Lisa Olstein and David Daniel

Smitten I was by the two poets who shared their work with us during the SSU Writers' Series. I consider it a privilege to have been there last Thursday evening. I was already in love with Lisa Olstein's work from reading Lost Alphabet. Her style is amazing, touching, and simple. I can't wait to check out Radio Crackling, Radio Gone and her new book Little Stranger. What impresses me most about her writing is her ability to turn the everyday small occurrences in life into something more, something beautiful. Her tone is quiet and reaches deep into my being. All the poems she chose to share that night were simply beautiful. I admire the fact that she likes to test her own limits and stretch beyond her comfort zone, as she did with the poems about her child. In my opinion, successes, all of them.

I had not previously had the pleasure of reading any of David Daniel's work and I am glad to have been turned on to another fabulous poet. He reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson a bit (the craziness and haphazard feel of the lines and images). He described his own poetry as "weird--mostly funny (in a weird way), and at times foul." I found his work exciting. Interesting is a word that comes up short, because I hung on to his every word. I feel he has had life experiences that totally shaped his writing and although I would love to steal much from this author, I think a lot of it requires a "been there, done that" mentality. I have not been there or done that, but I do want to write like that!

Kudos again to Professor Ramos for putting together yet another fabulous series!

Lost Alphabet –Lisa Olstein: “Any shift in philosophy introduces the need for new habits of body.”

What can I say? I stand before this book amazed. I have been enfolded into her writing as if I am one of her specimens. She turns this work of hers, bugs and dust, into simple beauty. I rest with her as I read what she writes. I never would have thought it would be so beautiful.

She is a beautiful lyrical prose-ist, so interesting and unique of perspective. It feels so real, like this is how she writes in her daily journal, like beauty just pours forth from her thoughts. She has a gift. This is a gift. I cannot imagine that just anyone can write this way. To chronicle her experiences in this manner is amazing.

There is daily experience, the mundane, and the confusions intertwined with gentle philosophy: “—it’s a mistake to believe we know what we require. We are guided in directions we don’t know how to imagine.” Simple truths stated in beauty. I breathe them in because I don’t know how else to absorb them.

I am struck—and I am not a bug person—with a desire to see pictures of her work. I would imagine a beauty akin to her words and think it would be interesting to see.

At times, her experiences are evasive to me, yet poetic just the same. Does poetry mean more to the person writing it than most of the readers? I guess it depends on the writer, the reader, and the written.

“When I am not myself, Ilya tries to remind me.” When I am not myself…

“Slowly, the absence of pain arrives like snow falling.” I love her imagery. Simple, true.

My favorite sentence: “This moment could be any moment since the moment I arrived.” There is truth in this statement. Her word choice is succinct, perfect, unpretentious, beautiful, straightforward and deeply layered with transformations at the same time. Poetic genius…I know I am easily wooed, always have been but I would love to live in her soul for a while. I would emerge from the cocoon an entirely different creature.

Changes in moments of time…each moment a meaning. Why are her simple statements poetic? What makes it so? Is it only the precise and careful word choice? I feel like it is a pouring out of her soul. She is generous to share…How does she avoid cliché and sounding corny, or just plain? Her words are her own. She makes them her own. She owns them. I want to own my words…

I admire the simplicity…and the quiet…the most. I would steal it in a heartbeat if I thought I could. Her experiences could be crudely chronicled and there would be no beauty in it. She lives in the beauty of it. [the miraculous paradox].

Her everyday moments bring about profound questions: “I used to tell them when they asked about the things and places I’ve seen. I remember less and less. Who am I here in this village? Who am I anywhere?” Her ability to live and breathe in the moment and then to write it, is something I am lacking. I don’t see the beauty that would be my muse…I need to see.

I love her extreme focus on the tiny, the moment, the present experience—it is beautiful and to be emulated. I am repeatedly surprised when I turn the pages by how much I am moved by her writing. She certainly inspires me to write. I find myself writing in response to her. I love her!

