From My Big Orange Book: Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson!

 

Going to Him! Happy letter!

Tell Him -

Tell Him the page I didn't write -

Tell Him - I only said the Syntax -

And left the Verb and the pronoun - out -

Tell Him Just how the fingers burned -

Then - how they waded - slow - slow -

And then you wished you had eyes in your pages -

So you could see what moved them so -

 

Tell Him - it wasn't a Practised Writer -

You guessed - from the way the sentence toiled -

You could hear the Boddice tug, behind you -

As if it held but the might of a child -

You almost pitied it - you - it worked so -

Tell Him - No - you may quibble there -

For it would split His Heart, to know it -

And then you and I, were silenter.

 

Tell Him - Night finished - before we finished -

And the Old Clock kept neighing "Day"!

And you - got sleepy -

And begged to be ended -

What would it hinder so - to say?

Tell Him - just how she sealed you - Cautious!

But - if He ask where you are hid

Until tomorrow - Happy letter!

Gesture Coquette - and shake your Head!

 

Thank you, Emily, for expressing in your singular and astonishing way the secrets of the human heart.





Whassup?

     I seem to be experiencing a kind a trough at the moment, one of those hopefully short-lived phases in which nothing interests me, I can't be bothered, it's difficult to rouse myself even to read.

     By the way, did you know that, according to Webster's Dictionary, "short-lived" and "long-lived" are pronounced with a long "i"? All my life, I've heard people pronounce it with a short "i." I myself have always pronounced it with a short "i." I've also always heard "reptile" pronounced with a long "i," but Webster's says it's a short "i." Go figure.

     Because of this trough, it took me forever to finish Diana Tutton's novel Guard Your Daughters. I liked it quite a lot, and were I not in a trough I would have zipped right through it, it being the kind of easy-going read that makes no great demands on concentration or analytical powers. It's a straightforwardly delightful book, one that I'll most probably read again sometime down the road, and probably when I'm in another trough and can't be bothered with anything heavier.

     Though not really a short story fan, I find that short stories, along with essays, of which I am a big fan, do very well for me during troughs. I can finish one story or essay in a matter of minutes rather than hours or days, and when finished reading it, I can enjoy that particular self-congratulatory satisfaction of having done so. Currently, I'm leisurely making my way through Elizabeth Taylor's short story collection The Blush and continuing to dip occasionally into Christopher Morley essays. I must say, Taylor never fails to impress me. What a stunning writer.

     As for my own writing, the past two months have yielded eight new poems and one major revision, quite a lot when you compare it to the two little measly poems I squeezed out between last December and this past September. Honestly, I had all but given up. Despite this recent writing surge, it's been difficult to summon the motivation to submit anything for publication; finally mailing off six poems to The Lyric was done with a marked lack of enthusiasm. They'll probably hate them.

     Heigh-ho.

     On the plus side, The Next Iron Chef: Redemption and Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars have provided much in the way of amusement. And I can just feel another new poem or two tickling the back of my brain. Or maybe it's just allergies.

    

Saturday Summary

Carl Vilhelm Holsoe
"Lady in an Interior"

 

     I have a predilection for muted palettes, not only in art but also interior design. If there is sufficient natural light in a room, I love the changing color of it during the course of the day, and its influence on the space and the objects in it.

     When a muted palette in a painting is paired with the subject of a lone woman reading or writing in a domestic interior, that painting immediately captures my attention. What I particularly like in this painting is the patch of sunlight on the wall, which gives brightness to the scene without actually adding color. The only other element of light is the gleam of the silver.

     So this painting is what I discovered this week. Also, this past week, I:

     ... wrote another new poem, a sonnet that's a bit non-traditional in the sense that while it's mostly iambic, the lines are not all pentameter; some are longer, others are shorter. And the rhyme scheme departs from the usual Shakespearean and Petrarchan. But it definitely reads like a sonnet. I'm pretty happy with it.

     ... have been listening to Persuasion, read by the excellent Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply; Emma). Ms Stevenson does a splendid job, though the voice she gives Mary is borderline annoying. True to the character, I suppose. This is my first Austen audio book, actually. I'm enjoying it, but still prefer reading to listening, as reading affords the chance to savor and to read certain striking passages multiple times in succession with more ease. Nevertheless, I will probably be buying more audio books in future. If it's a book you're already well familiar with, it's rather nice to fall asleep listening to it, in lieu of an actual person reading you to sleep. You can always go back to the parts you missed after passing out.

     ... read Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton, a light, amusing mid-century novel that has been making the round of book bloggers lately. Very enjoyable, worth the purchase, and a definite candidate for re-reading every few years.

     ... received in the mail Christopher Morley's New York, which I fully expect to be every bit as delightful as his Philadelphia, if not more so. I really must read some of his fiction; never have, not even Parnassus on Wheels or The Haunted Bookshop. At any rate, his essays deserve to be on the shelf of every true lover of literature, maybe not beside William Hazlitt, but certainly beside Leigh Hunt.

     I also received the Hans Hotter/Gerald Moore recording of Schwanengesang, and Schnabel's recording of the Impromptus, to further my recent epiphanic reappraisal of Schubert. I'm learning to love him more and more each day. Another sure sign of middle age.

   

From My Big Orange Book

In my Big Orange Book I have copied down several poems by American lyric poet Sara Teasdale. Her poems have resonated with me since college, when I found an early edition of her volume Love Songs in an antiquarian bookstore. She's been a major influence on my own poetry. Though her early work can at times be what one might call "sentimental," her best poems are, in my opinion, quite moving. Her language is accessible and also extremely musical, which is why many composers, including most notably John Duke, have chosen her texts to set to music.

 

Teasdale used this sonnet as the introduction to Love Songs. It has no title, but simply bears the dedication "To E." I assume she wrote it for her husband, Ernst Filsinger. It's one of my favorite Teasdale poems.

 

        I have remembered beauty in the night,

           Against black silences I waked to see

           A shower of sunlight over Italy

        And Green Ravello dreaming on her height;

        I have remembered music in the dark,

           The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,

           And running water singing on the rocks

        When once in English woods I heard a lark.

