diving into summer

on your marks, get set,…. (wikimedia)

Technically, it’s not summer… yet. But there’s stone fruit at the produce market and swim team starts today, so I know it’s only a matter of time.

I’ve been thinking about a summer writing schedule, hatching a plan that involves me going to bed early shortly after Youngest, so I can get up early (really early) to write. Then Husband can put the Olders to bed a bit later. It’s a good idea in theory, but in practice I stayed up later than planned last night, still woke early, and fell asleep face down on my desk at 11:00 a.m. Oops. Still, I’m not ready to scrap the plan after just one less-than-successful attempt. Ever onward. I’ll let you know how it goes.

As we slide toward summer, there are one ka-jillion school events going on. I’ve managed to say no to most of them, while donating my time to the ones that feel easiest and/or most interesting to me. I keep reciting the list of things I’m already volunteering for in my head every time another volunteer request comes in. This small act has helped me to say no several times already.

My top priority this week is to get up to the city to see the Dutch masters before they leave town. In particular, I feel an existential need to lay my very own eyes on The Girl with a Pearl Earring. One must have one’s priorities. I shall report back.

May your slide toward summer be gentle.

friday roundup: le mot juste, patterns, and “Dear Day”

root system from wikimedia

Happy Friday, Reader! Do you know the phrase sunt lacrimae rerum? It’s from the Aeneid and it means (roughly) “there are tears in things.” I thought of the phrase last night when someone came to pick up one of the two family cars — the oldest one went, after 16 years of service — and two thirds of the kids burst into tears. Believe me, the car was nothing to cry over and there is a new-to-us used car in much better shape to take its place for the next 16 years (At which point, I said to Husband last night, we will be almost 60! His response: “DON’T.do.that.to.me.”). But it reminded me that things — objects — can become imbued with significance for us. I feel connected to my writing desk, certain pens and coffee mugs,  books, the antique, wooden Kraft cheese box I brought with me from our house in St. Paul (there were several built in to little nooks beneath the stairway).

I even have a tears-in-things relationship with our refrigerator. As in: I could cry, frig, at the speed with which you empty yourself out. (This thought is always followed quickly with a little prayer of thanks for the fact of refrigeration and nearby grocery stores).

At any rate, on to the roundup:

let mot juste  Have you read John McPhee’s recent New Yorker article “Draft No. 4″? I always enjoy his pieces about the writing life, and this one is another winner. In it, he discusses finding let mot juste (a phrase employed by Flaubert meaning “the right word”). McPhee writes about using a dictionary — not a thesaurus — to find the right word. “At best, thesauruses are mere rest stops in the search for the mot juste,” he says, Although…”If you use the dictionary after the thesaurus, the thesaurus will not hurt you.” (Whew!).  He notes that:

“The dictionary doesn’t let it go at [a list of synonyms]. It goes on to tell you the differences all the way down the line — how each listed word differs from all the others. Some dictionaries keep themselves trim by just listing synonyms and not going on to make distinctions. You want the first kind, in which you are not just getting a list of words; you are being told the differences in their hues… .”

Hmmm. I have a Concise OED, and it gives just a list of words. I could be convinced that I need a more exhaustive dictionary. I’m all for hues of meaning.

On the other hand, I find that in my work that the thesaurus serves me well, and that I most often rely on this etymology dictionary in preparation for drafting, and as I’m revising.

When drafting, I use etymology to dig deep into word roots of the phrases that come to me during free-writes. Last week, for example, the word “threat” presented itself in a free-write. With a thesaurus I found synonyms for “threat” including “portent.” I used an etymology dictionary to learn that “portent” is related to the words “stretch” and “extend.” That led me to some more language for the draft that includes stretching and leaning. I often find that an etymology dictionary will also help me find just the right word during revisions.

