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>Stinging nettles, Calla lilies
•April 29, 2011 • Leave a Comment>Nature is filled with paradox. On a recent walk to look for fiddlehead ferns, those furled beginnings that have to be picked only in the two weeks before they mature, open into the ferns you see by ponds, we also saw poison ivy, brushed against sharp branches. I can’t describe the delight I felt finding these shy plants, curled up on the newly thawed ground. My daughter, Kira was with me. She is as familiar with the woods as she is with riding a bicycle. As an aspiring mycologist, she has learned the language of food that grows in dark and secret places–wild onion, morels, hen-of-the-woods, and oyster mushrooms. She is gone now–off to begin another kind of trek; that of higher learning.
We have finished our international book tour and Geraldine Mills has returned to Ireland. Last night I had my last coffeehouse with my writing students at the job I will leave at the end of this year. Endings also bring new possibilities. If I can learn to honor the seasons of things, I will become alert to the quiet places where the best words hide. I can move through the imagination like a native.
>Connections
•March 25, 2011 • Leave a Comment>The culmination of two years of work, our collection of poetry, launched in Ireland this week. In this land of mist and rain, clouds broke and an unblemished blue sky has dominated the landscape all week. Each time I visit Ireland, I feel closer to the landscape and the people. To drive for hours down roads with few cars, patchy gold and green mountains, a stone walls rimming fields, a clear ocean and tiny inlets are the scenes I never tire of seeing.
We stopped at Kylemore Abbey for lunch, drove through Letterfrack where there is a cemetery for the boys of a now defunct school for the wayward, unwanted, or orphaned. In the 1960s the school was finally closed but many forgotten boys died young of abuse or disease. To walk by tiny heartshaped gravestones, identifying them only by name and age, is to feel the weight of all tragedies that overshadow our respective histories.
When we arrived in Westport, a vibrant coastal town, the sun was lower in the sky and the sharp, cool air of early evening was beginning to descend. We read in a small cafe called The Creel to a modest but engaged group. The intimacy of the setting and the discussion that ensued made this one of my favorite readings of the trip.
Earlier in the week, I met a woman who edits a collection of poetry from children all over the world–called Eurochild. I also met a filmmaker/poetry series host, two literary press publishers, numerous poetry readers, two young students of poetry, and friends old and new.
There is a reverence for poetry and language here that I often find lacking in the United States. I try to bring the dazzle and awe to my classes, competing with text messages, Facebook, sporting events, and everything else that pulls us away from the wisdom and resonance of words. I am renewed from encounters here, resolve to try anew to ignite interest and enthusiasm in my classes. When I return, I will be off on a reading tour that will continue to bring the language of poetry to people. How lucky to be able to translate landscape, culture, and emotion into poetry and to have the chance to communicate it to an audience. As exhausting as the week has been, I find myself grateful again and again for the graciousness of my writing collaborator and this rarest of opportunities.
>New and Renew
•March 1, 2011 • Leave a Comment>I expect leaky faucets, blustery nights, loss, and disappointment. I also await robins, a rose-breasted titmouse, a family of goldfinches. A woman with teenage daughters died in my community this week–someone I didn’t know well. An earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand tumbled buildings, collapsing on students, workers, passersby. My daughter was in the town when it happened but she was unharmed. A close brush with a catastrophic event can be life-altering. I trust that light will return, gaudy and generous. Even now there are signs–tufts of trampled grass and patches of mineral-rich soil. In teaching, I find the writing that moves me. In writing, I renew my voice. A residency I applied for prefers emerging writers and my writer and collaborator Geraldine said, aren’t all writers emerging? If we have crossed over from emerging to established, do we become complacent? Looking at the world–ugliness and badly behaviored politicians and drivers, then sudden loveliness–a child chasing a leaf, the smell of new earth after a rain–language seems unruly–something I must learn anew. I hope to emerge again and again, awash in language and sense.
>What I can Learn from Winter
•February 3, 2011 • Leave a Comment>
Icicles hang down from my second story window, a kind of ice-gate that catches the light on rare sunny days. The season is relentless but at the same time, there is a forced quiet that I love. Cancellations have given me time I didn’t expect and I use it to write, think, plan classes and lessons, and do the business of being a writer–submitting work to journals and presses. I’ve been home more this winter than I can remember in many years. Usually I’m up early, out early–at the gym, walking, going to work. The weather has driven me back inside and I watch the glittering trees, venturing out to clear off cars only when it is possible.
What can I learn from this? I tell my students about the importance of observation but often forget that in order to observe, one must slow down. The luxury of making soup on a Wednesday, reading a good book, or just listening to the whoosh and ping of sleet falling on the snow-laden deck and cars. Good writing comes from time spent in a chair (said someone I can’t remember) but I would add that it can be time spent looking out of a window or just thinking. When was the last time you were idle? There is almost a code against idleness in our culture. It is trouble to be idle–lazy and unproductive. I’ll bet that all great work came out of a period of contemplation. Einstein probably wasn’t rushing somewhere when he came up with the theory of relativity. Experimenting and playing leads to creative ideas. What is it you want to do with your one wild and precious life? says the poet Mary Oliver. Should we be driving, standing in line, shuffling through mountains of paperwork? Can we create time in our lives to dream? What change happens in our world happens because of dreamers. We can all benefit from envisioning a life we want to have. As for me, I’m hoping winter lasts a little longer. I’m in love with these unexpected moments, cat curled on the chair, snow falling, tea in hand and all those ideas; the lure of imagination.
>Contemplation and Completion
•January 19, 2011 • Leave a Comment>On my “to do” list–read new writers, finish my short story, write new poetry, submit to journals and magazines. I took Frank X. Gaspar and Franz Wright with me on my writing weekend. Time away makes me want more time away! Instead I’m creating my lessons for a new class, reading student work, booking readings. Most writers I know are working writers–trying to string together a living while writing and publishing, if they are lucky and persistent. Many of us dream of more time to write but there are real constraints like health insurance and the fact that most writing doesn’t pay enough to live on. I’m not sure if having a lot more time would make my writing better. There are many writers who have day jobs. Surely there is intellectual stimulation in the act of teaching–sometimes too much. Reading books to consider for my classes is exciting. I want my students to love this stuff as much as I do but truthfully only a handful will each semester. For the rest, I hope they come out thinking that literature is a catalyst for change. A story can instruct, reframe, anger, comfort and more. A poem can be meditative, explosive, terrifying, joyful, or sad–as long as it makes the reader feel. I don’t want to be the writer sitting in a room with my cup of espresso and Bach on my iPod. I need to interact, grieve, teach, and help. When I slow down, I call up all the images from my cluttered life, trying to make it into art.
Literary Imaginings by Lisa C. Taylor 