 

        But all remembered beauty is no more

           Than a vague prelude to the thought of you—

           You are the rarest soul I ever knew,

              Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;

        My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,

              And when I think of you, I am at rest.

 

 

source



Then and Now

Then: 17 August 2009

     It has been over a year since I started this volume, and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I've all but abandoned you, and the poetry hasn't been all that forthcoming either. My last poem was over a month ago. If it weren't for my reading—which isn't much, admittedly—my brain would surely atrophy. I lead the life of my mother and father and have none of my own. Or should I say rather, that I have no life outside that of my mother and father? I have devoted myself completely to them.

     I try not to think of the future—too frightening—and when I do feel frightened, I try to submit myself to Providence.

     Too many memories haunt me. Part of me wants to cleave to them as some sort of confirmation of I'm not sure what, and part of me thinks it's perhaps better if I try to put my past lives in a drawer, close it firmly, and never consciously think of those lives again. What pleasure does it give me to think of them? None. Only pain and regret.

     All the regrets I have about my two and a half years in the monastery have yet to be sorted and clarified, and finally—hopefully—converted into a more tranquil, philosophical vein. Right now, I'm still torn between resentment of not being completely understood by the sisters, not having been given enough of a chance, and guilt that I just didn't try hard enough to overcome my need to be the authority in all matters musical and linguistic. Sometimes I think that I wasted the gift of my vocation through sheer pride and obstinacy; and in those moments when that thought torments my peace, I long to have a wise and holy confessor to whom I can pour out my soul. Then again, if I hadn't left, I wouldn't be here to relieve my mother of some of the heavy burden of caring for my father, nor would I have the gift of healing the rift, at least in part, that has long existed between my father and me.

     If I hadn't left opera, I would have spiraled rapidly down the shaft of frustration and dissatisfaction that I had already begun to descend. My friends, dear as they were to me, most likely would not have offered enough to sustain me through my increasing restlessness. My success as a coach would have continued to fuel my pride and my intolerance of what I perceived to be mediocrity. In short, I would have become hateful to myself and undeserving as ever to remain in God's grace.

     No, I am better off where I am, living a humble, hidden, and hopefully useful life. My demons continue to taunt and tempt me, but I try my best to stay close to Jesus and Mary. If my writing never gives any pleasure to anyone except a very small handful of people, I will be satisfied, and not seek anything more.

 

Now: 28 October 2012

     It's a perfectly gorgeous day, one that sets your heart rejoicing the second you go out the door and into the refreshing, golden crispness of autumn. The sky is endlessly brilliant and only the smallest breezes disturb the treetops.

     I'm back in a writing slump after a month of relative productivity, but never mind. I've learned a good deal from that month, received much encouragement and affirmation, and rest in the renewed confidence that I still have it in me to write good poetry. My muse may not be consistent or even reliable, but it isn't dead!

     Mom and I live a very quiet life. The monastery has rid me forever, I think, of the old restlessness that made me jump in my car and wonder where I could go to run away from myself. I was only running away from emptiness. Now I stay at home for contentment. Every night when I hug my mother and wish her a good sleep, I feel grateful and blessed. Life is found inside oneself.

     I no longer feel regret for my time in the cloister. I can now accept peacefully my own shortcomings and my failure to fulfill the vocation God gave me. I look on my present life as his generous gift of a second chance and am happy with that. He has given me back music, too, in a measure I can deal with serenely, without stress or anxiety, just the pure joy.

     My musical past, too, I can now look back on without regret. If my temper and intolerance held me back from accomplishing more than I did, I can only smile ruefully and move on. What have I missed, after all? Nothing at all. I've only been given more than enough, more than I ever deserved.

     I have the peaceful, useful life I have always, at my heart's core, wanted.

Whassup?

     As I headed out the door to go to Mass this morning, I suddenly realized that I hadn't been anywhere at all since I went to Mass last Sunday! A whole week at home. It's amazing how tempus indeed fugit , even when one never sets foot outside the door, if one makes use of imagination, thought, and curiosity. To satisfy any and all of these, there are books and music, both reliable and inexhaustible sources, and both of which I possess enough to keep me happily engrossed for the remainder of my earthly life.

     I've been dipping into two brilliant essay collections these past two weeks: In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton,  and Christopher Morley's Philadelphia. The first covers a wide and astonishingly diverse variety of topics from pocket knives to the Book of Job; the second, being focused on the city of Philadelphia, is narrower in scope; nevertheless, Morley often takes us on delightful tangents: a mere slice of sunlight on the side of a building inspires him to write an extended and rather lovely version of the "stop and smell the roses" idea. I look forward to receiving Morley's collection of essays on New York, which I ordered a few days ago.

     In an earlier post I wrote that I also ordered a score of Schubert's piano sonatas so that I could study them in depth while I listened. It arrived yesterday, and I look forward to beginning my study this week. Just glancing through the score, I realized I was imagining my hands playing the notes—inevitable, I suppose. Still, I have no real desire to play. For one thing, though I still have a baby grand, it's in an appalling enough state to discourage anything but the most casual "noodling." Serious practice is completely out of the question, and a very good thing it is so, for me.

     On the poetry front, I've had an extremely fertile month—five new ones and one major revision. This is indeed "fertile" compared to the utter barrenness of previous months. I wrote somewhere in my journal that I would be happy to write one good poem per month, and I still mean that. I'd settle for one good one over four or five mediocre ones, which the Lord knows I've written in many a month in the past several years. No, my reject file is plump enough.

     So that, in a few short paragraphs, is "whassup." I do have definite plans to get out of the house this week, but even if I didn't, there is plenty on my shelves to keep my brain from turning into total mush. Thank the great God for the written word of brilliant men and women, and for glorious music.

With a Little Help from My Friends

     I love my Facebook friends. Many of them are poets, teachers, lovers of poetry, or people who simply love words and their evocative power. Quite a few of them are people I've never met face to face; we've become comrades of the written word through a social network. I'm not afraid to ask their advice or to solicit constructive criticism when working on a poem, and they always come through for me. I've done this a couple of times just in this past month, and the result is that new poems are flowing out of me after an unusually long period of writer's block. My friends help me when I need them, and they help me even when I don't think I need them.