I say use whatever tools you can to find le mot juste. It’s always worth the search. (And P.S. here is a very handy online etymology dictionary).

patterns  I continue to make my way through Ellen Bryant Voight’s The Art of Syntax and I continue to love what I’m learning from it. One thing the author points out is that when it comes to language human beings are hungry for patterns, and that poetry is perhaps the best art form for employing language patterns (her words are: “And the art most attentive to pattern of every kind is poetry.”). She also discusses how breaking the pattern — or varying it slightly — can be a successful syntactical strategy. And speaking of patterns, here’s a famous old patterns poem.

“Dear Day”  When I say the words “Reading YM at the Pool, Age 12″ do you know what I mean? If you were twelve-ish in the early 80s, I suspect you might. I’ve been reading Catherine Pierce’s The Girls of Peculiar, and “Reading YM at the Pool, Age 12″ is one of many of her fantastic poems that evoke the experience of adolescent girlhood at a particular point in history. Oh, Reader, I love this book! I love that she writes about living in books with chums and jalopies (Nancy Drew, anyone?). I love that she’s written postcards back to herself: “Trust me when I tell you to take that trip to Aspen.” I love it when poets claim something as their own, and then go out and write all about it. Here’s a poem from the collection (sorry, the poem with the chums and the jalopies is, sadly, not available online) called “Dear Day.”

Friday, you scaly beast, may you be gentle to all. Happy weekend, and thanks for reading.

sing it!

The sisters… singin’ it like they mean it (photo here)

When I was a freshman in college (yes, we were still fresh*men* back then; the “first-years” came along a few years later) I tried out for one of the campus choirs. I was sooooo nervous, but I love to sing. And even way back then I had the Beckett quote taped to the corner of my desk: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” Even back then I believed that it was better to try and fail than to never try.

I went to my audition in the music building, a small ivy-covered thing practically tucked out of view. I sang. The choir director said, “Okay, now sing it again like you’re a foot taller and ten years older.” I could hardly imagine being 28!!! But I tried. I sang it like I was 28. Or what I thought 28 would be like. It was much louder and much more confident. “There you go!” he said. I looked around to see if I’d grown a foot. (I hadn’t, but that’s okay — I made the choir, 2nd sop).

Recently I had a couple of poems accepted, one of the two pending my approval of suggested revisions. The revisions were mainly cuts from the middle of the poem where, the editors felt, the poem lost a bit of its focus. This is a journal I admire, one I’m just thrilled to have an acceptance from. But, although I saw that their cuts strengthened and sharpened the poem (and although I kicked myself for not having cut it a bit more in my own revisions), I thought the cuts went just a bit too far, so that one of the characters in the poem did not have quite enough presence. I also wanted to restore a single word that they suggested replacing with another (admittedly more beautiful) word — but I really felt this poem needed the rougher, uglier word.

I hemmed and hawed. I thought, Maybe I should just go with their revisions. They’re a great journal! They know what they’re doing! Then I thought, But really, I think the husband needs more presence. And I really want the ugly word. Then I thought, What do you know, Molly. You’re probably blind to your own work, and you’re really just a baby poet (Ahem, do we have a little Spiteful Gillian creeping in here? I think so). Then I thought, But really, I think the poem is asking for more husband! For the ugly word!

I let it rest over the weekend.

This morning I knew I had to face it. And the words of the choir director came back to me: Sing it like you’re a foot taller and ten years older. I decided to act like it wasn’t *such* a big deal to me to get an acceptance from this journal (even though it is, it really, really is). I decided to pretend I was old hat at this kind of thing. I decided to act like of course they would want my input and additional suggestions for making this poem as strong as it could be. I wrote a specific and reasoned explanation for a version of the poem I suggested in turn. There were two more lines of husband. There was the ugly word. I asked them to consider my suggestions and get back to me.

They liked my suggestions. They could see my reasoning. (insert happy dance here)

I’m so glad I sang it like I was a foot taller and ten years older. Well, wait a minute, I don’t want to rush things in the years department. But I’m just saying, sometimes we need to act the part. I acted the part of a seasoned poet with strong reasons for her artistic choices. I advocated for my work, risked a “no” because I thought the poem needed more. And it worked. Sing it! Hallelujah!

friday roundup: composting, to follow the wrong star, and Monet refuses

Not the north star. Betelgeuse (also known as Orion’s shoulder). From wikimedia.

