If I had written a letter to my 13-year-old self with the benefit of hindsight, it would have said, “Stick with poetry. You’ll need it.”
—Megan Willome
I’m fairly certain that, charged with such a task as sticking with poetry, my 13-year-old self couldn’t have been trusted. Sporting two-toned flared jeans (it was the 70s, after all) and red, white and blue sneakers (the Bicentennial year on top of that), and a long knit stocking cap that hung to my waist (I mentioned it was the 70s?), I was far more interested in biking down to the neighborhood car wash to dig in the dumpsters for pop bottles I could trade for a dime, which I could, in turn, trade for a Snickers bar or an assorted pack of Pixie Sticks at the local Tom Thumb superette.
Poetry was not on my radar when I built forts in the woods or spent an inordinate amount of time on the flat roof of the church down the street lighting stacks of mimeograph paper on fire (nabbed from the office supply store’s dumpster) with matches (conveniently displayed on Tom Thumb’s counter).
I managed to outgrow my troubling interest in fire well before it could give rise to anything which might lead to a juvenile arson conviction (or even arrest). I wonder if I’d shown an interest in poetry if it would have fallen away the same as my short-lived fascination with the uncanny coincidences that marked the lives (and deaths) of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (I had their posters on my wall). That was probably the year I dressed up as a sandwich for Halloween (complete with green-hoodie pickle).
Like I said, my 13-year-old self couldn’t have been trusted. But knowing what I know now about life (and about poetry), I would tell my 13-year-old self the same thing as Megan Willome would tell hers. Except, of course, that I’d first have to tell my young self to put down the history and political books (and matches) for a minute and find some poetry. And then to stick with it.
Megan writes in The Joy of Poetry of her practice over the years of collecting poems—sometimes poems she has written, at other times the poems of others; sometimes printing them out for her scrapbook, at other times writing a little bit about them in her poetry journal. But wherever she has gone, poetry has gone along, providing the sort of sustenance in the dark days that Leo Lionni’s Frederick gave to his fellow mice in the longest, coldest days of winter.
Clearly, Megan’s 13-year-old self (and Frederick) could be trusted with such a thing as poetry.
Favorite Things
We’re reading Megan’s The Joy of Poetry together in our book club this month, this week pondering chapters 1 through 6. Here are some of my favorite parts:
When the mice are cold and depressed, having exhausted their store of nuts, they ask Frederick for his supplies. He gives them a poem about seasons. All these years later, the book still has a fine message: We need words during dark days. (p. 15)
Poetry doesn’t need a lot of fanfare. It’s like a fingerling potato, growing quietly in a dark space. Dig it up, saute it in a little olive oil, give it a chance. (p. 21)
I don’t love every poem—no one says I have to. (p. 22)
A good poem does that—offers multiple gifts upon multiple readings. (p. 40)
Like fly-fishing, poetry takes patience. It forces us to travel to obscure streams in all weathers, at dusk and at dawn. We need all five of our senses and any others laying around to serve as flies to catch the words that do not want to be caught. And when an elusive trout finds its way to where we wait, we need to snatch a picture. Sketch it fast. If possible, write the tale. Because it demands to be released. (p. 43)
“I’ve wasted a lot of time not reading Neruda, ” [my dad] said.
(Who says you have to read poems in the order they’re written?)
Your Turn
Are you reading with us? Perhaps in the comments you would share your thoughts from this week’s reading: tell us about a section that stood out or spoke to you, share a “favorite thing, ” or even tell us what your 13-year-old self would have done (or actually did) with poetry.
The Joy of Poetry Reading Schedule:
May 4: Chapters 1 – 6
May 11: Chapters 7 – 12
May 18: Chapters 13 – 18
We also invite you to explore the ideas in How to Keep, Save and Make Your Life With Poems beginning on page 148 and consider, at least for the duration of our book club, keeping a poetry journal or signing on a poetry buddy.
Photo by Cherrie Mio Rhodes, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by LW Lindquist.