     Contrastingly, I recently "met" a fellow poet through the internet whose opposition to advice and constructive criticism frankly confounds me. It has been my experience that when a poet reaches out to a colleague and sends him some of his work, it is because he wants feedback—but in this particular case, I assumed wrongly. Not only did this poet reject my well-meaning suggestions, but wrote me quite bluntly that they were not appreciated—nor were the suggestions of yet another colleague, who apparently made the same assumption I did about well-meaning, supportive collaboration.

     To say that I was bewildered, even shaken, by this reaction is an understatement. But we all have different ways of working, different ways of growing; and perhaps, contrary to what Donne wrote, being an island has its good points. For me, though, I need the eyes, ears, and objectivity of others to help me grow as a poet and as a person. I am truly grateful for any help that my friends so kindly give me.

Lately I've Been ...

I swiped this meme from November's Autumn. It's appeared on a few other blogs as well.

 

Lately I've been ...

 

... writing revisions of my new poem, formerly titled "The Language of the Sea," now titled "Amphitrite." I'm still not happy with it, and honestly don't know if it'll work out at all. I might just chuck it into my rejects file and see if, in future, any portion of it can be culled for use in another poem. I've done that a few times, with successful results. Waste not, want not, even when it comes to poetry.

 

... reading In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of C. K. Chesterton.  I've not read any Chesterton till now and am loving these essays. What a fertile mind, what an engaging and lucid writer! He is indeed a master essayist, worthy to be placed in the same rank with Johnson, Hazlitt, Addison and Steele, and Lamb, all of whom were recommended by my great "kinsman of the shelf" Helene Hanff, through her book 84, Charing Cross Road.  However, nowhere does Helene mention Chesterton, and if indeed she never read him, she certainly missed out on a great writer. She'd have loved him, I think.

 

... listening quite a lot these days to Schubert's piano sonatas. I owned a score of them for years, contemplating every so often actually studying one or two of them; but for some reason his solo piano music didn't appeal to me. Besides which, much of it lay very awkwardly under my tiny hands. (I have, however, loved and played many of his lieder.) But I recently bought Stephen Hough's CD and upon listening to it, my opinion of Schubert changed completely. I suspect the change is also partly due to age—some music and certain composers are better appreciated, and indeed, better understood, from a more mature viewpoint. Of course, since I have quit the piano altogether, I still won't be playing any Schubert, but I now have the great satisfaction of listening to him. As Hough has written, while Beethoven is overtly passionate, Schubert is more reticent. His passions are glimpsed through a veil, through a partially opened curtain. And though what may be glimpsed is bleak, it is nonetheless intensely moving.

 

... watching—why, Dancing with the Stars,  of course! My mother and I are hooked. Well, she's been hooked a lot longer than I have; I am only a recent convert. I must admit, it's great fun and a nice change of pace from all the cooking shows, House Hunters, and House Hunters International.  Ever since I moved to Houston in 1989, I no longer watch current series, and I know even without sampling an episode that I would absolutely loathe reality shows such as—I don't know, that housewives thing, or whatever. But I genuinely enjoy DWTS.  I doubt, however, I could ever get into American Idol, America's Got Talent, and whatnot, simply because I can't stand most of what passes for singing these days. I am both a dinosaur and a cultural snob. Yep, I am. Call me Niles.

 

... looking pretty bad. Cannot tell a lie; my physical appearance has definitely seen better days.

 

... feeling under the weather. Which is probably why I've been looking bad. I'm just getting over a cold; still feel a bit 'snarfy' in the sinuses. Allergies don't help, either. I am grateful, though, that autumn is here. Summer in Texas is far too long and hot. You'd think I'd be used to that, but the sad truth is, you never  get used to it.

 

... anticipating receiving in the mail the Complete Schubert Sonatas played by Wilhelm Kempff. Yes, this dinosaur still listens to music on CDs, and sometimes even on vinyl. I had a hard time deciding between Kempff and Brendel, but ultimately went with Kempff. I'll probably get Brendel later on. The thing about classical music, including opera, is that you can't just listen to one artist performing any one piece. In order to appreciate a piece properly, you have to listen to as many interpreters of it as possible. Otherwise, you're not appreciating the piece of music itself; you're appreciating one person's interpretation.

 

... wishing oh, so many things! I wish I could go to Italy again. I wish I could go to England again. I wish I could write a poem without ripping my brain and the poem to shreds. I wish I could write a poem, period. I wish my hair would stop falling out onto the bathroom floor.

 

... loving being able to listen to piano music again without feeling that invisible knife twist in my gut. And in case you're thinking, "Well, why don't you write a poem about that?"—fact is, I already did.

 

To Music, from an Old Lover

My dear,

I sometimes thought I’d die without you—you who shook my soul and filled the wasteland of my womb with fertile singing. Yet I left you fully conscious of the risk of slow and agonizing death, or of an ever-bleeding wound where ancient ecstasies had hymned and sighed. I knew I could expect the wrenching of my heart whenever I perceive you suffering beneath the unrefined or disrespectful treatment you so often have to bear. I suffer with you, as a faithful lover should, regretting the predicament in which I placed myself and you. Perhaps, though, I presume too much—you have survived for centuries without me; and although I feel as if I’ve loved you since you first began to use your charms to soothe the savage breast of man, you owe me nothing. Rather, it is I who owe my very life to you. Although I chose to leave you, you could never part from me. You are the organ of my thought, the beat that pulses through my veins, the breath that feeds my being until death—and I remain, at heart,

                                                                                     Forever yours

I had originally written this poem, four years ago, in strict iambic tetrameter, which on paper made it look long and narrow, with very short lines, not at all like a letter. I decided to reconfigure it, preserving the iambs, but converting it into a prose poem so that it looks and feels more like a real letter. 

