The Many Moods of August
Looking back, looking ahead, trying to savor it all right here, right now
Recently, my iPhone wouldn't charge. At all. Was it because I had taken it out in the garden, tossing it carelessly in the grass? Oh, probably. Was I dismayed? For sure. But I also had this kind of giddy feeling: I might have to throw the phone away! Or, I mean, just set it aside, forget about it, go back to where I came from (the last century!). Tantalizing!
But then I figured I’d better do some troubleshooting (sigh) and I waited because waiting often helps (double sigh) and now it works again (big sigh).
The push and pull of technology (fun! useful! annoying! addictive!) feels very August to me. High summer! Lush garden! Fireflies! Oh no, it’s-getting-to-be-the-end-of-summer cicadas and back to school... groan.
I do enjoy school supplies, but not so soon!
There’s plenty of time (yet to waste)! Or, that’s what I tell myself. So many exclamation points this time of year.
What about you? Feeling August-y?
I have been lucky, though, spending lots of time Up North this summer. Exactly how I captured the Lake Michigan sunset pictured above, I don’t know. I guess my phone took over, as it often sees fit to do.
The first of two workshops I’m teaching through the Glen Arbor Art Center happened in July. The weather was perfect, and Thoreson Farm was just ideal for Plein Air Poetry, and everyone wrote so well! We started off by sharing something in the world around us that had caught our attention that morning: woodpeckers and great herons, glassy lakes and an expansive sky, the way the wind moves and how a tree-lined road suddenly opens up. We also chose sides: Team Hard Wood and Team Pine. Tough choice! But I chose (and choose) Team Pine Forever.
One takeaway suggestion: find a place you can go daily/frequently and write a poem every time. Maybe think of yourself like Monet: recording the light, painting (or writing) the changes.
My next GAAC workshop will be Saturday, September 28, and will focus on ekphrasis: that is, writing about/under the influence of visual art. We’ll have time to view the art center’s current show, “Shrines and Altars,” and then write in response and share our work. Maybe this workshop is right for you? September is one of my favorite months, and I’m so looking forward to being in Northern Michigan then.
Ekphrasis is also a theme in one of my fall classes, ENGL 318, Topics in Creative Writing: Influence and Adaptation. We’ll be reading poet Charles Simic’s remarkable little book Dime-Store Alchemy, which is a response to the work of artist Joseph Cornell. I love a book that defies easy categorization and is appealing skinny/small/easy to tote around, which is what I originally loved most about the Peter Rabbit books. It always felt important and fun to hold them. If you like Simic / Cornell / prose poems / shadowboxes / bric-a-brac / Dickinson, among so much else, you’ll like this book.
My history with ekphrasis, as I’ve written about before here, is tied to Eva Hesse’s work. Often, it’s assumed that ekphrasis means writing about a work of art, describing it, even. That’s fine, but I also look to write under the influence of visual art, translating an artwork’s colors, brushstroke, scope, mood, etc. to poetry and finding equivalent choices. The resulting poem may have little or nothing “to do” with the surface level of the painting. But the mindset, the vision, those might be similar.
For example, after studying Hesse’s work and realizing she made art that looked like how I wanted to write, I wrote a series of poems that appeared in Purr (2005). Twenty years later, these poems still interest me because they remain a little elusive. There’s intimacy without extensive narrative and an “I know it when I see it” quality that, for me, is a hallmark of lots of art and writing that I like, including my own best work. Here’s one of those poems:
IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU
—Then, women and birds were the same thing.
In each, a little pouch of stones, a little grind.
Sometimes it was as though the earth's plates
had gotten angry and shifted. But mostly
it was the difference between a sound that was sweet
and a sound that was more in the teeth, like a click.
So, first it was one day and then it was another,
which is why motion is one idea you might invent.
Birds, for example, have two straight leg parts.
and a crook in the middle that makes them skittish.