___________________
Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry—part memoir, part poetry reflections, part anthology—takes readers on a journey to discovering poetry’s purpose, which is, delightfully, nothing. “Why poetry?” Willome asks. “You might as well ask, why chocolate?” Poetry reflects nothing more and nothing less than the pure joy of living, loving, and being, in all of its confusion and wonder. Willome’s book will gently guide you to read, write, and be a little more human through language’s mystery and joy.
—Tania Runyan, author of How to Read a Poem: Based on the Billy Collins Poem “Introduction to Poetry”
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Donna Falcone says
Megan’s book made me want to drop my poems out on paper again and play with them again – it’s been a long time since I really wanted to (although I have from time to time) and I don’t know why – I’ve just not wanted to – maybe I had developed an aversion to chronicling my inner life for a while. Maybe I was just lazy. Maybe I thought it was no big deal to notice the things I was noticing. Maybe all of the above. But, Megan and The Joy of Poetry nudged me as if to say “no harm will come to you if you don’t, but you’ll be glad if you do.” And, so I did. I can’t say where in the book that happened, but I’m glad it did.
Will Willingham says
“no harm will come to you if you don’t, but you’ll be glad if you do.”
I love that. 🙂
I do think we go through seasons in most things, and poetry should be no different, really. There will be times when we need to write it (and more often, to my mind, to read it), and there are times we need to not write it.
I’m glad it happened too. 🙂
Donna Falcone says
LW… I love that image of 13 year old you… especially the stocking cap. 😉 You were dressed for fun and adventure!
Megan Willome says
So glad you did, Donna.
Paul Willingham says
I think I need to read this book so that I can try to anticipate future revelations about your childhood. Just think LW, you could have been writing poems on the back of that salvaged mimeograph paper, instead of honing your skills as a pyromaniac had you read that letter from your future you. You already had a portable typewriter, also salvaged from your activities as a world class dumpster diver. Wow, the things we parents learn 40 years after the fact.
All of which is to say, had you not done all these things, your file cabinet of life’s experiences upon which your writing (and all writers) depends would have been pretty empty.
Will Willingham says
Yeah, I couldn’t remember if you knew about the fire starting business. Ginny and I used to hang out down there. Being very careful, of course. 😉
Christina Hubbard says
I agree, Paul. All those life experiences make “wasted time” good material.
Maureen says
I was delighted that Megan wrote about Frederick; Lionni’s was a book my son and I read together.
I also used your second quote in my review.
One of the things I particularly like about ‘The Joy of Poetry’ is how it shows us how deeply poetry can be integrated into one’s life, that it’s not this thing set off in an ivory tower, that she feels free to like a poem or not. Megan lives with poetry, and how she experiences it enriches her life.
Will Willingham says
Yes, the way Megan invites a person to feel free to like a poem or not is so refreshing. A relief, really.
Christina Hubbard says
I’ve got to slip Frederick in the kids’ book basket methinks;)
Sandra Heska King says
I ran out and purchased Frederick. (Well, I didn’t exactly run out… I ran to Amazon.) And then I keep losing the book because I keep carrying it with me everywhere. I may need extra copies.
I remember sitting in that workshop with Megan and Julia Kasdorf and talking about laundry and desire lines. And where the word “net” took her in that Cutthroat poem… oh my…
I ended up in that workshop because it was the only one open. I’m not sure I would have chosen it, but it was right where I needed to be.
Sandra Heska King says
Just to clarify. I keep losing The Joy of Poetry. (Well, not exactly the joy of poetry, but the Joy of Poetry. I had to go find it again under my purse. After I found my purse. I knew where Frederick was.)
Donna Falcone says
LOL! I’m thinking you might need a “TILE” for your books! WHOA million dollar idea. Tile should make bookmarks! Then you could find Joy and Freddy with your phone… if you know where your phone is. 😉
Will Willingham says
I need to find a copy of Frederick. He might be in my top 3 favorite things about this book.