© Leticia Austria 2012

My Favorite Wildflower

     Many, many years ago—I think I must have been in middle school—I saw my first wild rain lily. It had finally rained hard one dry summer, and a couple of days after the storm I found a single white flower in our front yard, rising above the grass, straight and pristine as a ballerina en pointe. My first instinct was to pick it and put it in my room, but then I thought, it looks so right where it is. It was there for only a couple of days and I never saw another one in our yard since. I never forgot it, though, and later learned that it was a rain lily.

     Years later when I was in the monastery, I loved taking walks in the woods within the enclosure walls, and delighted in the various wildflowers that bloomed there, though I didn't know much about them. I had entered in the summer, a particularly dry one, and after the first heavy rainfall I noticed lilies had sprouted up—these, however, were not snowy white, but pale pinkish-purple, delicately striped. There was an old book in the novitiate library about Texas wildflowers, and I learned from it that this particular kind of rain lily grows in wooded areas. I also learned that the rain lily bulbs lie very deep in the ground, so deep that they sprout blooms only after a heavy enough rain breaks a long, long drought.

     Something about that fact moved me deeply. Maybe it was because I was going through so many difficulties, so many tests of patience and tolerance, during those first months as a postulant. Thinking of those flowers lying dormant for so long, patiently and confidently waiting for the rain from heaven to bring them forth from the dry earth, was a great help to me. I've loved rain lilies ever since. Now whenever I see them, standing tall and exultant after their deep sleep, I rejoice in God's sustaining grace and my belief in resurrection is renewed. We are, after all, more to God than the lilies of the field.

The Rain Lily

Beneath this crusted soil I shall await
the rain. Beneath the weight of withering roots
of weeds, I'll bide my time. It is the fate
allotted me. Inert yet resolute,

I have the shell of unremitting trust
in which to sleep, the pearl protection of
the waiting yet to rise, of those who must
depend upon the water from above

to fall and break the drought. For it must fall
someday, as surely as this ground is dry.
It is the compensation for us all.
The day will come when I shall see the sky.

["The Rain Lily" © Leticia Austria 2009. First published in The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry ]

Source



The Accidental Poet

     One of my sisters, a retired English teacher, told me she read in an interview about the working habits of a very famous living poet. She said this poet uses index cards to jot down and file any phrases, ideas, etc. that come to her in the course of the day. Every morning, at the poet's regularly scheduled time for writing, she holes herself away in her office and looks through her index card file to see if she can expand any of those phrases or ideas into the working draft of a poem. This is a full-time poet who has been widely published and anthologized; she makes her living solely on writing poetry, something only a handful of people can do.

     I am not one of the handful.

     In theory, anyone who aspires to write can jot down random thoughts on cards and keep a file. Many people (not everyone) can set aside a daily slice of time in their otherwise ordinary, non-poet lives to look through their cards, stare into space, and scribble out a line or two, maybe even a whole stanza. And there are people in this world to whom imagery, metaphor, and simile come so easily as to be almost their native tongue.

     I do keep a notebook into which I enter random phrases -- when they come to me. The problem is, they don't come with any kind of frequency or regularity. I am not one of those people to whom imagery, metaphor, and simile come easily; hence, I can't simply look at an apple and see in it the seeds (forgive the pun) of a poem. I envy those people (forgive me, Father) their fertile imaginations. 

     Anyway, I can't write about apples or trees or daffodils, unless or until they really mean something to me personally. I am a personal poet, not an abstract one. Which is probably why I don't get on better than I do.

     As to the daily slice of writing time, which every writing manual, every writing teacher, and, for that matter, every writer, will tell you is essential and necessary to becoming a good writer of anything -- I have tried, and continue to try. Because of the nature of my day-to-day life, I can't designate a specific hour or length of time as my regular writing time, inviolate and sacred. I catch as catch can. Morning pages? No. My mornings are devoted to prayer, and that is inviolate and sacred. (For those of you not familiar with the term, "morning pages" are writings done at the very moment of waking, before having coffee, before any morning ablutions. You put pen to paper and write whatever comes into your groggy brain, and you do not stop to think or edit along the way. You just write.) 

     A friend of mine, Elizabeth at Swing in a Tree, started her blog primarily for the discipline of writing regularly and "putting it out there." She inspired me to do the same. If poems, or even the seeds of a poem, don't come as frequently as I'd like, at least I can churn out blogposts on a semi-regular basis. And I do take a writer's care with them. When I post a poem, I hope my readers know how rare it really is -- not "rare" in the sense of superlative (I wish!), but rare in the sense that poems don't come at all easily to me, either in concept or finished product. They are, in truth, accidents of inspiration and the hard-to-harvest fruits of a not-so-fertile imagination.

 

For Whom the Ink Flows

     Ever since I was a little girl and discovered that the written word stirred something in me, I, too, wanted to write and stir something in others. The first thing I remember writing consciously was a poem about the sun and the moon and the contrasts between them. I was ten, in the fourth grade, and my teacher entered that poem in a local contest for students where it was chosen one of the winners. I met the other winners at a luncheon (one of whom was the 17-year-old Naomi Shihab), and after eating, we all read our poems aloud and had a general discussion, during which I was my typical anxiety-ridden silent self. However, like most silent people, I used my ears, and was introduced to a world in which people not only wrote, but talked about why they wrote what they wrote. Naomi, in particular, was very articulate and passionate about her poetry; in fact, she was the only person there that has stuck in my memory all these years. Maybe I knew then, even at ten years old, that she would eventually become one of the country's most respected poets. Yet it wasn't her work that impressed me (I was ten; what did I know?) -- it was her passion for it. It seemed to me that she had to write poetry, that she was born to do it.

     My desire to write -- not just poetry, but prose as well -- was not a result of that early success; rather, it was endorsed by it. The desire has always been there, just as my love of music has been, and these two powerful forces both propel and nourish my life even now, when I do neither for my living. They make living more livable. But can I call myself a writer? A poet? I spend hours writing these posts; I can spend days writing one draft of a short poem. What is the recompense?

     Friends and fellow poets tell me I am a poet, even when I haven't submitted anything in months, even when I haven't been in print for months, even when I haven't written anything for months. And when I do write something, how many people actually read it? A handful? A couple of hundred at the most? If no one reads my poems, can I still call myself a poet? Moreover, should I really care whether anyone at all reads my poems?