Boldly

Boldy I will say

I am not a victim

Boldly I will greet each day

I will be bold when I send my children off

Boldly I will try the untried

Boldly I will speak for what I believe.

We must be bold

Embolden ourselves

Or be trampled to the ground

By monsters and  fears

Boldly

I will raise my children

Boldly

I will grow old and never stop learning

Boldy

I will say this to you:

Be bold

If someone said to me

If someone said to me: “Supposing you were to die tomorrow, what would you do?” If it were raining, I would bring my children outside barefoot and tell them to feel the rain, really feel it on their skin and remember me by the smell of it falling on the ground. If the sun was shining, I would bring my babies outside and tell them, feel the warmth and remember when you are cold, the sun is always there to warm you, she is your mother. I would read a poem or two to them and tell them to remember poetry as they grow. I would make them all hug me and tell them to remember each other when life brings them down. I would drink champagne, very expensive champagne, and share sweet strawberries with my babies, so I could kiss their fruited lips and tell them “remember strawberries and be sweet to one another.” I would breathe in deep, the air near the ocean and tell my children, “remember the ocean. She will always listen to you.”We would eat chocolate and I would let them know it is good to indulge, if but sometimes. I would tickle my babies and laugh with them and hope they remember to laugh always and to remember my laugh as it held all the love in the world for them. I would tuck them in sweetly and tell them I love them more than feeble words can say. I would kiss their sweet foreheads and touch their soft hair and cry into their arms. It is me who is losing. I would leave my heart in their breasts and my soul in their home. I would make sweet love to my husband and hold him until the morning light shown through the darkness. I would make him promise to love and protect my babies. I would breathe in his breath and tell him to be strong, “Take my breath and be strong,” I would say. I would walk naked to my grave and know my love was spent well. I would look back but once and forever. I would take the hands of my father, my grandmother, and I would take my place among the Guardians.

If we want to

If we want to

We will help one another without looking for something in return

If we want to

We will embrace our differences, our likenesses

If we want to

We will see one God or many and realize it does not matter

If we want to

We will lift each other up rather than knock each other down

If we want to

We will work together and discard treacherous competition

If we want to

We will stop fighting

If we want to

We will eat together and take a siesta.

If we want to

We will teach our children to love

If we want to

We will rid ourselves of hate and misunderstanding

How far is far?

How far is far?

How far will you walk with me?

When you have already

gone to the other side

how far is too far to get back?

Is far too far?

I want to know.

Is it too far to see me,

your grandchildren?

Is it too far

to feel my despair

when I miss you?

The other end of the world

is far.

How far is far

when far is where you are?

Too far, I’m afraid.

Too far.

The Colour Pink

One would not, I think, relate the color pink to the beginning of a life. But there is a truth in the pinkness of the womb and the pink furled being growing, attempting to adapt to new surroundings. The waters of love, the pink nourishment that will one day become the bellybutton that mother, father, brother, sister will adore, will bury with pink-lipped kisses. There is pink and there is red. Red is the lifeblood coursing through mother and child. Pink is the love, the lovely place where this life began and the lovely descent into the harsher brighter world, where the pink disappears. Disappears only until mother folds newness to her breast and shows her the pink areola that will now become the nourishing mother’s milk from which the child will suckle, will continue to grow, to adapt to new surroundings. Pinking her cheeks with the delight of dulce de leche. Pinking her lips with mother love kisses. Growing and living and nourishing herself to become what mother is. Until the time mother can no longer suckle her, for her pinkness is becoming her own. She will grow and grow her own way. Her pink lips, she will share with another in red hot kisses. Her newfound pinkness she will share in passion, loving or not, but hopefully loving. A pink flower to nourish, grow, protect, and also to share... Life is like that, always pink on the inside.