Megan Willome says
All this love for Frederick is making me very happy. All the credit goes to my college roommate’s mother, who gifted me with a Lionni collection when I became a mother.
Jody Collins says
When I mention poetry to people who are not writers/bloggers or even readers, their blank expression and phrases like, “I don’t get poetry” bring out the evangelist in me–“you need Poetry!” Some of my favorite lines are, “Poetry may not be a subject to be learned at all but rather a conversation, a call and response.” (p. 38) which is one of the best ‘definitions’ of poetry I’ve read.
There is so much to love in this book, so many dog-eared pages….(insert photo here 🙂
Marilyn says
“…phrases like, “I don’t get poetry” bring out the evangelist in me…”
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Megan Willome says
Preach it, sister!
Christina Hubbard says
Amen! (with a tambourine shake)
Will Willingham says
Not a subject to be learned. Yes. I loved when Nancy made that observation, and I love that Megan included it in the book.
Megan Willome says
Ah ha! The reason I didn’t remember the call and response line was because I didn’t write it—Nancy, mother of a musician, did!
Marilyn says
Already, I’ve gone through some highlighter and scribbled in margins, and I’ve not waited until I’m 1/3-the-way in to start, to justify it.
“I had an aversion to the very words she loved” (p. 19) struck me as one of the honest and brave things I’ve read in a long time.
“Writing this one literally changed my attitude” (p.20) spoke of divine intervention more common than is generally known.
But the part that made me laugh so loud, I woke the dog was the list of reactions to daily poems (pp. 22-23), especially #9:
“Meh. Seems like someone woke up and said, ‘On this hallowed day I shall compose a poem, and it wilt be praised by poets throughout the land, though none shall agree what it means.’ Next.”
I’m really enjoying this book.
I’ve saved poems in many forms, and each time I tuck one away I imagine those who will go through my things after I’m gone, wondering why.
Megan Willome says
Oh, I love that idea, of folks finding your saved poems and wondering why. I have so many poetry scrapbooks now, and they’re deliberately mysterious.
Thanks for your kind words. The most interesting part of this process has been seeing what lines resonate with people.
Will Willingham says
Marilyn, I loved that “hallowed day” comment too. 🙂
The idea of what makes a person save something, like a poem, is so interesting. Especially when one considers that it might have been important for just a moment, on just one day, and still it makes it into our things to save.
Donna Falcone says
I always wonder that too… about what people will think or wonder when they find my stuff some day after I’m gone. 😉 Now that’s an interesting thought, should anyone bother to look.
Amy Hinkelman says
My 13 year old self took life too seriously. I wanted to be a writer. My mother even arranged for our family vacation that year be to the state poetry conference, where she made sure they included my juvenile self in all the class that I wanted to take. The peculiar thing, or perhaps it is not uncommon after all, was that I quickly changed my mind about being a writer for many years, only to return to the words at each crisis. The words were good friends who took me in whenever I was in need of self-expression. Poetry has been the friend that has sat up late nights and commiserated with me over losses and failures along with triumphs. The Joy of Poetry is a book that celebrates the place that words can take us when we make friends with the feelings that are too deep for anything but a poem.
Christina Hubbard says
Amy, returning to the words in crisis is one of the continual gifts of poetry for me too. It’s been a way of sensing and processing what I don’t fully understand. Healing.
Will Willingham says
I love that your family went on vacation to a poetry conference for you. 🙂
And yes, the way that we will return to words in times of crisis (or any other number of seasons) is telling. They always work, in some way or another.
So glad to have you join us in our conversation here. 🙂
Megan Willome says
Amy, I love what you said about poetry sitting up late nights with you.
Donna Falcone says
Crisis is a good (and popular) time for poetry, it seems. 🙂 Thank heavens it is there for us.