Happy Friday, Reader! Before we begin today’s roundup, I must own up to an error in yesterday’s post. Somehow, despite the fact that his book was sitting 4 inches away from me as I typed, I got John Hollander’s name wrong. Really wrong. He is the guy who talks about stance vis-a-vis ekphrastic poetry. Mea culpa. I’ve updated the post to correct my error. As I often say to my children: Ah, I’m so imperfect but I keep trying to get things right. Now, on to the roundup:

composting  This week I’ve been thinking about the importance of composting. I’m not talking about throwing your vegetable peelings into a heap in the backyard, although I’m all in favor of that, too. I’m talking about all the ways to feed your writing life — all the scraps you read and write, all the unmarked paths you follow, sometimes to dead ends — when you’re not certain what, if anything, will come of it. I’ll give you an example: A couple years ago I was big into re-reading the Grimm fairy tales, and I was particularly taken with The Robber Bridegroom. I read and re-read that tale. I wrote in and out of its lines and phrases in my notebook. I wanted a Robber Bridegroom poem. None came. I gave it more time. Still, none came. I sighed, I lamented: I can’t believe I’m not going to get a poem out of this. After several months, I gave up trying to write a Robber Bridegroom poem.

Then, a couple weeks ago I was trying to write a poem about my wedding day (BTW, aren’t wedding days so wierd!?). It was cardboard on the page for quite some time, so I fell back onto one of my old tricks, which is to combine my own lines with lines/phrases from another text. And guess what text I used: The Robber Bridegroom. Long after I’d given up hope that the time spent reading and writing around that tale would give life to a poem, it did. So, I’m here to tell you: in poetry and in life, keep composting — those scraps you thought were going to end up as so much dirt may surprise you in the end.

to follow the wrong star  Speaking of which, you simply must go read this post by Sage Cohen, who writes today about being willing to follow the wrong star. This is a heartening story about following one’s intuition, without having rational reasons for why. I think Cohen’s post is rich with wisdom for life, but can also be applied at the micro level to art-making, or even to an individual poem. Don’t ask why your poem feels the need to feed that stray cat — just feed it, and be open to what happens.

Monet refuses  Here’s another way into ekphrasis (or almost-ekphrasis) — taking a slice of the artists life, seen through the lens of her/his work, and making a poem of it. Lisel Meuller did that in her poem, “Monet Refuses the Operation.” Apparently, the back story is that Monet had cataracts in both eyes and his doctor recommended surgery to correct the cataracts, but Monet opted not to have the surgery. It is a lovely poem that borrows from Monet’s artistic style, his way of seeing (literally) the world. Here it is.

That’s it for this week, Reader. I hope you have a great Friday and a great weekend. Now I’m off to post this on Facebook in the hopes that someday FB will realize that I post mainly about poetry and family life, and they should stop displaying ads for Executive M.B.A. programs on my page #algorithmfail.

a method for ekphrasis

Thetis at Hephaestos’ forge waiting to receive Achilles’ new weapons (Naples National Archeological Museum), public domain from wikimedia

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on ekphrastic poetry — that is, poems that are written in response to another work of art. The work ekphrasis comes from the Greek: ek meaning “out” and phrazein meaning “speak.” So, in ekphrastic poetry, the poem speaks out of (or for?) another work of art.

The oft-cited first example of ekphrastic poetry is Homer’s Shield of Achilles from The Iliad. Other frequently cited works are Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn and Auden’s Musee de Beaux Arts. There are many, many other famous and not-famous ekphrastic poems that are worth your time and attention — poetry and painting seem to belong together as Aristotle once pointed out — but I mention these because they appear to be the holy trinity of ekphrastic poems.

My reading has taken me through long, labyrinthine halls of art theory and literary theory and the intersection of the two. There is a mountain of material out there if theory is what you want. What I’ve been trying to find are craft essays on ekphrasis. So far, I’ve struck out. I’m beginning to think that the reason is: craft-shmaft — whatever makes for a good poem also makes for a good ekphrastic poem. So instead of focusing on ekphrastic theory or ekphrastic craft, I’ve moved toward focusing on process.