Two things come to mind, which might be useful to you in your own writing practice/life. First, as I began typing up this poem, which I’ve not really spent time with in years, the words came back quite easily, which is always a good sign. Line is not endlessly revisable; the right lines do click into place and stay put. Second, one criticism I’ve gotten over the years is that my poems are too non-narrative; readers want to know more! Oh? Oh well! You’re not getting more. LOL. My work certainly has changed over the years and I am sensitive to the power and appeal of story, but also it’s ok not to focus on story and for people not to like my work, your work, anyone’s. That reaction is just information, and very much about the person making the comment. If you feel there’s something off in a poem of yours, sure, yes, pay some more attention and see what can be “fixed.” But if not, don’t. It’s not always easy to adopt such an attitude, but the alternatives are worse. Best to be your own cup of tea, no?
And it’s nice to have a piece of the poetry pie (“success,” publications, readers, whatever), but, like, the pie is mostly invisible. Pretend pie! Delicious, sure, but, it’s not really going to fill you up. Just sayin’.
So, tea and pie, and metaphors are useful, aren’t they?
Speaking of being one’s own cup of tea... as a very amateur (though promising??) weaver, I often feel I don’t know what I’m doing, I never went to school for this, etc. But then I remind myself that I don’t care! I’m having fun, learning as I go, making pieces that I love (or sometimes don’t, which is also ok), and finding ways to explore ekphrasis from both perspectives; no doubt my weaving influences my writing and vice versa.
While gearing up for a bigger weaving, I’ve done two 10-inch, “30 Riverbed 1: Crystal River” and “31 Riverbed 2: Au Sable River”——
and three eight-inch, “32 Limeaid,” “33 Posy,” and “34 Honey”——
and the super cute “Fiber/Lyric” tags have arrived! I’m really pleased with these.
The garden, too, is in many moods this August, with some dahlias zipping ahead while others lag behind, not yet convinced they want to do any of this. The roses are mostly in a funk. Only few seem to be blooming with any real conviction.
Meanwhile, mini peppers (which, unfortunately, taste as ornamental as they look) and poblanos have become my main “crops,” if I can put it that way. I grew both of these because I suspected, correctly, as it turns out, that my squirrel and rabbit friends were not pepper eaters. Fortunately for them, I also planted potatoes, peas, and tomatoes, which they have quite enjoyed.
Zucchini has also done well, as I mentioned in my last post, and right now I’m feeling hopeful about acorn squash. Will the squirrels and rabbits will leave me at least one of those, please?
Two recipes to share: poblano soup and chocolate zucchini snack cake.
I adapted this recipe, adding some fresh Northern Michigan corn.
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My sister Ruth pronounced this zucchini snack cake “the best chocolate cake ever.” I’m tempted to agree with her.
We ate the cake with and without frosting, and both were delicious. I used this recipe, adapting the frosting to make it more buttery and less cream-cheesy (just reverse the amounts).
These two recipes receive my highest recommendation, as we say in reference letters.
Speaking of moods... at the very end of my last post I mentioned that I’m still sort of always on the lookout for would-be doll furniture, and guess what —— another interesting item came my way! Soon as I saw this packing thing-y, I knew it’d be great pool for Barbie and the girls. So I dug them all out of their box in the basement and they had a little pool party. Kinda crazy, I know, but also so much fun. A bit of a last hurrah before I really do need to prep for my fall classes.
And what really struck me about my one and only true Barbie was how weird she looks! Grotesque, even. And all the Skippers: also weird! I was happy to pack them all away again once they’d had a dip in the pool. I might miss how I felt about them (I need to think and feel some more about this), but I don’t miss them. Sorry, girls.
The point of which has nothing to do with Barbie or Skipper or packing materials, of course, but with imagination and remembering all the great ideas you had when you were a kid and just generally being on the lookout for something small and surprising that might remind you of you.
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In that same spirit, I was really charmed by these handsome mushrooms, which I saw on a recent morning walk. Of course I thought of Plath’s “Mushrooms”, one of my favorite poems. She really does capture their stealth and their ability, it always seems to me, to imagine themselves into being. The poem is also wonderful to study for its rhythm.
Mushrooms are good models for seizing the moment; it really is all they’ve got. Then it’s good bye again until next time. Just like Summer! Ughhhh. Enough lessons. I hope you’re enjoying every bit of August and noticing every good and weird and interesting little thing.
Thank you for reading. As always, take good care and more soon.