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Writing in a Roofless Church

This is how my husband explained my trip to New Harmony, IN to his sister: “Yeah, she’s going to this place in the southern part of the state where there was this religious cult…”

Rest assured, friends, I’m back and I did not join a cult. I did spend a week in the small town of New Harmony sleeping in a bunk bed, wandering around in the rain and writing. I did a lot of writing. This opportunity to stage my own mini-retreat came in the guise of chaperoning a group of twenty some honors students for their “domestic travel study,” a requirement for their degree.

New Harmony is a fascinating place, and while I’m not going to get into the history here in this post, because it is long and convoluted and really odd, you should totally spend some time there if you ever get the chance. The way I explained it to my parents was, the Harmonists started off in Pennsylvania waiting for Jesus. He didn’t show up, so they moved to Indiana. He didn’t show up there either, so they went back to Pennsylvania, at which point they all died out because they believed in celibacy. The result is this beautiful, bucolic, kinda creepy little town in southern Indiana that was restored starting in the 1970s. Obviously there’s more to it, but you get the idea.

On Wednesday morning I took my students to a series of spots around town and we read some poetry: “Sleeping in the Forest,” by Mary Oliver, “Water Picture,” by May Swenson & “Bringing Things Back from the Woods” by David Shumate (to name a few). One of the places we visited was called the Roofless Church, and when I scouted locations for possible poetry drafting, this place seemed perfect.

The church is essentially a large, open area courtyard and it is roofless because the benefactor, Jane Blaffer Owen and the architect, Phillip Johnson, decided that “only one roof—the sky—can encompass all worshipping humanity.” The space is primarily dominated by a dome that “was built in the form of an inverted rosebud, tying it to the New Harmony Community of Equals, whose symbol was the rose.”

The students and I talked craft for about fifteen minutes and then I sent them off on their own for about twenty minutes to see what they could come up with on their own. It’s important to stress we were just free writing, so I encouraged them to write about whatever they wanted as long as it had something to do with our surroundings. We repeated this process at two other locations and then shared some of what we wrote.

I was so taken by the roofless church that I went back the following morning and wrote for two hours. By the end of my time, I had the sketch of a poem and by the time we left New Harmony on Friday afternoon, I had a full draft. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but I’m a notoriously slow writer, so the speed at which this poem came to me made me happy. I worked on the piece a bit more this afternoon and I’m really liking it so far.

The moral of the story? Apparently traveling to once strange, utopian communities can be be good for the creative mind. Of course, it could be the simpler idea that a change in scene and some time to think is usually a good thing.

 

 

 

 

 

PHV: April Stats

The end of the semester brought a whirlwind of activity, so this post is a bit late, but still check it out along with the other bloggers.

I took a trip with some fellow faculty and a group of honors students to New Harmony, IN, and I basically used it as a mini writing retreat, so there’s more to come on that front in a few days. The picture below is of the roofless church where I spent some time writing while I was in New Harmony.

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My sister (check out her blog) and I are also going to be writing everyday this summer in a effort to generate drafts, so I’ll be blogging a bit about that experience as well.

It’s summer, folks and I can’t tell you how glad I am that it’s finally here.

 

 

 

 

Sharing the Love

It’s not uncommon for lists of writing advice to pop on my Facebook and/or twitter feed. I follow a lot of writers and they have much wisdom to share. This week’s offering came in a list from Sherman Alexie via Tin House.

Alexie’s poem, Avian Nights, is one of my all time favorites:

The starlings mourn for three nights and three days.

They fly away, only to carry back

Insects like talismans, as if to say

They could bring back the dead with bird magic.

I have a slight obsession with birds and I find Starlings particularly interesting. I wrote a poem, aptly titled Starling, that appeared in The New Plains Review and was recorded by the lovely Katie Woodzick.

Anyway. Back to the Alexie’s list of advice.