Here’s a process that has worked well for me. For the most part, I came to it intuitively but it’s also informed by “A Question of Attraction: Ekphrasis” by Madelyn Garner and Andrea L. Watson in Wingbeats, and by a workshop on ekphrastic art I took from Sally Ashton. If you’re interested in ekphrastic poetry, I hope it will be helpful to you, too.:

First, let some art choose you. That’s right, I said let the *art* choose *you* (or perhaps you’ve already been chosen by some art). Instead of setting out to write a poem about a particular work of art, I’ve followed inner nudges toward art that then began to speak to me. I stumbled upon this book* (where? No idea.) and then borrowed it through the semi-secret library nerd borrowing program. Twice. I remembered someone saying once that Bonnard had painted his wife over and over again, and that felt interesting to me — so I went to the library and checked out a book of Bonnard’s paintings. Also twice. Of course, going to a museum is also a perfectly valid option; and many, many museums have portions of their collections online — so there are many, easily accessible resources for ekphrasis at your disposal. One last tip: I’ve found that used bookstores are a really good place to get art books at affordable prices.

Page (or walk or click) through and listen. Next I page through the books of art and listen for any words that announce themselves for a given work of art, and I jot them down in my notebook. The risk here is that no words appear. If not, no worries. Just note the works of art that speak to you somehow, so you can return to them later.

Choose one piece of art, and freewrite about it. This is as simple as it sounds. Write whatever comes to mind and try to keep your inner critic from talking you out of anything (use duct tape if needed). I like to listen for words that arrive as I consider the work of art, but I also try to channel the physical attributes of the piece: colors, perspective, textures, etc. This is also a good time to write down the details of the work — title, artist, year, media, museum (if applicable).

Do some research about the work of art. Write what you learn in your notebook; keep a list of sources. For me it’s important to do this step *after* the freewrite — because it’s far too easy to let the art critic and your inner critic start collaborating against your artistic impulses. But I’ve also found that doing research about a work of art can deepen my understanding of it, and in fact, has often introduced interesting layers to what I’ve already intuited while freewriting.

Decide who or what your poem will speak for. Will your poem give voice the subject of the art, the artist herself, the bowl of fruit spilled out on the table in the lower left corner of the painting? Will your poem speak to the work of art directly? If yes, who is the observer/speaker? Will your poem be an attempt to interpret the work of art, to say what it means or communicates? Will your poem say what happened just before the moment captured in the painting, or will it say what happens next? John Hollander**, one of the many ekphrastic theorists, calls this determining your stance — what is the poet’s relationship with the work of art?

Whatever you do when you draft poems, do it. Draft away. Pull in elements from your freewrite and your research, as well as from the work of art itself. You may wish to let the visual aspects of the piece inform your formal choices (or you may wish to put off formal decisions until the next step). At any rate: Poet, do your thing.

(this is going to come as a shocker, but) Revise, revise, revise.  And here I’d like to say, don’t be afraid to let your poem depart from the work of art if that’s what it wants to do. The work of art is a starting point, and any ekphrastic poem worth it’s salt needs to go beyond the work of art itself — it needs to bring something new to the conversation between the work of art and the world. If your poem ends up being only distantly connected to the work of art, that’s okay.

And that’s my process. Again, I hope it’s helpful for you if you’re interested in writing ekphrastic poetry. I invite you to share any tips or methods you’ve used to write ekphrastic poems, as well as names (and links to, if possible) your favorite ekphrastic poems, in comments.

*I normally avoid linking Amazon, but couldn’t find a link to this anywhere else.

**ditto

I do “get” poetry readings

Ruins of an ancient theater in Stratos, Etolia Acarnania, Greece (from wikimedia)

Yesterday, I stumbled upon an article called “I Don’t “Get” Poetry Readings” at HTMLGIANT, explaining why its author (Bethany Prosseda) doesn’t “get” poetry or poetry readings. Not that I want to get into a big argument about “getting” poetry or poetry readings, but…  I do “get” poetry readings, and so there are a few things I want to say.