Your going away from poetry for a while after the conference would be completely normal around this house… my oldest son quickly develops aversions to many things that we have sought to intentionally support him in. He prefers to be noticed more quietly, I learned. He’d go back to what interests him, though. Although your experience might be nothing like his, your comment didn’t surprise me at all. 🙂
Christina Hubbard says
My 13 year old self ran home from the bus in a downpour, my backpack thudding up and down on my back while my white keds thumped pavement hard. The sound rhythms inspired me to run inside, nuke cheese and triscuits in the microwave, sit down at the Apple IIC and write a poem about it. I made a pact with my best friend to write a poem a day until we were 20. That didn’t happen.
But that’s when I first felt poetry formulating inside me, in real life.
Like Megan, my mother influenced my poetry writing. She introduced me to “Double, double toil and trouble” from MacBeth when I had to figure out ABBA form and write a poem of my own.
“For years I focused on marriage and children not poetry.” That’s me too. But I still read it and wrote it because it sparked something in my mind that no essay, book, or song ever could.
“Are you askeerd of poetry? Do you battle poetry demons?” Although I love it, I have been askeerd of what it was calling from me. Deep things. Simple things. Feelings I would rather surpress.
I love the fingerling potato line too.
“When it comes to poetry, we can’t approach it like Amelia Bedelia.” I immediately remembered how my daughter couldn’t stand those bland books when she was in kindergarten. Poetry is unconventional, nuanced, and subjective. Poor Ameila is not.
“Like fly-fishing, poetry takes patience. It forces us to travel to obscure streams…And when an elusive trout finds it way to where we wait, we need to snatch a picture. Sketch it fast. If possible, write the tale. Because it demands to be released.” Poetry’s requirement of patience has caused me to shelve it often. But then I find myself urgently scrawling poetry skeletons in composition notebooks on roadtrips. Then I come back to it.
The idea of a poetry buddy was terribly intriguing to me. I’m going to store that away and wait with expectation.
Thank you for writing this book, Megan. You’ve combined two of my favorite art forms: memoir + poetry. I am looking for the rhythm in real life more attentively as I read.
P.S. This is my first online book club. I’ve loved reading everyone’s insights. I’m hooked, dear fishermen.
Will Willingham says
Christina, so happy you’ve joined us here in the conversation. 🙂
That pact to write a poem a day – how remarkable for a young person (and to learn early sometimes these pacts are hard to keep).
And so important to consider that being “askeerd” of poetry is not always in the way we think, of being afraid of getting it wrong, but of understanding that sometimes, poetry (or even a single poem) will ask something of us.
Megan Willome says
Christina, so glad you’re fishing with us! Thank you for sharing some of the lines that resonated with you.
I loved your first paragraph–especially the detail about the Keds. That locates you in a particular time (and possibly place).
L. L. Barkat says
My 13-y-o self knew narrative poetry best, as my mother would read to us every day on the couch before the bus came (and we would get all teary-eyed about the tales of the oppressed or the wreck of ships or the vanities of artists and the naive). It was an education that didn’t feel like an education. It felt like love.
As for writing poetry, I didn’t do that until around age 40 (I don’t really count the failed sonnet in college, written as an assignment for a boring class on Victorian poetry, which had made me quite sure I was not nor ever would be a poet of any kind—not even a passable one.)
Six chapters? Where to begin. I have read this book several times over, and like a poem, it gains in the readings. We can never “carry” everything there is to be carried (chapter 1), so it takes us back to the garden over and again. I count that as evidence of sustenance, whether in “impossibly cool” cucumbers or the words of a writer like Megan in ‘The Joy of Poetry.’
I would like to think more about the idea of a poetry year, with “every day uncrossed.” There’s something in it I can’t quite put my finger on.
In chapter 3, I am struck by the terrible-wonderful differences between Megan and her mother. This sets up a big tension in the book, for me. Here are two women who love each other, and they are on a kind of stage together (everyone is watching the cancer story unfold, are they not?). One basks in the light, even in her pain. One would prefer a “hidey-hole.” How to reconcile? Alphabet soup, the color yellow, blankets and flowers, poems and poems and poems. And still, it is not a complete reconciliation but a hard one of the sorts we all understand when we live in such relationships where differences reign even when we wish they didn’t: that “j” for “joy” remains upside down. Some realities just can’t be righted; that does not mean there is no love. (Indeed, in Megan’s case, there is clearly love. But I don’t think it came easy. Which maybe is made all the harder by our sentimental societal expectations surrounding mothers and daughters. And oh, the “desire lines” (chap 4) for connection with our mothers and fathers and other loved-ones certainly run deep even without that.)