     My fellow poets (if I am a fellow in the first place) also tell me, "We write because we love it and we have to write." Yes, when I feel the urge to put pen to paper, the urge is irresistible; when I have something to say -- or more often, something to purge -- I indeed have to write. But it doesn't stop there. I have to write well. What I write has to show craft, intelligence, thought, artistry; each and every word has to be considered and reconsidered, every punctuation mark has to have sense and significance. Poetry is work, sometimes exhilarating, but other times painfully frustrating. In short, it is refined purging, not simply venting for its own sake, not simply stringing together warm, fuzzy words and images. It is striving to make sense of my own soul.

     Yes, I write for myself, poetry as well as prose. Publication, payment, readership -- should these things truly matter, or should I merely consider them bonuses? Should I reroute my motivation, attempt to write poetry as a "voice" for some social or political purpose? No, that's not me; that's never been me. I have always believed that, intimately personal, even confessional, as my writing is, if what I write is true for myself, it may be true for others. If what I write is a map of my own heart and soul, it may share a common landscape with the hearts and souls of others. We are all of the same species, after all, fashioned of the same fallible flesh. My words will surely stir something in someone, as was my hope at ten years old.
     So I will continue as I have begun, and let my ink flow -- when it flows. I will continue to hone the craft and cherish the long voyage, even the all-too-frequent squalls that come of my failings and inadequacies. I will continue to submit my work, when I have sufficient and worthy work to submit. I will continue to write this blog, and post the occasional poem on it in the hope that someone out there will read and appreciate it. But if, in the end, my writing is the proverbial tree that fell and no one heard fall, I should be able to say, without any regret whatever, So be it. I should. Whether or not I can remains to be seen.

    

Poetry Readings

When I was invited to give my first poetry reading, I had never actually attended one. I was still very new to the world of poets and poetry, never took any writing courses, and I've been a bit of a hermit anyway, since moving back to this city. I wasn't worried about getting up in front of an audience; Lord knows I'd been doing that almost all my life as a pianist and singer. But what exactly did a poetry reading entail? YouTube proved to be somewhat helpful. I also asked a poet friend for advice. But in the end, you just have to do it and find out what is the best way for you to communicate to an audience the reflections and insights you've labored so hard to hone into words.

A lot of it has to do with the venue. I was lucky that my first reading was in the intimate space of a small independent bookstore, where my very quiet, introspective poems wouldn't get lost, as they might among the milling customers of a Barnes & Noble. I can't see myself bellowing (albeit over a microphone) phrases like "and wakefulness / becomes a prayer, the holiest of sighs" into the mini-canyons between towering bookshelves. So even though I've been asked a few times to read at Barnes & Noble, I reluctantly and, I hope, graciously, declined.

Then there's the issue of the microphone. Being a classically trained singer, I prefer to project my voice naturally, by taking a proper singer's breath and supporting the sound with unimpeded airflow, and I have no problem being heard in a small to medium sized room. Our natural resonance is always more clear and pleasing to a listener than the tinny, artificial resonance of a speaker system; plus, you don't get those annoying spitted p's that result from having the microphone too close to the mouth. However, I'm well aware that most poets have not had formal vocal training, that many of them have naturally smaller voices, and that sometimes the venue's space is of a size that requires a microphone. At any rate, when using a microphone, don't have it too close, try not to spit your p's, and in the meantime, learn to speak louder if you can.

Also, being a singer, I'm very conscious of tempo. Since I started doing readings and listening to other poets read, I've noticed that some poets tend to deliver everything at the same tempo. Whether that tempo is slow or fast, if sustained for more than ten minutes, it has a lulling effect on the listeners, and they actually stop listening for large chunks at a time. I realize that when there's a certain sameness to a poet's poems -- as I said, mine are mostly introspective -- it may be difficult to change the tempo from poem to poem; but one can and should vary the tempo within a poem. Some phrases, for instance, are more urgent, warranting a speeding up; others require more deliberate emphasis, if they contain words with particular meaning and importance. If a poem is metered (many of mine are), try to find a good balance between respecting the meter, and giving a natural rhythm to the text to avoid seasickness in your listeners. Some poets like to observe enjambments, others pay them minimal attention, preferring to observe the number of feet in a line. That's a matter of personal taste. Sometimes a phrase is simply difficult to say because it has too many complicated consonants clustered together (case in point); these require greater articulation and a slight slowing of tempo. Hopefully, those phrases are few and far between, music and sound being crucial elements in a poem.

Which brings us to diction and pitch. Whatever tempo you take, make sure it isn't so fast that the words become melded into an incomprehensible mass. A good poet chooses his words carefully, purposefully; he sometimes agonizes over his choices, because he knows that the wrong word can ruin the impact of a phrase, and even the whole piece. So in your reading, treat those carefully chosen words with the respect due them, by pronouncing them with great care, even when you take a faster tempo. Try to vary the pitch of your voice. In the privacy of your home, explore the highs and lows of your speaking range and, if your natural tendency is to speak in a monotone, try as much as you can to expand it. There is nothing worse than listening for half an hour or more to a drone -- no, there is one thing worse: listening to a mutter.

Which in turn brings us to memorization. Certainly no one expects you to memorize all of your poems, but it's a wonderful plus for the audience when you deliver a shorter piece directly to them, without the barrier of the page. It engages them, compels them to listen, lets them know that you respect both them and your own work. Even when you do read from the page, look up every so often, not just in pauses, but with important phrases so that you really get your point across. If nothing else, looking at the audience once in a while keeps them awake.

Should you introduce every poem? That's up to you. If a poem really warrants some kind of intro or explanation, or if there's an interesting or amusing anecdote attached to it, by all means, share it -- but keep it brief, and be sure to speak clearly or you'll have defeated your purpose. Sometimes, however, it's really nice just to launch into the next poem after a short silence. Deliver the title (if there is one) looking directly at the audience, then take a slow, relaxed breath through the nose, which allows three or four seconds to pass before beginning the text. Or if the poem has no title, you might want to give the first line or phrase in lieu of one. Important note: no poem should require interpretive explanation. If it does, in my opinion, you've not done your job as a poet.