Verses on Bird. Poems by Zhang Er

Who can write like this without sounding forced, or worse yet, corny? I can't believe the fluidity achieved in this writing. The images lead seamlessly into one another, forming a story and yet more stories within. I read and wonder how many levels of meaning I am missing. Plenty, doubtless. Zhang Er is a master of art. I would steal every element if I could.  I wish I could steal the mind that is the creation. I don't know if I have the ability in my soul to achieve writing like this...

What can be said here without my sounding childish and inept?

Something I would love to achieve in my own writing? The languid, slow movement of the words into images that mean more than meets the eye. I want to tell a story of life and art and embrace nature. And I want it to be poetry. I feel like Zhang Er reaches metaphysical heights using concrete images. I would like to be able to do that. I often falter and stay stuck in the concrete, never leaving the ground. In direct contrast Verses on Bird barely brushes the ground.

Elements of different art forms are woven in meticulously with poetry, nature, life...the length of the verses and sparsity of punctuation draw me in like a spring breeze bringing me into summer. She tells us how to paint, how to take a picture, how to write, how to see. And she fills her words with truths, and it is not all beauty, so it's real. Believable. Undeniable.

She writes, "One has to keep a certain distance to recognize things within a field of vision." It is precisely this distance I am lacking and I think it sometimes makes my writing feel forced. Zhang Er seems disciplined in her distance...which is promising because that means perhaps I can learn it.

There is a patience to her words, which is something else I can learn: (p27)

"Drizzling, or choosing words carefully in the rainy afternoon,
Yet through your orderly cool and fine details
I can see the sailless mast, erect and sliding down toward the river's mouth.
So I wait, wait for your silent display on the moonlit sea after the tide has drifted."

I rush. I hurry to get it all out, then I move on to the next thing. She sits with her subject, sits with her words, and waits patiently. I am like the adolescent while her maturity is evident in her writing.

Mahmoud Darwish

A River Dies of Thirst

I am still struggling with reading as a writer. I have always had a hard time removing myself enough from the work to study the craft of the artist. I notice feelings evoked by the readings and will remember a book or author by how I felt while reading. Mahmoud Darwish makes me feel like a child. I am painfully aware that I do not know enough about his life (and life in general) in Palestine and Lebanon, past and current. I am made painfully aware of how blissfully ignorant I have remained in global understandings. His life was spattered with death, despair, and an overwhelming presence of wartime and disruption. I can't begin to imagine what that was/is like. I have a hard time fully absorbing what he has written. I feel quite removed from it. The obscurity and metaphor he uses is beautiful and also out of my grasp. I feel ill-equipped to judge his work. He was obviously well-read, his allusions eluding me at every turn. His intelligence is unquestionable, reminding me of the deep and daunting intelligence of Dante.

The work of reading Darwish, for me, is trying to connect to the work on a personal level. I understand much of what he is conveying, but do not feel much emotion. Much of what he writes seems to come from a place that is accepting of a desensitization that is necessary for self preservation. The tone seems melancholy to me, or rather absent of emotion, as though he is looking out a window at the world, or in a window at an individual and reporting on what he sees, because that is the life he knows...wonder and surprise, shock and disgust are luxuries not afforded him. (This is not a lacking in the work, this is a reality of life for those who have experienced death and destruction on a consistent basis).

There are glimpses of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a splitting of the self. I sense a divide between a desire to know "what it's all for" and a dreary realization that perhaps it is all for nothing. I love the entries on the aging process, they seem to be among the most tender.

This is all brutal honesty. Every word of it. It doesn't seem to be a calculation or a formula to make the reader feel something. As the back jacket lets us know, Darwish reminds us, "Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance." Through his act of resistance and his conveyance of a world in turmoil, I am compelled to understand I have taken my own safety and blissful ignorance for granted.

Who am I?