In chapter 5, there is the train poem. Again, somehow this speaks to me of Megan and her mom. Are either of them afraid they’ve missed the train yet again? Maybe Megan is more than mom was. There’s this lingering sense that Megan feels her mom is always the one who knew just where and when to catch the right train. It’s a strange burden for a daughter to carry—to live in the shadow of such a woman. Maybe the best thing is just to disappear. (Anorexia might sliver someone into smaller and smaller pieces, mightn’t it? That would feel safe, in its way, and mom could go on catching trains and no one would notice Megan’s hesitance to take life so boldly and calmly and happily as mom.)
Of course, Megan, truth be told, totally knows how to catch the right trains in life. She just does things differently, beautifully in her own right, and not with fanfare and definitely not wanting people to watch and judge and applaud, etc. etc. etc. She does it with the silent offer of tea and maybe chocolate hearts—silent yet still powerful ways “to say I love you I love/you I love you I love I love you.”
This book is more complex than meets the eye. It is its own poem that tries to hold hard realities and dichotomies. It is a question as much as it is an answer. I love the book.
Megan Willome says
Dang! The Doctor Is IN.
P.S. Thank you.
L. L. Barkat says
You are funny (but I knew that 🙂 ).
Thank you.I figure it must be a little hard to listen in on a book club, especially one that looks at such a tender book. It’s important to me that you’ve extended a thanks.
Donna Falcone says
LL I love what you said here – “It was an education that didn’t feel like an education. It felt like love.” I’m convinced that events that don’t feel like an education are the best kinds of education – certainly quite powerful. What a beautiful memory of poems and childhood.
Marilyn says
“Some realities just can’t be righted; that does not mean there is no love.”
Thank you for this.
Donna Falcone says
Because I read it on Kindle, I find it hard to relate to the locations and placement and chapters, but somewhere in the first half of the book I turned off my device, pulled out my journal, and started writing poems – words falling out all over the place in probably a not so poetic way, but I didn’t stop to care about that. I had something to say about my voice. I suspect it happened at or shortly after chapter 5, Open Your Throat. The title alone was visceral for me – and The Uncloudy Day – and the poem about missing the train – something happened to me (for me) there in that chapter. There are multiple lines scratched in my notebook pages about “voice” it seems that Megans book helped me to give a voice to some things that were going on inside that needed a way out for a better look. A string of poems kept pushing its way out until I had filled up two pages, words in bunches scrawled in every direction. See? Not very poetic sounding when I put it like that, but so healing somehow.
Donna Falcone says
I feel compelled to say one more thing…. which has nothing to do with poetry. I think it’s because Megan approached the entire book with such honesty and beauty – all of it – her experience with her mom, her dad, her self… I have some friends who have recently been facing cancer and what Megan offered is deeper than what I can say, but the language we use to talk about illness is different depending on where we stand (live) in relation to it. My friend talks about her cancer freely to me, and like Megan’s ability to share, it gives me a level of peace (if that’s even the right word) with the idea of it – because it’s not an idea at all – it’s a real disease with a real name with real consequences along the real journey. I grew up in a family where the word cancer was whisperd, or even called “the C word”, which created more barriers than I can even count. Megan’s book, because of her honesty and willingness to put herself out there regarding her experience of her mother’s cancer and her eating disorder, is important for reasons other than poetry.
Megan… if I could hug you I would, for about a hundred reasons. Thank you.
Megan Willome says
Hug received and returned, Donna.
Marilyn says
Love what you wrote, Donna, about setting the book aside in order to capture thoughts that wanted to come out. I did not, but the feeling was very close. I think wherever the words take you, it will be good…..and maybe we will see some of it down the road somewhere?
