End-of-semester Bakes and Nurturing Your Creative Practice in December
Amidst December’s busyness, much of which I do enjoy, I also want to slow down and remember those things that nourish my creativity, things that might have gotten pushed to the side during the semester.
Setting up my Advent calendar (pictured above), baking for the semester’s end or the holidays, making wreaths—-all of these things are poems in their own way.
What about you: what nourishes your creativity?
That’s a question I often ask my students, too, with a focus on answers other than “reading and writing.”
Their responses have varied: from painting to running to listening to the Bible as an audiobook.
Doing something creative every day, apart from writing, helps us stay in touch with our poet-selves. And all these other opportunities for creativity are why I don’t believe in writer’s block. Because “writing” doesn’t only mean pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. It also includes all those habits and hobbies of mind and body that draw on writerly skills.
For example, one way to think of poems is in terms of pattern making and breaking. There are easy parallels here with baking (heavy on the pattern making, though some deviations are possible) and cooking (which can be pleasingly improvisational). Doing others arts and crafts can help us work on the same skills/muscles we need as writers.
And of course it really is true that doing the dishes or walking the dog or accomplishing some other mundane household chore can help us get grounded enough to happen upon the line or the image or the plot point we need.
I hope something in this post inspires your creativity, on and off the page.
White cake just might be my favorite, and I have (at least) two trusted white cake recipes. One of them is the White Almond Sour Cream (WASC) Cake from Sugar Geek Recipes, which I adapt just a bit by replacing the sour cream with 5% Greek yogurt. I’ve made a three-layer cake with this recipe and, this time, cupcakes for my ENGL 318 class.
I was going for a wintry night look with this bespoke (I’ve been wanting to use that word!) blend of sprinkles.
One of my fondest memories of my mom is of making Christmas ornaments. My mom was a teacher and a librarian, and she had good ideas for keeping us busy, often baking or doing crafts. Our Christmas tree always had a sweet, homemade look.
In more recent years, wreath-making has become a Christmas tradition.
Hand-tied white pine and cedar and spruce, a metal or twig wreath form, paddle wire, and any extras you like—ribbons or bows, fresh berries, a strand of sparkly bits—and you’re good to go.
Wreaths are easier to make than you might think, and so much fun.
First, clip your greens into pieces of about six inches.
Next, if using a metal frame, secure your wire, wrapping around the two inner rungs a few times and tucking in the end.
You’ll be unspooling the wire as you go, attaching a bundle of greens (3-4 pieces) at a time.
As you move around the frame turning it clockwise and covering the wired stems of the previous bunch with the greenery of the next, the wreath takes shape.
Before you know it, you’ve made a beautiful thing!
And twig wreaths are even easier. You can secure the greens with wire, but it’s also possible to tuck the branches right into the frame, no wire at all.
There are just so many possibilities.
Of course, I’ve not forgotten about poem writing. Do you know this poem prompt from Jim Simmerman? My ENGL 313 students did this one as part of their Final Something, as I call the end-of-semester assignment, and the results were so good!
What about writing a poem-letter to Santa with your grown-up wish list? As I was saying recently to a former student who wanted some feedback on his poems, the ongoing challenge is to write about the largest things (the wish for peace) while staying grounded in details we can readily relate to (the little red fox I saw on my walk yesterday morning). Poems work best when they appeal to our senses and challenge our minds and speak to our hearts. All of it, all at once. And these things do connect! After all, worry and wonder intersect all the time; poems are about these collisions/illuminations — discovered in the moment, on the page.
Charles Wright once told me that being from Michigan must account for why I write a lot about winter. Oh! Hah!, I probably said, having not noticed the snowiness of my poems. For example this one, which was the first poem in my third book, Purr (New Issues, 2005):
BENEATH SPEECH --She lay very still, looking up at the undersides of words. Pink was pink all the way through, like any organ might be, plucked from the body and held quiet on a little tray-- Night was a starry dish. One side convex, one side concave. This must be like winter for fish, she thought, and all the nouns went seamless as ice and slightly opaque. If she put out her tongue, she might stay there forever. In the air, the smell of snow like bits of speech--may I have a little word?, she wondered, because or so to cover me--
A few more things that are sparking my creativity in December:
Amaryllis bulbs. Fun and easy. I’d like to post some amaryllis pics for you, but Substack is being finicky about that, so you’ll to have imagine, which is often just as good.
Vintage holiday playlists. My favorites will always be Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Doris Day. And Karen Carpenter, who doesn’t seem vintage to me, but...
Old movies, by which I mean the 1940s, not the 1980s! Highly recommend “The Bishop’s Wife,” “Christmas in Connecticut,” and “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” among others. And, of course, “White Christmas,” my very favorite, which is from the 50s.
Reading for pleasure! I enjoy reading my students’ work (and often it’s better than published work), but it is nice to have time to read multiple books at once, to read without offering feedback, to set a book aside, to linger...all things I can’t easily do when I’m reading for my classes.
Puzzles! Yes, I do love a puzzle, especially a wooden one and especially at Christmas. Liberty Puzzles are my favorites, but my sister Margaret recently introduced me to Wentworth Puzzles and they’re good too.
Boxed candy. Favorite: Russell Stover milk and dark cremes. Yum yum yum. Bonus: the box comes with a map. Love that.
So, what sparks your creativity?
I hope this post reminded you of what makes you feel creative and maybe gave you some new ideas.
Thank you for reading! Next post: holiday baking! Stay tuned!