I am a mother, a wife, a searching soul. I am a psychic, a medium, a self-critic of the worst degree. I am a slut, a virgin, a daddy's little girl. I am Mama, Mommy, and sometimes plain Ma. I am a nag, hound, and on high-horse lecturer. I am a wannabe writer, a wannabe painter, a wannabe creator. I am a singer, tone-deaf and screeching. I am a dancer, all awkward limbs and lines. I am a reader, of high literature and children's books alike. I am a couch potato at heart. I am the Energizer Bunny. I am the cook, the maid, the coffee-maker and alarm clock. I am a walker. I am a Yogi (if only in my mind). I am a Reiki practitioner, Level I.
I am not a Buddhist Monk nor a surfer nor a snowboarder. I am a girl, trying to locate the Woman I am becoming. She is lost in the stacks of dishes and the loads of laundry. She is lost in the gold Chrysler Town & Country. I am disorganized and organized to a fault. I am disjointed, disconnected, discombobulated and I find my parts on the floor frequently in puddles that I try to sop up. My sobs difficult to discern.

Aaron Shurin circles his subject...

Perhaps it is easier to circle your subject when the subject is...you. But I suspect it is not as easy as Aaron Shurin makes it look. Indeed, his beautiful honesty is not easy to come by. And neither is the beautiful portrayal of even life's ugly side. His memories take on a dreamlike, transcendental quality. His lyricism leaves me in a state of awe...and much of the time, at a loss for words.

I have to say, I am thus far completely impressed with Professor Ramos's choice of texts for this class. I feel like we are sinking deeper, with each book, into a writing life with Professor Ramos setting a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow and gobble as we move along the path. And I am gobbling up these texts. I feel like there is so much to learn from these books. I am generally not a rereader. I am a slow reader and I attempt to make as much sense as possible out of a text the first time through. I have tried to reread certain things and rather than "getting something different with a different reading, " what I got, was bored. However, there are a few exceptions and there are books that almost demand a second (or third...) reading. Cortazar's Hopscotch is one such title. But I also feel that Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters, Dillard's The Writing Life, and especially Aaron Shurin's King of Shadows have kernels of truth and secrets of the trade buried within, that upon studying, we will come out  the other side better writers.

Fuck it. I'm trying to get this done with two very loud 10 year olds, a bold 7 year old, and a needy 4 year old running under foot. I am going to scream and it makes Aaron Shurin's summers in garden-surrounded hammocks sound like Paradise. An unattainable fucking Paradise. I can dream though...

I can dream that I will have the time and proclivity to reread this gem. We don't have to steal from Shurin because if we are willing to sit with him, he offers his craft up to us generously. He "flex[es] the page and stretch[es]" right there for his readers to see and absorb. He is daring and puts his heart and his soul on the page, leaving behind remnants of himself, vulnerable yet brave remnants of himself. It is impossible for me to dream of laying myself that bare, exposed. This is something I am struggling with for this creative nonfiction writing. I keep many things to myself out of fear. It is scary to place myself in such a vulnerable place. Shurin's delicate balance of what he shares openly and what he tacitly includes, painted with his precise, transcendental, lyrical prose is "courage and daring trapeze flight without a net." I can hope to rise to the occasion someday. Emerson's epitaph: "We study to utter our painful secret." A student's mode of study, my mode of study, could and should certainly include the works of Shurin. Impossibly beautiful, I could keep reading this book for the rest of my life.
            

  "This, I thought in a rush...is exactly what performing has to be: the generosity, the willful dialectic, the endless acknowledgement of shared meaning or joy. It was a demonstration of how to make art--the outward-seeking contract, the givingness at the heart of creation." 

Professor Ramos--
Where you lead, I will gladly follow.
Wendy

From the Edges: "The Writing Life" of Annie Dillard

I drool. I lust after. I am smitten by the picture painted in Dillard's The Writing Life.

I can't help it, I'm jealous. The green monster has grabbed a hold of me and now I will be forever haunted by this jealousy of a writing life such as the one described in this book. The joys, the tortures, all of it. However, the book leaves me wondering whether or not I have the stomach...or the freedom for it.