But first, a few disclaimers:

1. I do not know who Eric Dolphy is
2. I did not read the article Prosseda refers to, “I Don’t ‘Get’ Art”
3. I did not watch the film Prosseda refers to, Tiny Furniture
4. I think Prosseda’s article is more about not “getting” poetry than about not “getting” poetry readings, but there are a few things I want to say about that, too
5. I grew up in a rural community where there were no poets and no poetry readings

First, regarding poetry readings:

A poetry reading is an event where poets read their work aloud (and I’ve even heard some poets recite their work — always a treat). It’s a chance for us to listen to poetry — which is first and foremost an oral art form — as we have been doing for millenia. That is all.

Yes, some readings are full of people who are there because their literature professors require them to attend. As someone who, before her sophomore year in college, didn’t even know there was  such a thing as a reading (see disclaimer #5 above) where writers would read their work aloud, I’ve always been grateful for that literature professor who required me to attend a reading. Thank you, professor, for helping me find my tribe.

Now, about poetry.

I don’t “get” abstract art. This does not mean abstract art isn’t accessible to me. It doesn’t even mean I don’t like some abstract art. It means I haven’t spent much time studying or interacting with abstract art. The same can be said for me and NASCAR, yoga, micro-finance, chili cook-offs, embroidery, circuit design, wood carving, and fantasy football, amongst many, many other things. It does not mean abstract art, NASCAR, yoga, micro-finance, chili cook-offs, embroidery, circuit design, wood carving, and fantasy football have gone underground or forgotten to send Christmas cards.

Yes, it’s true that when asked “What’s your favorite poem?,” many Americans will answer with, as Prosseda notes, “works like, ‘Casey at the Bat,’ ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends,’ and every now and then a piece by Poe, Plath, Whitman or Cummings.” She argues that this is because “a shift has occurred in poetry. It seems that at some point, poetry went underground.” She points out that all of these poems are several decades old, and all of these poets are dead.

And this is where I have to disagree (at least partially. If by “underground” she means that some poetry is difficult to understand on the face of it, she’s right — some poetry has always been that way. Then again, some poetry is not intended to be “understood” so much as heard and/or experienced). I believe Americans are apt to cite “Casey at the Bat,” Shel Silverstein, Poe, Plath, Whitman or Cummings because those are the only poems they’ve been exposed to. Last time I was in high school and college (admittedly, it’s been a while), we did not study even one poem or poet who was living and working at that time. Did you?

Perhaps if K-12 and college curricula included the work of living poets, we would all be able to cite some work by living poets. (*P.S. Updated to say: I’m not saying this as an indictment of K-12 and college curricula — heaven knows there’s a lot to teach! My point is that without exposure to something it’s hard to like, love, ‘get,’ or cite it as your favorite).

Meanwhile, those of us who love poetry will continue to read it, study it, listen to it, and “get” it. Amen.

Alan Davis’ next big thing

One last “next big thing,” Reader. I’ve enjoyed showcasing the work of so many writers. This last post is from Alan Davis:

What is the working title of your book?  My book’s title is The Theater of the Invisible Guests.

 Where did the idea come from for the book?  I spent a summer in Indonesia (Bali and Java), where the dalaan (shadow puppet master) who makes an occasional appearance in the novel and strongly influences its narrator first made my acquaintance. A few years ago, here in Minnesota, a man now known as the Craigslist killer committed a horrible crime, the murder of a young woman he lured to the house where his parents lived, and that crime is central to the plot.

What genre does your book fall under?  I wrote the book as a novel.

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?  Ryan Gosling might be the narrator and protagonist, though it could also be Edward Norton. Karen, his Kentucky fiancé who works as a horsewoman and whose father is the influential Colonel, might be played by Natalie Portmann, though Rachel Weisz would also work if it was Norton and not Gosling.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?   In The Theater of the Invisible Guests, a man brought from England as a boy moves to the Upper Midwest after he loses his family and becomes obsessed with, and then implicated in, a murder in his neighborhood.

