Creak, creak

If this blog were a box, it would be made of smooth-sanded hardwood and inlaid gold, and I'd be lovingly wiping away a thick layer of dust right now, having rediscovered it among a jumbled pile of loved but forgotten possessions.

Last posted on November 30th, 2009, upon finishing the second draft of my WIP. What's happened during the 16-month ellipsis? Well, most significantly, my 14-month-old daughter happened, who is now snoozing next to me. Almost no actual writing has happened on the WIP; it was reviewed and comment on in detail by an absolutely incredible crit reader, but the only work I've done in response to her comments has taken place in my head. I've read a lot of blog posts lately about moms who started (or went back to) working on a novel the same day their child was born. Kudos to them - it did not happen for me. I think I did write a poem for her the next day, and have written sporadic poems since her birth, but in no way did my writing life possess anything resembling discipline until a week or two ago.

In all honesty, that was due as much to a dormant period in my writing as it was to arrival of The Teensy One. Let me be clear: I'm not making excuses. It's been more than a few years since I realized my creativity goes through periods of dormancy. It used to freak me out, but once I figured out that the times of silence are always followed by outpourings of creative energy, I stopped worrying about it. Nowadays when the muse goes silent, I let her rest for a while, although I listen with a keen ear for her to speak again.

Although this latest cycle of creativity started a couple of weeks ago, the arrival of National Poetry Month helped me get back into a disciplined routine, which feels oh, so good - like a bird on wing. There are a couple of sites I've been using for daily prompts, both of which I found thanks to that perennial friend-of-writers, Twitter.

The first is @robertleebrewer's Poetic Asides blog, which he writes for Writer's Digest: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/. Some good prompts here - some reliable and familiar stand-bys, and some creative prompts that provide good nudges to the brain to approach a poem with a fresh perspective.

The second, Instapoem, is a collaboration between @inkyelbows (Debbie Ridpath Ohi) and Rand Bellavia: http://instapoem.blogspot.com/. This blog features a series of one-word prompts, one for each day of the month, and the rule is to write it within five minutes of seeing the prompt. It's a great concept, although there are days when the word of the day just doesn't strike me; on those days, I just use a word from a different day.

Oddly, a lot of the poetry I've written since I got back into the swing of things has rhymed. I have nothing against rhyming or free verse, but I tend more towards free verse, generally. Not lately, though - it's a little disconcerting to have all these rhymes popping up, but I'm rolling with it and focusing on using them to challenge myself rather than as crutches for simplicity.

Today's prompt from Poetic Asides is to write a "what if" poem. Here's mine:

Songs for Abigail XV

The freight train howls its lonesome song
Cloud upon cloud piles white upon grey
The heron tucks its head under wing
What if you were alive today?


Well, now that the dust is cleaned away, I'm hoping to post semi-regularly on here. No promises, though; some days I'm lucky to get five minutes to myself for a quick writing exercise. Hey, a girl's gotta have her priorities. Cheers.

The Best Day Ever (The Wedding Poem Post)

One of the most incredible ways I got to bring my writing into my practical life was for our wedding. Sure, all my childhood dreams involved the "til death us do part" rote, but when it came down to it, I discovered that I couldn't possibly get married with another's words.

Thankfully, my now-husband agreed. Well, he wasn't quite as self-righteous about it, but he was cool with me writing our entire wedding ceremony. Woo hoo! Talk about a captive audience. I knew no one would dare facing the wrath of my mother if they got bored in the middle of it and wanted to walk out.

It was a ton of fun to write the ceremony; my stepmom helped with research on different wedding traditions from relevant cultures - largely Irish, German and of course American. Writing it was by far one of the most fun parts of planning the wedding. (At one point, I probably would've said one of the only fun parts, but happily Time has dimmed those memories.)

Among other ceremony components, I knew I wanted to include a reading of a love poem I'd written for my Best Beloved. But when I got to the point of deciding which poem to include - and after nearly seven years together, there were a lot - I found that none of them were quite what I wanted to say on this occasion.

So I wrote a new poem.

Here it is, in all its copyright-protected glory. (If you want to use it, just post a comment to ask.) Thanks and love to my maid of honor, Kate, one of my best friends from Sarah Lawrence College, who gave a really good reading of it during the ceremony.


true love

how to put words around the truth of love
the looks, the smells, the small private joke
how to say what we are, what you mean to me –

my own tongue is too clumsy.
let the stars put it into words for us.

let the wind sing the truth of love
as it whips round the corners of our home,
battering against the walls
behind which we curl, in shared sleep.

let the curving road, sun-dappled, disappearing under our car
say where the path of love may lead.
who knows but we may best know love
changing a flat tire by the side of the road.

and perhaps it is the impossible definition of love
that makes us all long to know it,
for the only chance
to understand love
is to live it.

let the next adventure take us
where it will, my love

I will go with you.