It took me a while to learn Dillard's rhythm, and it took me awhile to understand where she was going with her extended metaphors (i.e. the inchworm) but once I fell into her rhythm, I couldn't pull myself away. Even from the beginning of the book, while I was still trying to decipher the writing and the meaning behind the writing, Dillard struck me with thoughts that resonated. She speaks of the sense of freedom that a writer can be afforded. But she speaks of this freedom as more of a deterrent than an attraction to the writing life. She says, "The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever...Your freedom is a by-product of your days' triviality." This is often how I feel as a mother. Because, who cares (except me) if I get the dishes done or make the beds or finish the laundry? Who cares if my kids wear matching socks or eat a pop tart for breakfast? No one. Except me and my small tribe...and I care disproportionately more than even they. They say life doesn't occur within a vacuum. I beg to differ...it seems both parenting and writing do. It is a difficult trick to learn to embrace and not abhor the vacuum.

I can't help ask, how exactly does one read as a writer? I know I still am not doing so. I have a tendency to interact with the book, have conversations with it. It is difficult for me to understand the craft within the pages, difficult for me to extract it in a way that I can articulate. The "work" of the writing is not always clear to me. I am not sure if it is because I don't have the proper vocabulary, or I am not sensitive enough to the actual craft. I, in retrospect, have thus far read as a reader. I am finding it difficult to switch gears. I will attempt to do so, however.

At first, I thought The Writing Life  was like a diary or journal. If I look only at individual excerpts, it is easy to make this mistake. When the book is taken as a whole, and as I allow myself to be drawn into Dillard's cabin, I realize there is much more than journal entries here. At times I am confused. At times the entries seem fractured and abstract. Her analogies are always interesting, but sometimes weird. But through the quirky rendition of the reality of a writing life, the bare truth is left on the page for me to swallow. She is at times funny(I have little "Ha!'s scattered throughout my margins), sad, satirical, ironic, beautiful, pointed, and harsh. In such a small amount of space, condensation is necessary yet invisible to the naked eye. (How does she do that?) The work is not simply a straight, linear narrative (that is probably what I would have done). It is infused with passages of metaphor and analogy and imagery. She is a story-teller and an advice-giver. Her images are beautiful even as she describes the difficulties inherent in a writing life.

Her words and thoughts are often simple yet profound: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." This is now my new refrain for life! The more I think of it, the more treasures are to be found within these pages than I thought. Removed from it slightly as I try to reflect upon the work, I realize how much I adore this small book that booms big in my breast.

Annie Dillard takes a comfortable, almost conversational tone. I feel like I was almost listening to her tell me the stories rather than reading her book. I don't believe I have ever felt that way after reading a book, but it is not unpleasant. Her dry humor makes me literally laugh out loud. Her love-hate relationship with her career is exhausting to read about (yet alone, embrace) and is made evident through her sardonic, deprecating moments: "Writers read literary biography, and surround themselves with other writers, deliberately to enforce in themselves the ludicrous notion that a reasonable option for occupying yourself on the planet until your life span plays itself out is sitting in a small room for the duration, in the company of pieces of paper."

Dillard uses repetition throughout her book as well. It is a subtle repetition though, a repetition of ideas rather than particular phrases. The sprinkling of this repetition gave me the sense of deja vu or the feeling that I had "heard that before." I felt this lent a sense of credence to her words. This is something I will definitely try to steal for my own writing.

Jealous of her various studies, consisting of cabins on islands and crazy small rooms in dark buildings. Jealous of her solitude, the time she called her own. Jealous of her devotion, her desire, her fire. She makes me wish I were not only a writer...she makes me wish I were her. I am stuck home, with Time being dictated by the small and large tyrants I call my family. I am afraid that perhaps I do not have the freedom of lifestyle to be a successful writer. The thought unnerves and depresses me so I will try to rid myself of it. But doubt is a strong alligator to wrestle with. Is this what Dillard means when she says, "aim for the chopping block?"

Writer Series! Matt Bell, Steve Himmer, & Robert Kloss!