 Who published your book?  The book is unpublished. My previous books include So Bravely Vegetative (winner, Prize Americana for Fiction 2010) and two other collections of stories, Alone with the Owl and Rumors from the Lost World.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Several years.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?   Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, Albert Camus’s The Stranger, Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground.

What is there about your book that might pique a reader’s interest?  Walker Percy once wrote a book titled Lost in the Cosmos. In this novel, a protagonist who is lost in America undertakes a journey of self-discovery that leads him from the islands of Indonesia to the blue grass horse farms of Kentucky when he decides to befriend an alleged murderer who lives in his Upper Midwest neighborhood and finds himself under suspicion as a possible accomplice. Readers who like Kerouac might want to travel with him. Readers who enjoy literary mysteries will want to know how things turn out, and those who like love stories will skip to the end (if they’re unscrupulous) to find out what happens in Kentucky.

Alan Davis teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, where he is Senior Editor of New Rivers Press, and in the low-residency MFA program at Fairfield University in Connecticut. He’s received a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction in Creative Prose, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, and a Lake Region Arts Council Fellowship, as well as Fulbright awards to Indonesia and Slovenia. For ten years he co-edited American Fiction, an anthology of short stories chosen in 1998 by Writer’s Digest as one of the top 15 places in the United States to publish fiction. His three collections of stories include So Bravely Vegetative  (which won the Prize Americana for Fiction in 2010), Alone with the Owl, and Rumors from the Lost World, which Dorothy Allison reviewed in The New York Times Book Review: “Alan Davis’s voice transports and sings….I kept thinking that I wouldn’t mind winding up as a character in one of his stories. Odds are, he’d do me justice.”

friday roundup: the art of syntax, the personal universe deck, and ‘the doorway that watches you go’

from wikimedia

Reader, don’t look now… but here at the Wee, Small House we’ve nearly made it through one whole week without anyone getting sick or otherwise needing unplanned care. It’s been so nice to have a bit more time for poetry this week! Without further adieu:

the art of syntax On the recommendation of Sally Rosen Kindred, whose poems you should read, I’ve been reading Ellen Bryant Voight’s The Art of Syntax (one of several books in the Art of… series from Graywolf). Holy smokes, Reader, word-nerd-alert of the century! This book is awesome! Although I’m only about one-third of the way through the book, I feel I’ve learned so much about what particular syntactical structures can do, and how different structures work together to “sort and arrange” perception over a chunk of text (a poem, a passage). She says that, although we poets have been fretting about line since free verse became the norm in poetry, “It is useful to remember that we write in sentences too, and that the infinite variations of generative syntax take another quantum leap when they can be reinforced, or reconfigured — rechunked — by the poetic line.” I feel I could devote the rest of my 40s to pulling this book apart and learning from it, and I highly recommend it to all you poets, writers of other stripes, and teachers of writing.

the personal universe deck  Amongst other things, The Art of Syntax looks at the development of one’s lexicon (“one’s individual stash of words”), which reminded me of a resource I’ve used a lot in the past, but not so much lately. The “personal universe deck” is the product of a guided exercise found in The Practice of Poetry and it goes like this: On 100 index cards write:

• 16 words that suggest each of the 5 senses (80 words all together)
• 10 words that suggest motion (not necessarily verbs)
• 3 abstractions
• 7 anything else
• All words must be significant to you, specific (“crow” not “bird”) and sound good to your ear.
• No adverbs, no plurals.

Now you have 100 “drive words” that can fuel your poems. Grab 10 and use them all in a draft. Or use them with other constraints: I’ve found that using a personal universe deck in combination with words that I sense are important in whatever poet’s work I’m reading at the moment can produce surprising results. It’s been a few years since I’ve refreshed my personal universe deck. Office supply store, here I come. (Oh dear, this will mean many index cards spread out on my combination kitchen/dining/living room floor).

the doorway that watches you go  This week I’ve been reading Hadara Bar-Nadav‘s Lullaby (with exit sign) — yet another book I highly recommend. These poems take elegy to a whole new level. I love how this poet uses lines from Emily Dickinson (all hail the Undisputed Queen of Everything), to launch into small but sonically packed poems of the body, mortality, and grief. Here is the title poem of this collection (which actually doesn’t use lines from E.D., but which is still really amazing).