Donna Falcone says
Thank you, Marilyn. Ahhh you felt it too? Wow.
I did share some of them on my website which I guess makes it only across the street and not so far down the road at all. Here is the link. Look both ways 😉 http://www.donnazfalcone.com/poetry/poems-on-a-string
Bethany R. says
Let’s see, choosing lines from the first six chapters is difficult. I marked it up pretty good with my green pen. I have to say that amongst so many other parts, I loved those crushingly beautiful poems, “There’s Sunshine Ahead,” and “Valentine’s Chai.”
Will Willingham says
Bethany, yes. Megan chose (and wrote) some wonderful poems to include in this book. Is there something about one (or both) of those poems you would share? 🙂
Bethany R. says
Thanks for asking, LW. (I’ll just pick one of the poems for the moment so I don’t go on too long here.)
When I read through “There’s Sunshine Ahead,” I’m struck by the array of ways sunshine is used to explore the complexity of the situation. The contrast in fighting off death while being tucked in with a “yellow/ crocheted blanket,” or having to see your mother’s dear face “aged ten years in three weeks,” while other patients listen to her story and look to her for hope, “like they just saw the light.” I paused there for a bit.
“I fetch/ ice chips that melt instantly in her hot little mouth[,]” particularly grabs me. All of this energy, heat, helplessness and help in one act – it’s powerful. And painful. And the closing line leaves me feeling the withoutness.
Megan Willome says
“Withoutness” is a word that deserves its own poem.
Nancy Franson says
I agree.
Brad says
Not sure I’ve stuck with poetry so much as poetry has stuck with me. Started in high school, memorizing lines from Gray’s “Elegy.” I was hooked. But I wouldn’t have said that I “needed” poetry until two years ago when I was diagnosed with leukemia and went through nine months of chemo. I forced myself to walk in the woods daily, regardless of weather, regardless of how I felt. I carried a small sized poetry anthology with me, often reading aloud as I walked.
Don’t ever tell me poetry is “fluff.” Poetry helped save my life.
Megan’s fine book takes me back to why all of this is True. (And I intend a capital “T”)
Donna Falcone says
Hello Brad. 🙂 Glad you’re here. I really love what you said here: Not sure I’ve stuck with poetry so much as poetry has stuck with me.
🙂
Brad says
Thank you Donna for that welcome!
Bethany says
Brad, thank you so much for sharing this with us. What a powerful way to walk through such a time in your life, by reading poetry daily in the woods. I love that you did it no matter the weather. Do you mind if I ask, were there certain poems from your anthology that seemed particularly dear to you during that time?
Brad says
Bethany
Mostly I went back to old favorites who were like old friends walking through the woods with me:
Blake’s “Song of Innocence” Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” Wordsworth’s “Upon Westminster Bridge” Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” Hopkin’s “God’s Grandeur” Wm. Cowper “God moves in a mysterious way” Audens’ “In Memory of WB Yeats.” Biblical Psalms. Frost’s “Stopping by Woods” and many by Jane Kenyon.
Anyting for a taste of truth and beauty to push back against the enemy attacking my body.
Bethany says
Powerful words: “a taste of truth and beauty to push back against the enemy attacking my body.”
Megan Willome says
Thank you for this list, Brad.
Marilyn says
“…wouldn’t have said that I ‘needed’ poetry until two years ago when I was diagnosed with leukemia…forced myself to walk in the woods daily…carried a small sized poetry anthology…often reading aloud…Don’t ever tell me poetry is ‘fluff.’ ”
How did I love this?
Let me count the ways.
Brad says
Marilyn
Glad that my words had some value for you!
Will Willingham says
Brad, so glad you’ve joined the discussion here. I am one of those who will say poetry helped save me. Not for reasons of illness, but reasons nonetheless. We each have our own, yes? I so appreciate this glimpse into the daily ritual you had in the woods.