When Vinnie and I arrived at the MLK Room, we bumped into a nervous and pacing Professor Ramos. Beautiful as ever, but nervous and pacing. Concerned her first event was too disorganized, she fretted a bit about how it would all turn out. The turn out was spectacular. The pacing and cute fretting was all for naught. The room was filled to the brim with eager Salem Staters awaiting the words of these three talented and progressive writers. (Professor Ramos even created a "Balcony Section" out of thin air!)

Steve Himmer read first. He shared an excerpt out of his soon to be released novel The Bee-Loud Glade. As a person who's mind wanders even in the movies when I have a ginormous screen in my face, I found it telling that his voice and incredible wielding of words held my attention and led me through the scene where we meet Finch, main character. Incredible how I could see the whole setting as if before my eyes, I only can be anxious for the sale of his book in April so I can see what Himmer does with Finch and his surroundings as he becomes a Decorative Hermit (according to Himmer, an actual job in I believe the 1800s...a job I would totally rock, btw!)

Robert Kloss was our next visiting writer to share his work. Currently working on The Lost Bodies of Alligators, he read aloud in a dreamy, captivating voice 3 sections from this work, due out this year (Mudluscious Press). If it is possible to have in existence a lyric history, this is the corner market. Historical fiction, prose poetry, poetic history...beautiful, dark, sad and fantastical all at the same time. Kloss, upon meeting him, seems to be a soul of words. I could see them swarming above his head as he talked, as he thought, as he leaned against the wall in the MLK room, almost aloof. This man is about words. He is about words and what he can do to them: manipulate, grow, shrink, twirl, repeat, use, abuse, love, cherish, create...I believe he dreams in words (but this is only my personal assumption). Like the mist that our mouths emit when it is frigid outside, if you look closely enough at Kloss, you will see a soft mist of words emanate from his lips as he breaths. The poetic quality of his work, and his boundless imagery, simply what he does with his words places him in a quite progressive realm that as he tests the boundaries of futuristic fiction, still hearkens back to the origins. Incredible...and light years beyond where I could ever reach in my wildest dreams.

Matt Bell was the last to read, but I am sure I am not the only girl in the MLK room to have fallen in love as he read "The Cartographer's Girl." I already downloaded How They Were Found to my kindle, as well as his long short stories "A Long Walk with Only Chalk to Mark the Way" and "A Tree or A Person or A Wall" because I am an insta-addict! "The Cartographer's Girl" is a love story, but it is filled with images and a different emotional perspective than a traditional (i.e. boring) love story. I would have to say that Matt Bell is in touch with the depths and crevices of modern humanity and is able to portray it in his writing in a way that is uncommon (yet mildly reminiscent of Proust? perhaps...). Uncommon and beautiful. I hope he never stops writing.

All of these writers seem to be ahead of the curve. In my opinion, this is one thing that makes a great writer, well, a great writer. The ability to see current humanity for what it is and project on that with words that stretch us, grow us and bring us into a literary future that is sure to remain in the forefront of literary invention and to, yes, become emulated by those that follow...Kudos to Professor Ramos for bringing these guys to us! Many Thanks!

The Q & A that followed proved that these three men are not only incredibly talented but generous as well. They answered questions that picked at their brains, their roots, their home lives and writing lives. They were open and shared tips with those of us intent on honing in on their craft. The Q & A started slowly but got deeper and deeper entrenched in the inspirations and thoughts of these men. They allowed us to play in the mud with them. I for one am quite thankful for the opportunity to meet and listen to these writers. The experience heightened my desire to write. Their words of encouragement to budding writers lends an air of excitement to the embarking of a writing life.

Kloss says we write what we know. And all three men said that one of the biggest things that helped their writing was Time. Time and Reading.

Ohhh. That there could be more time for reading...
And as Professor Ramos says, "Write 'til you drop!"