I like to begin and end the reading with a shorter piece. Beginning with a short piece gives you a chance to warm up, try out the room, and deal with your nerves. Ending with a short piece is the equivalent of keeping a farewell short and sweet. Short goodbyes are better. It's nice to say your thank yous before announcing the last poem; it's like a "heads up," and you leave the audience with your last line of poetry still in their ears. Try to choose as your closing piece one with a really memorable last line.

To sum up, always remember that the whole point of reading is to communicate. Poetry is communication and connection -- and, hopefully, illumination.

Regret? No, Gratitude

I'm a creature of nostalgia, I admit. Cherishing the past, wrapping its memories round me like a comfortable quilt, is a part of my character that informs almost everything I do: writing poetry, journaling, analyzing the present. I have never been a planner of my own future, a weakness in some people's eyes, I suppose; but I've always been one to take life a day at a time and confine my worrying to what's on my plate at the moment. Right now, I can't really think beyond simply being here for my mother and her needs. Her grief for my father is still deep, though she seldom speaks of it, and I know my company affords her some comfort - that, and baking up batches of cookies and one cake after another.

Many of my dreams take place in the apartment I had in Houston, in the Allen House. In all these dreams, I return there after some absence to find the place either in a shambles, or broken into by burglars who have left the place nearly empty. I don't need Jung to tell me the significance of these dreams, nor do I need him to tell me what prompted me to write the poem "Regret":

     I've lost the key to every house I've owned,
     but I recall the way to all of them
     as though the multi-layered years between us
     never were.  I still could navigate
     around the furnishings with eyes shut tight
     and not disturb a thing.  Although the keys
     are lost to me, like all my schoolgirl clothes,
     the sounds of every house are still as clear
     as bubbling laughter from a baby's lips,
     and all their scents still linger on the threads
     of tattered memories.  The houses stand
     as if in wait for me, but I must stay
     forever on the outside looking in.

I often think I should change the title of that poem, because it isn't so much regret I harbor for the past, but a grateful affection that helps me deal with the present. Though I sometimes feel like a slightly dowdy, genteel spinster penning memories on pages that will inevitably yellow and turn to dust, I can be happy in the knowledge that I've made good use of my life and my gifts. And every night when I kiss my mother and wish her a good sleep, I can be happy knowing I am of some use to her.

["Regret" was first published in WestWard Quarterly]

Note from the author: After the writing of this post and the publication of the poem, I officially changed the name of the poem to "Retrospect."

Being True to My Voice

     I've written before about poetic "voice" and how I've had to find my own. I've only been sending my poems out for publication since the summer of 2008, but in that short time I've struggled much over the dilemma of giving editors what they want, giving different types of readers what they want, and writing the kind of poetry I want to write. It's easy enough to say you have to stay true to your voice and not care about editors or readers, or, for that matter, certain academicians who think they have the divine right to deem what is worthy of reading and what is not. It's also easy to say, who cares whether or not you're published; just write what feels right to you, and sooner or later someone, somewhere, will want to publish it.
     The stark reality is that everyone who writes dreams of having their labors rewarded with publication and readership. Like it or not, publication is a game, like pretty much everything else, and you have to play by the rules if you want to succeed. Perhaps down the line, when you're solidly established, you can throw those rules out the window and play by your own, but until then you have to find that line and toe it. Of course, there is always the self-publication/vanity press route, or you may cast your poetic seeds on the winds of cyberspace and let them take root where they may. But there are still those old-fashioned diehards like myself who put the most stock in the traditional route. Though I have had pieces published in a couple of online journals, I find much more gratification in receiving a printed journal in the mail and seeing my words on an actual page—call me a dinosaur, but it makes me feel more like a real poet.
     What I find discouraging is that so many of the poems I've written that are my personal favorites, are of the kind most editors dismiss. I'm talking about love poems—yes, to use the term again, "old-fashioned" love poems, the kind of love poems the average non-poetry-reading person can not only relate to and understand, but actually like. What passes for a "love poem" today in loftier publications is likely to be veiled in literary language and devices that go over the heads of most people who possess more romance than scholarship. That is not to say these people are less intelligent or even less educated; it is to say that there is a huge readership outside the tight circle of literary criticism and academia, an intelligent readership that passes over poetry because, in their own words, they simply can't understand it. Don't give me "you don't have to understand, just feel it" or "whatever it means to you, that's fine." I don't think there's a poet in the world worth his salt who writes a poem without a specific meaning in mind, however multi-faceted and multi-layered that meaning may be. To do otherwise is pointless—in my humble opinion.
     I thought long and hard before deciding to have my own poetry blog. I know that once I post a poem on it, it's considered "published" and few editors will consider printing it in their own publications. So I decided to post poems that have already been in print, or poems that editors likely will not want to print. And it seems that what I've suspected all along is being verified: the poems my readers like the most are the "old-fashioned" love poems that are accessible and readily understood (they are also the poems that I think editors would reject and academicians would pooh-pooh as "sentimental"). I must say, I'm gratified by this verification. It encourages me to keep writing the kind of poetry that comes most fluently and easily to me, the kind that truly comes from my heart, my experience, my struggles, joys, and sorrows. It encourages me to be true to my voice. But I'm also slowly coming to accept that, if I still want publication in the traditional sense, I'll sometimes have to write a bit outside my natural comfort zone—which I have done, and know I can do well. I know I'm a good craftsman, and I know I'm capable, deep down, of producing a poem that has both craft and soul.
     Maybe someday everything will fuse together, and I'll write poetry that is truly popular and truly "literary." Then again, how many poets reach that rarified height? We can all dream, can't we?
  

The Beginning and the End

     I wrote in another post how my poems are an extension of my journal, a true chronicle of my inner life. Here is the first poem I wrote in 2011:


OPTIMISM

Be captivated by the light,
the hidden colors in its whitest ray,
the gleanings gathered in the bright of day,
and take them with you into night.