I hope the doorway to your weekend stands wide and inviting. Thanks, as always, for reading.

making room

btw, this lasted for about… 10 minutes

Last week I sorted, this week I cleared.

Beginning with my desk, which is often home to tall piles of books and papers and files — the sign of a writer at work, to be sure, but every now and then it’s good to make room. I’ve found that clearing the decks (and/or the desk) can make room in my brain, as well — room for ideas and ruminations.

And I made room in my schedule as well. Mercifully, the family schedule is a bit calmer than it has been, which helps — but I’ve also said No to things. Things at the kids’ school, primarily, which has not always won me most-popular-mom status. But which has been empowering. (I pause here to remind myself: If you don’t make room for your creative life, no one else will).

So, for the first time in many weeks, I made room to sit down and consciously draft poems. I wondered if I’d remember how. But I did remember — it’s all about playing with words and language. I began, as always, by reading other people’s work and writing out of a phrase or image that caught my attention. Then I got busy playing — free associating, mixing sentences, looking up synonyms and etymology, listening for more phrases in my poet’s ear.

And also, by making room. Both drafts I worked on this week didn’t become poems until I started cutting out big chunks of them. It’s easy to resist cutting — right? — but I kept reminding myself I still had the previous, uncut version to go back to. In the end, I don’t think I will go back. The cuts made room for mystery, for leaps, for lyric moments. They let the poem grow, even as the number of lines decreased. I was reminded of one of the maxims I learned from my very first writing teacher: Be brave and cut much.

And also of this quote from Elie Weisel (which I’m sure I’ve shared before, but which bears repeating):

“Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.”

Which then reminded me of this quote by Ernest Hemingway:

“If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an icebert is due to only one ninth of it being above water.”

I’m not saying I knew enough what I was writing about as I set out to draft, but by cutting, I became more aware of what I was writing about — and it often wasn’t what I thought I was writing about to begin with. Funny how that works.

And, as in poetry so also in life: This week I’ve made a conscious effort to make room for more restorative/relaxation time. It’s always struck me as ironic that just when you need that time the most, it’s hardest to come by. But I’ve wandered, I’ve had a couple conversations with my favorite neighborhood plant (pictured here), I’ve sat on the couch with my feet up working crosswords.

I hope there’s some room in your life right now for whatever you want and need, too. If not, can I gently suggest you consider cutting?

Suzanne McNear’s next big thing

Happy Monday, Reader! There are still a few next big things coming over the transom, and today I’m happy to host Suzanne McNear’s. I also want to point you to Kathryn Levy’s, whose next big thing is posted on her website.

What is the working title of your book?  My book’s title is Knock Knock

 Where did the idea come from for the book?  The idea came to me many years ago. I started the book, put it aside, worked on it again, put it aside again when an agent said it was much too long. (It was).  At the time I was divorced, raising three daughters, working at a demanding job as a fiction editor at Playboy Magazine. The novel was based on my life, and it was too close to me, too hard for me to cope with. I put the pages- all typewritten – into a box and put the box away.

What genre does your book fall under?  I wrote the book as a novel. However, my co- publishers at The Permanent Press  thought of it as a fictional memoir. I had always thought of the book as a novel, and was not familiar with the term “fictional memoir.” However, the book was certainly based on my life, and sometimes I used real names. The story is told by a character I  called March Rivers, and to me, the story is March’s story. Not Suzanne McNear’s story.

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?  A movie. Oh that would be fun. I would have liked Nora Ephron for a director.  I wish she were still with us to consider it. I’m not sure about actors. Maybe Philip Seymour Hoffman for the director and for March’s husband.  The husband is a drinker, a mystery writer, a troublemaker, a buffoon.   Philip Seymour Hoffman would be perfect, and he would know the right actress to play March.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?  An artist friend wrote to me and said he found Knock Knock “deeply moving and wickedly funny.” I put this note up on the wall above my desk.