There’s a lot of solid common sense mixed with wry humor. For instance, #10: Don’t google search yourself, followed closely by #9: When you’ve finished Google searching yourself, don’t do it again. But when I got to #1 I felt myself nodding and muttering, “yes, I need to do that more:

When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author. Be effusive with your praise. Writing is a lonely business. Do your best to make it a little less lonely.

I read a lot of poetry online and often I find myself saving links or printing poems or sharing the piece on the seemingly endless number of social media platforms that I’m currently trying to juggle (I caved the other day and created a tumblr page. I know. I’ve got a problem). But what I don’t always do is reach out to the author through email or Facebook or Twitter and tell them how much I loved their poem(s).

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Indianapolis Museum of Art

My students and I talk a lot about community as it relates to writing, especially in the context of a workshop. I tell them the importance of being honest and candid in their critiques and feedback to their fellow writers. Writing is extremely personal. Every time a student brings a draft of a poem or a short story or an essay to class, they are bringing a piece of themselves, so while it is important to be candid, it is also important to be kind and respectful.

It’s also vital to praise a piece of writing that knocks the wind right out of you.

I’m not big into New Year’s resolutions and seeing how it’s February, I’m a bit late to the party anyway, but February is the month of love, so what better time to up my efforts and take Alexie’s advice?

One of the best parts of social media and the internet in general is that I have access to so much brilliant work, and guys, there is a lot of brilliant work out there, so the next time you read a poem you love, let the poet know. Writing doesn’t have to be a lonely business.

 

 

Poetry Has Value

I’m embarking on a new venture starting this month over at Poetry Has Value (PHV) If you have not checked out Jessica Piazza’s excellent project, please take some time to read through her posts and familiarize yourself with her journey over the past year.

Jessica poses the question: What is your poetry worth?

As you can tell from the blog, there are a lot of possible answers to that question.

Where do I come in?

Well, thanks to Jessica’s idea to expand the project in 2016, I’ll be adding my stats (along with many other poets from all walks of life) and ideas to the mix. I plan to track venues where I send my poetry (individual poems and a chapbook manuscript), rejections and acceptances, fees I’ve paid to submit and any payment I’ve received for my work.  In the spirit of being a good literary citizen, I also plan to track how I heard about a publication.

I’ll be sharing this information via monthly posts on the PHV blog.

My intro post is up, so please check it out along with all other brave poets who are contributing their voices to this discussion. It’s an important one.

Poetry Has Value
WHAT IS YOUR POETRY WORTH?

 

 

 

Ekphrastic Poem in Progress

I’m in a serious relationship with a painting. It’s very one sided. I go to the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) at least once a month to visit. My “visit” consists of me riding the escalator up to the third floor, walking past the guest services desk, through the sliding glass doors and cutting a direct path to the Robert H. and Ina M. Mohlman Gallery. In the second room of the gallery, on the far wall hangs my love. I sit down on one of the padded benches (thoughtfully provided by the IMA) and well, I stare. Sometimes I take notes, but most of the time I just look. Visiting time can vary, but today I stayed for about an hour.

The object of my affection? Two Sisters by George Lemmen.

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I’ve wanted to write a poem about this painting since the very first time I saw it. I bought a print for my home and I have a postcard version hanging on the wall of my office at school. Yes, I’m a little obsessive. Anyway. The poem. I’ve written several drafts. They’re floating around in my different journals and it was only a few months ago that I felt I could finally sit down and try to commit some sort of structured draft to the page. As is the case with a lot of my poems, I wrote the draft, messed with it for about a week and then left it alone for a month.

Today, a cold, blustery January day, I realized that I didn’t have anywhere I really needed to be, so I took myself over to the museum, pulled out my old draft and started scribbling.

It’s the dark haired girl, Berthe, that I find fascinating. In fact, she trumps everything else in the painting for me. The younger sister, Jenny seems small, inconsequential and not nearly as interesting, which is perhaps odd given that she’s in the forefront of the portrait. The fact that Jenny looks directly toward you while Berthe averts her eyes is especially intriguing because it is because of her looking away that we can’t stop looking at her. Or at least I can’t.