Seek out the modest gleam of dusk,
the varied values of its subtle hues,
the finished golds beneath the muddled blues,
and spread them out upon the dust.


And here is the last of 2011:


AWAITING DAWN

I dwell in Possibility. ~ Emily Dickinson

I find this shifting space
a questionable habitation. Hope
remains a nocturne scarcely audible;
I scratch the notes into my book of songs
with feathers sharpened by a bitter blade.
What prayers are wrought inside this cage of night
become a liquor brewed from sorrow's rain,
libation for the hosts that crowd my bed,
that carol with the confidence of those
who've passed the night of possibility
and woke to tell the tale. Theirs are the songs
my pen stays poised above the page to write.
However many feathers used and tossed,
I know the dawn will never come until
these songs are done.


     Of course, I wrote this poem shortly after my father died. Here's hoping that 2012 will see more poems like "Optimism" issue from my pen!

["Optimism" first appeared in the online journal The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry]

A Poet's Voice

     When I first started writing poetry, I had absolutely no intention of getting it published. Poetry to me was simply a way of exercising my creative muscles, playing with words and forms. More importantly, it was another form of journaling, venting, purging -- and it still is, which is why all my poems are autobiographical. The difference between venting through prose (journaling) and venting through verse is that the discipline of writing verse gives me time to be a bit more detached about whatever it is I'm venting. Verse demands that I mull over the selection of words, the harmony of sounds, line breaks, punctuation, the arc of the poem; in doing so, I'm better able to examine objectively the particular emotion that I'm trying to convey, under the therapeutic microscope of poetic craft. When journaling, I simply pour out stuff without really thinking, without reasoning, without worrying about craft. Both of these purgative methods are beneficial, in different ways and for different reasons, yielding different results.
     If my primary motivation was to be published and read by a wide public, then, yes, I would attempt to turn outward for my subjects and not stay so much in my own head and heart. If I were really concerned about giving editors what they want today, i. e., "universal" poems rather than deeply personal, "confessional" ones, I would turn to nature, politics, or social issues for poetic inspiration. The truth is, I seem to belong to the confessional (albeit "formalist") school, but (I hope) without the extreme angst-ridden, suicidal overtones. If you really stop to think about it, though -- isn't all poetry "confessional"? Even when writing politically, how can one do so without delving into one's own personal politics? What is "universal," anyway? This universe, this society, this very world, are made up of individual people with individual opinions and feelings. Or should feelings come into play at all? How on earth can they not?
     At the encouragement of my sister, I did eventually decide to submit my poems for publication and am happy about my modest success so far. As long as there are those precious few publications whose editors welcome "personal" poetry, I will continue to send out my ventings in verse. According to the old maxim, I should write what I know. Well, what I know best is my own life, so that's what I write. And I think it's what I write best.

          Autobiography

          I only write that which I know;
          I only know that which I live,
          And life will seldom lie.
          But then, I cannot always know
          The secrets of the life I live,
          So I myself can lie.

          This much I promise: I will tell
          The truth as it appears to me;
          And if I tell it slant,
          Then truth is only time's to tell.
          But even time may not tell me,
          So truth, to me, is slant.

     Well, maybe that isn't my best, but you get my drift.
   

The Young Poet

     When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher asked each of us to write a poem. Whether or not she told us the real reason, I don't remember (I probably wasn't paying attention, as usual), but it was that she planned to enter one of them in the Young Pegasus Poetry Contest, a city-wide contest sponsored by the San Antonio Public Library for budding poets grades 1-12. I wrote a concrete poem (a poem that has a significant shape on the page) in the shape of a diamond called "Sun and Moon" which was chosen as one of the winners in the fifth grade division. The results for being a winner were publication in that year's Young Pegasus anthology, a luncheon at which all the winners met and shared their poems, and a taped television appearance in which the older winners read their own poems and the younger had their poems read by one of the judges.
     The only person I remember at that winners' luncheon was the then 17-year-old Naomi Shihab (Nye), who is today one of this country's most respected and prolific poets. I remember her, not for her poetry, but for her appearance that day -- she looked like a poet to me: loose, flowing clothes, waist-long hair in a braid, very sort of bohemian.
     The television appearance was rather embarrassing for me and, I imagine, for the rest of the younger winners who weren't allowed to read our own pieces. Instead, each of us had to perch on a stool doing absolutely nothing except look straight at the camera, goofy and uncomfortable, while listening to his or her poem being read. What on earth were they thinking, putting us through such embarrassment?!
     This did not put me off writing poetry, however. Through middle school, I wrote quite a lot of it, compiling my work into a collection called Poems of a Childhood Romance. Except for drafts of a few of the poems, it has since disappeared. (Judging from those extant drafts, it's no great loss!) I wrote a few more in high school, but by then I was more interested in writing songs in the style of Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, John Denver, etc., and I dreamt of wandering round the country with my guitar and a knapsack, earning my weekly bread by singing my ballads in smoky, dimly lit coffee houses. Eventually, of course, I intended to meet a fellow balladeer, preferably a James Taylor type, build a cabin with him in the mountains, have twenty children, and live off the land.
     On the other hand, I was still the aspiring concert pianist, giving performances and entering (but hardly ever winning) competitions. This persona dressed more neatly than the balladeer, enjoyed meals at stylish restaurants (Ms. von's treat), and dreamt of dwelling in marble halls, single, but with a string of wealthy and powerful lovers.
     In both these fantasies, I never stopped writing in one form or another.
     When I was in the eighth grade I followed my sister Alice's example and started to keep a journal. Being an aspiring writer, I never meant my journal to be private, but passed it round among my friends (is it any wonder I eventually decided to blog?). I also wrote short stories, which were really my own original episodes of The Partridge Family, all of which were centered around Keith (David Cassidy). There was even a rough outline and one chapter of a novel entitled Sisters and Lovers, a tale of two orphaned sisters in early 20th-century San Francisco; the elder was prudent and practical, the younger impulsive and romantic. If this sounds suspiciously like an American Sense and Sensibility, let me hasten to say I hadn't even heard of that novel at that time, much less read it. However, I had read Little Women and was very much influenced by Alcott's style -- in fact, that was the start of my love affair with the semi-colon.
     The novel, poetry, and song writing all fizzled out (temporarily) by my senior year in high school, but I continued to keep a journal and my dreams of becoming a concert pianist.