Weekly Response: Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters

                Ana Castillo makes me want to write. She makes me want to be a writer. To be honest, I am definitely reading as a reader. I have always read as a reader. I am pretty passive in my reading as well. I am also fairly easy to please. I love books. I love to read. Children’s books, YA Lit, fiction, non-fiction, self-help, instructions, recipes…seriously, I only wish I had more time to read read read! For this class, we are supposed to read as writers and I guess the fact that I have never really considered myself a writer might be getting in the way of that. I have always felt that people would probably not be interested in what I have to say. Or perhaps I am just not creative enough.  I am hoping to change that view of myself, and this class was the first step in that direction. I am very good at getting lost in books. I am easily brought to empathize with characters I meet. What I have not learned to be very good at is extracting craft from the work. I am not very good at figuring out how the author drew me in and made me empathize with those characters. The subtleties and layers that I know reside within the pages remain within the pages. I am not a very good detective.

                When I read Teresa’s letters to Alicia, it is like I’m there (or at least I enviously wish I was). I feel the words as I read them as though the scene is unfolding before me. The letters make me nostalgic for a nostalgia that was never even mine, wistful for memories I’ve never even had. However interesting I think the recounted history of travels is, it is the complex relationship between the women that makes me wish I was a part of their experiences. The torment and joys of growing into women, traveling unprotected, living unapologetically, one with the other, sounds so beautiful when recounted through Teresa’s poems and lyrical prose. Through this form, Ana Castillo makes the most average, the most frightening, the most horrendous experiences all seem beautiful. The young women’s experiences may not have all been wonderful, but they were all part of a learning journey that arrived them at the destination of themselves. If I could learn to steal one thing from Castillo, it would be her ability to turn even a bad experience into poetry. I don’t know if it is the tone she manages to find or the pure quality of her language and word choices. Perhaps it is both, and more. 

                Her language is honest and raw. I wish I could achieve that quality in my own writing without sounding contrived or vulgar. To be honest and raw yet still poetic and beautiful seems a wonderful trick to me, a gift I hope to achieve as I try my own hand at writing.

Weekly Response: Lorrie Moore's Bird's of America

                Lorrie Moore’s quirky, birdy characters in Birds of America  remind me of the characters in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. Portrayed in a real-to-life, nobody’s really normal type of way, I appreciate the characters in this book so much more than most of the completely normal or completely abnormal characters  I often come across in, say, TV shows and movies. Too often, characters fall under one extreme or the other, but I enjoyed the intricacies and complexities of these characters.

                I might be over-sharing when I say I could identify with almost all of these characters. (My particular favorite is Ruth in “Real Estate.” I think that’s my favorite piece in the collection, but I enjoyed them all).  Like the critics on the book jacket say, Moore seems to really focus on characterization. She hits on what it’s like to live in America in this modern era with precision and wit. The stories grow organically from her characters. I imagine she had a clear picture of who the story was about before she knew what the story was about. This is just a guess though. Thinking of characterization in such a focal way does have implications for my own writing though, because I have always assumed an author needed a story. Perhaps all she needs is a character to start with. This offers me a new perspective from which to view possibilities for future writing.

                I think the work is about, first and foremost, people…what the human experience brings and how alike yet different and weird we all are. There are weird families, weird individuals, weird relationships in this collection and in life. When you get right down to it, we all try to put a “normal” foot forward yet we all carry our own set of quirks and eccentricities. We are indeed like birds, putting on a show, or aerial-like dance to impress or capture the attention of others. And most of us are searching for something (what that something is, anyone’s guess is good enough). Like Moore’s characters, we “migrate” and move around, try other people’s nests, circle back again. The problem is sometimes that we take our insecurities and loneliness with us. The unrest and malcontent just follow along, like saddlebags (or love handles, what-have-you). Your lot is your lot and your baggage is your baggage…whether we choose to try to leave it behind when we migrate, it will find a way to pop up again. Like Ruth, we’ve just got to puff out our breasts and settle into our nests best we can.

Creative DNA?

Mother first,
my creative being thirsts
Unknown in the day to day
I search for her...
Desperate for that space and
for the light that has been dimmed--
I want to
create
my spaces and places
get lost
I am here
I am here.