I was first introduced to ekphrastic writing as an undergraduate in my first poetry workshop. I loved the idea immediately and my first subject was this piece by Diego Rivera:

El Vendedor de Alcatraces by Diego Rivera OSA116
The Flower Carrier 

 

According to the Academy of American poets and the introduction they offer concerning ekphrasis, John Hollander wrote in his book, Gazer’s Spirit, that there are a number of ways to approach this type of poem ““include addressing the image, making it speak, speaking of it interpretively, meditating upon the moment of viewing it, and so forth.” The poem I’m working on regrading Two Sisters is a mix of of address and meditation, which seems to be the approach that gravitate towards. When I introduce ekphrasis to my students, I always start by showing them a variety of examples and I think that’s one of the many reasons I’m drawn to this type of poetry. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

A personal favorite of mine is Starry Night by Anne Sexton. The painting in question is of course, The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and the opening stanza reads:

The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.

Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die.

Another favorite is Landscape With the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams after Pieter Bruegel’sLandscape with the Fall of Icarus:

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From the poem:

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

I particularly like discussing this poem/painting combination in my creative writing classes because it always takes my students a minute to find Icarus in Bruegel’s landscape and then when they do it’s always like they’ve won the lottery. I suppose this illuminates an added benefit of teaching ekphrasis, which is that in addition to exposure to a new set of poems, you’re also learning about art, which is an area I’ve always been interested in as a writer. I never took an art history course in college (a fact that surprises me more and more as I get older) but I feel like ekphrasis provides a wonderful entry point for newcomers. In fact, a successful poem, whether ekphrastic or otherwise, elevates its subject into a new space, sharing something with the reader that they had not considered before. Going back to Sexton’s “The Starry Night,” many of my students remark that they never thought of the painting as “ominous” or “physical” but Sexton’s poem offers a new perspective.

As an extension of this idea, when I get to the ekphrastic unit in my classes, I usually arrange for a trip to the IMA. They usually love getting into the galleries and writing poems of their own. I’m always amazed at how many of them live in the city but have never been to the museum.

While I was visiting my painting, I became aware, for probably the first time, that I am not the only one fascinated by Berthe. In the time that I sat, perched on my bench watching, several patrons stepped close to the painting. One couple stepped so close that the cord of their earbuds brushed perilously close to the frame. They whispered, they looked, but their eyes always centered on Berthe.

Because, really, where else would you look?

Time never stops, but does it end?

January 11th, 2016 and it finally snowed in Indianapolis. I could hear the snow blowing off the trees when I got up to feed Cam at 5 this morning, and it was while I was scrolling through my phone, baby resting against my chest, eyes closed, eating in slow measured swallows that I learned David Bowie died.

I remembered Tracy K. Smith’s poem, Don’t You Wonder, this morning while prepping for my intro poetry class that meets this afternoon. The title of this post comes from third stanza of the second section, and I plan on bringing copies to class today.

I’m also starting a new little project this semester where I share a poem a week outside my office door. I’ve tied it into the course work for two of my classes, but I really just wanted to share poems with people, because that’s the best part of my job.

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Pittsburgh Poetry Houses

I’m always intrigued and inspired by people who think outside the box in terms of how to distribute poetry to a larger audience, so I was really excited when I learned about the Pittsburgh Poetry Houses project.

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Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens. One of my favorite places in Pittsburgh.

 

My family moved to Erie, PA when I was about eight years old, and when I graduated from high school, I attended Allegheny College, which is a mere 45 minutes down the road in Meadville, PA. My husband is from the South Hills and I my sister currently lives on the South side of Pittsburgh, so we visit the city several times a year.

This is all to say that I was thrilled to receive notification that one of my poems (a 30/30 poem no less!) was accepted for publication through this fantastic project. More details to come soon, but what a great way to kick of 2016.