Apart.  See also Elizabeth Arnold in The Wreck, Civilization, Effacement.  These books will help with the central, book as series.  He spoke:  gaze shifts but still thinking, radial shifts from the same hub.

I've spent the past week or so since our meeting sloughing away at the manuscript:  I've cut six poems, let one return, combined others, added yet another, and the biggest was picking away, as one rubs away dead skin after the shower, of the excess words (the word the deeply excised, and from Josie's recommendation, the word little also shifted) and phrases.

I hope to give this manuscript the heave-ho, to start circulating it amongst publishers at the end of March, but we'll see if I can give it the polish I hope to:  there's a part of me that wants to go through with a goddess-narrative, see where Hera can find company; there's a part of me that wonders if the expectations of motherhood is enough, if the introduction sets up something that isn't followed through with, so there's that too.

It's a first book, which is bound to be riddled with missteps.  And as I send, I do hope it evolves.  I don't want to be the sort of submitter who just leaves it be and pummels the editorial boards:  rather, my pummeling should come from full presence with this manuscript and the next, which is nagging me more and more each day, should let each become fully formed, whatever that might mean.

best of times

:: Tonight, I am reading and re-reading stacks and stacks of poetry books by Minnesota poets; Saturday is first-round judging for the MN Book Awards.  I've finally come upon one I would stand behind in nomination, though I've got more to read, and I admit, I did reverse-order the reading in suspicion of ones I'd like--because of publisher, because of the poet, because of paging through.  We're getting to the better ones the longer the night goes on.

:: I just took a break from reading to write a poem I've called, in its wet-ink stages, "Offal."  Earlier, I watched an episode of Top Chef in which the contestants were to cook with offal, though none used the organ I write of in the poem.  I'm prodding at the middle second of my manuscript, where it sags a bit with the weight of sorrowful-medical poems.  Oh woe!  Oh woe are my sad little ovaries!  Oh zing!  Oh move.  Oh stop with the willowing and wallowing and get into the woods.  So I did.  Have I mentioned I might have a title?  I very well might.

:: This is the saddest news of all:  Our beloved independent bookstore, just ten blocks away from my own house, so close that I walked the holiday season I worked there, back and forth, tromping in the lovely December snow, is closing its doors forever this Saturday.  I've been invited to the wine-and-cheese honoring event, but it bumps up against the judging, so I will have to say farewell with books jutting under my arms, wave from the sidelines and hope once the economy balloons back up, we'll have a bookstore in town again, though with the e-revolution, it might not be so.  Meanwhile, I make sure to bring my daughter to story hour at the library and every time she stumbles toward me with a chewed-over book in her spitty little hands, I read as far as she'll let me and a few minutes later, read as far as she'll let me in the next one she offers up in her adorable slouch-shouldered kind of way.  Our house is fat with books as a bookstore is, I tell you, but it's been marred by the smells of cooking and dog-breath and the furnace-heat and damp slippers.  When I worked at a bookstore, I'd come home, and my husband would lean in and tell me I smelled the smell of new books.  Mmmm.

ms2, ms3

 Three of my favorite people:  Meryl holding Maya and my husband in the background.  
Also, another favorite person, skating in her second roller derby bout this weekend.
Post on roots + wings:  NSRG Derby Bout #2:  Sailing the Seven Seas

I've got two manuscripts chugging at once:  there is the (in)fertility manuscript, which is robust, with individual poems finding homes happily and rapidly.  I read through it last week, for the first time in a long time, and I see places where I want to take it, alterations and trimmings.  It is full-size now, but there will be poems melding and exiting stage left, there will be new poems written to fill it out in the best possible ways.  This manuscript examines:  (in)fertility, hope and hope and hope, mother-relationships, foundations for family, the body, the body as object, illness, incubation, hibernation, the natural world and its imprints, small things, the failures of the body, triumph, birth, nursing, dismantling dresses, corridors, star systems.

The second manuscript has only begun as a ghostly outline with a few poems written, many more in the planning stages, and those poems that have been written, surprisingly, also have already found homes.  I'm thinking about wider things:  women's lives, the art and fumblings of raising a daughter, the communication of bodies, women as leaders and pioneers and powerful figures, occupations, daughter-relationships, pleasure, ferns and thickets.