Departure

     I left the Monastery of the Infant Jesus in November, 2006, two years and four months after I entered, and six months before I would have taken temporary vows. Not a day has passed since that I have not thought of my all too short life within those walls.
     My departure had nothing and everything to do with my relationship with God. During my last months, he gave me many graces, some in the form of heavy crosses; much new light of knowledge, a greater understanding of his love; in short, I felt closer to him than ever. Yet, too, there was the tiny seed of that other knowledge that grew steadily day by day, the knowledge that he wanted something else of me. I never doubted it was his will, not just mine, that brought me to the cloister, and my confidence on that score was confirmed by the prioress, my novice directress, and many of the other sisters. They and I felt I did have a monastic vocation, and perhaps I do still. But it became clear that God wanted me to be somewhere else in the meantime.
     When the prioress, Sr. Mary Annunciata, called me to her office to tell me she had concluded, after long weeks of prayer, it was best for me that I leave, she again said that she believed I had a vocation, but not with them and perhaps not with the Dominican order. She strongly suggested I try the Benedictines. My musical and literary gifts would be able to flourish with them, as they put great emphasis on the development and use of individual talent, more so than any other order. So why didn't I go to the Benedictines in the first place, you may ask? Precisely for that reason. From the very first whispers of my call, I wanted to find out who and what I was without my talents. They were and are a great part of that "who and what," but they also clouded the issue for me to such an extent that I no longer knew myself -- my whole self. My better self.
     There were many tears when I said goodbye to the sisters, theirs and mine. The bond of religion is a strong one, but the bond that cloistered contemplatives share is unique. Only we can truly understand why we have chosen to sacrifice our life in the world to give ourselves utterly and completely to God in prayer and penance for that same world. The contemplative vocation was, is, and always will be, something of an enigma to those who have never felt a calling to it. Many consider it an aberration, even un-Christian. Then again, how many thought Jesus was an aberration? How many still do? It is for those very people that the contemplative religious life exists at all. And it will exist till the end of earthly time.
     I took my prioress' advice, and after leaving the Monastery of the Infant Jesus, I visited the Benedictine community that I had had my eye on long before, ever since I began my discernment: the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. . . .


UNDERSTANDING

Closing the door behind her,
autumn crispness cool upon
her now bare head, she clearly
sees the room she has just left.
Her mind recalls the soft white
of tunic and scapular
hanging limply on the hook,
the once flowing fall of veil,
still scented from her shampoo,
lying motionless on the
wooden chair. And now, pausing
just outside the cloister door,
she covers her ears to block
something she has not felt for
a long time -- the chilly wind.


But what is she taking away with her?
The proper way to fold a fitted sheet?
Folded properly, with patience, it fits
better on the shelf with the other sheets.
She understands the worth of that lesson.
She understands that freedom was found in
the scarcity of things, that prayers could speak
louder in silence, that a narrow cell
could not confine the heart. She has learned well.
She knows, too, that the simple veil she wore
protected her ears and mind from the chill.


["Understanding" was first published in Time of Singing]

On Letters and Letter Writing

I've decided to take a brief interlude from my monastery narrative while I decide exactly how much more of that story I should tell -- or rather, can tell. Always a touchy thing, writing something autobiographical when nearly everyone involved is still living. Moreover, the reasons for my eventual departure from the monastery are very complex and deeply personal. So I'll think about all that. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these two sonnets I wrote a few years ago -- rather Victorian in tone, but maybe that serves the subject.

THE LETTER NEVER SENT

 

 

I'd write my true, unvarnished heart to you

If only I were sure you'd have it, dear,

In place of the mundane, detailed review

Of my small days and all that happens here.

I'd set my heart to music, write it out

On manuscript, each rhythm, note, and beat,

So clearly, that although it be without

A lyric, the intent would be complete.

The pen that I now hold so yearns to write

What stirs beneath the noncommital words

I send you, words I am constrained by right

As "friend" to say, all friendship's rule affords;

For if I dared to send my song, you'd hear

My heart, and all the love that's singing there.

THE MAILBOX

 

 

Some days it is so full of emptiness,

It seems to emulate the echo in

My hollow heart, the arid nothingness

Where once my dewy, eager hope had been.

On other days, it cruelly teases me

With letters, letters, like so many pins

To prick my bright balloons in callous glee.

No, none from you. The end of hope begins.

And so I tire of opening that door;

Its mockery I can no longer stand.

But just as I resolve to hope no more,

I glimpse my name in your belovèd hand!

My heart is like a brook that swells with rain;

I close the metal door and smile again.

********

 

 

My old friend, that amusing essayist "Alpha of the Plough," has this to say on the bygone art of letter-writing, all of which is just as relevant today as it was when he wrote it over a century ago:

 

 

     In the great sense letter-writing is no doubt a lost art. It was killed by the penny post and modern hurry.

     . . . .the telegraph, the telephone, and the typewriter have completed the destruction of the art of letter-witing. It is the difficulty or the scarcity of a thing that makes it treasured. If diamonds were as plentiful as pebbles we shouldn't stoop to pick them up.

     . . . .the secret of letter-writing is intimate triviality. . . .To write a good letter you must approach the job in the lightest and most casual way. You must be personal, not abstract. You must not say, "This is too small a thing to put down." You must say, "This is just the sort of small thing we talk about at home. If I tell them this they will see me, as it were, they'll hear my voice, they'll know what I'm about."

     . . . .A letter written in this vein annihilates distance; it continues the personal gossip, the intimate communion, that has been interrupted by separation; it preserves one's presence in absence. It cannot be too simple, too commonplace, too colloquial. Its familiarity is not its weakness, but its supreme virtue. If it attempts to be orderly and stately and elaborate, it may be a good essay, but it will certainly be a bad letter.