 Who published your book?  The book was published by The Permanent Press, a small press in Sag Harbor, New York. Judy and Marty Shephard, the co –publishers took the book after a friend asked them to read the manuscript, and this all happened very quickly. I was stunned. And for good reason.  The Shepards and their staff work in a wonderful old farm house not far from where I live, and when Judy showed me her desk there was a huge stack of manuscripts, going back a year or more, which she was working her way through. So were it not for a friend I might still be waiting to hear.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?  It took forever. I started the book when I was pregnant with my third child, and put it away when she was born. I worked on it again about ten years later when I was a fiction editor at Playboy Magazine. Robie Macauley who ran out small department sent the novel to an agent in New York and though it was not finished, and already ran to 500 pages this agent sent it to various publishers who turned it down. Then the agent and I had a falling out and the novel came back to me and back to the drawer in my desk. I did not want to think about it again. Ever. Ten years later I was living in New York and in Gordon Lish’s workshop. When I had finished a collection of stories I was given a contract by Knopf where Gordon was an editor, but the contract was for “a work of fiction,” not the stories. According to the editor and chief at Knopf, all the stories were alike. Which they certainly were not! At the time I had just exchanged my apartment in New York with a friend who had a house in London, so off I went with hopes of creating this  “work of fiction.”  I sat at a desk in a house in Little Brompton and stared at the Concorde on its way to New York, winter afternoon after winter afternoon. Trying to think of a work of fiction. Something. Anything. Nothing. A few years later I did publish the stories in a collection titled Drought whose working title had once been Water Water. I loved the way this collection turned out. It was designed by Leslie Miller at The Grenfell Press and published by Canio’s Editions in Sag Harbor.  I was writing stories again when my daughter who is a writer and editor asked me to think about the novel I had put aside. What had ever become of it? Where was it? Well, it was, fortunately, still with me, after six moves, in the same box, in the desk drawer. I opened the box and there were the pages, crisp and yellow with age, thin as potato chips, and not a terrible book at all. Worth going back to. After many years.  And so, with my daughter’s encouragement, I set to work, and three years later the book was finished.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?  The book was published as a fictional memoir, and I haven’t really read many memoirs. I have certainly been influenced by Christina Stead and Jane Bowles, and by Beckett and Harold Pinter. And by Gertrude Stein. And Kafka. I love writing that is unconventional, dark, quirky. And black humor is important to me. I have written a number of plays and when I was rewriting Knock Knock I found that I could take advantage of all I had learned from Beckett and Pinter. Recently I have been reading David Foster Wallace. The Pale King is extraordinary. It goes on forever and I could not stop until the very end when I felt such a sense of celebration, for the work, and such a sense of loss, knowing David’ s work was complete. There would be no more.

What is there about your book that might pique a reader’s interest?  There are unsettling scenes in the book; a turbulent marriage, a divorce, a nervous breakdown, but there is also a comic sense that carries the story along. At the worst of times the story is funny. The sense of the absurd, that manner of seeing life as such is at the core of my work.  I recently published a story titled “Swimming Lessons” which won the Neil Shepard prize given by the Green Mountains Review earlier this year.  The story was about a sudden death, a woman quite lost for a while, a man falling or jumping through a glass roof, but again the story was comic. It also had a scene from a Pinter play in it. So Pinter is my guardian angel, and a very attentive one.

Suzanne McNear is a former editor and journalist, and now devotes herself to writing fiction and plays. Her essays have been published in The New York Times and Vogue. Her collection of stories titled  “Drought” was published in 2004. A story titled “Excerpts from a Wisconsin Childhood” was published by Midnight Paper Sales in a special edition with woodcuts by Gaylord Schaniiec. She is currently working on a collection of stories which will include “Swimming Lessons,” winner of the Neil Shepard prize for fiction in the latest issue of the Green Mountains Review.