And, if you’ve gotten further along in the book, you’ll see that Megan also understands Truth’s capital “T”. 🙂
Brad says
Yes indeed!
Emily Conrad says
My 13-year-old self was more concerned with short stories, but my earliest writings were poems scrawled with Crayola makers in little Lisa Frank notebooks. I forgot all about it until reading the comments on here, but in middle school, a friend and I put together our own booklet of poems. I believe she typed them out on her mother’s typewriter, and I illustrated horses and things on the pages. Then, I focused on short stories and novels until in college, professor Pamela Gemin brought poetry to life for me. I haven’t been as faithful to it as I’d like, but when I do write poetry, I still fall back on what I learned in her classes. I’m loving The Joy of Poetry, the encouragement to make poems a part of every day, a way to catch and release experiences that longer fiction doesn’t allow.
Lines that resonated with me:
“But poems and trout are slippery creatures.” (pg 36) True, and I appreciate the book’s tips on where the trout are biting.
“Because I never know when I’ll find the secret something I need to get through the day, in a handful of oddly-spaced words.” (pg 23) This reminds me of how I feel about the Bible, and I suppose that’s why the line resonates with me. Slow, deliberate reading of rich texts rewards me in so many ways. Because of some other life events, I haven’t been able to read The Joy of Poetry as slowly as I’d like, but the beauty of a book is that I get to keep it on my bookshelf (or in my purse as other commenters have said!) and read and reread these pages, finding new secret somethings with each pass.
Will Willingham says
It doesn’t stop being remarkable to me how a single person can change our relationship with poetry (for better or worse). So happy that Prof. Gemin came into your world in that way and renewed your interest. 🙂
Love the lines from the book that you share here, and so happy you’ve joined in our conversation. 🙂
Emily Conrad says
Yes! I definitely thought she deserved to be mentioned by name for everything she taught me. I owe her my first “real” publishing credits (I’m thinking that middle school booklet doesn’t count…) and, more importantly, my attraction to and appreciation of poetry.
Megan Willome says
The middle school booklet definitely counts! Especially since you illustrated it.
Glad you’re here, Emily.
Bethany says
Welcome to the book club, Emily. What wonderful memories you’ve shared. Do you remember what kinds of things you and your friend wrote/typed about in the booklet?
Love what you say here: “Slow, deliberate reading of rich texts rewards me in so many ways.”
Emily Conrad says
Thanks for the welcome, Bethany! I don’t remember what those poems were about, and I don’t think any copies survived, though I think we made multiple copies–all on the typewriter. (Though computers were around, we didn’t have one available to us at her house.) I do remember drawing little horses on the bottom of at least one. Since I loved them so much, I imagine they galloped right into the words of the poems, too.
michelle ortega says
Like Megan, I wrote poetry in middle school and high school, then gave it up in college as my brief affair with creative writing gave way to research and evaluative reports for my career in speech pathology. And then one day, like so many others here, “poetry found me” in the ee cummings title, “maggie and milly and molly and may.” Like an antique skeleton key, poetry opened a rusty-hinged door for me that had long been forgotten.
The book winds and weaves the joy of poetry, Megan’s poetic history and the tender, honest story of her mother and their relationship that seems to be growing as the body is failing into devastation. Favorite lines?
“I had an aversion to the very words she loved. Was it possible to be a conqueror, a champion, when the end was not in doubt?”
“It’s a fingerling potato, growing quietly in a dark space. Dig it up, saute it in a little olive oil, give it a chance.” Mmmmmm…where’s the crusty bread? 🙂
“…leaving behind only winter and cancer.”
*anything Nancy Franson says*
Valentine’s Chai. Undone.
Will Willingham says
I’m not sure if poetry knows when to find us, or something in us knows to go looking. But it seems to come at just the right time, yes?
So glad to see you here.
Megan Willome says
I will Amen the “*anything Nancy Franson says*” comment.
Nancy Franson says
And now, Nancy Franson is more than a little askeered of whatever words came out of my head or my mouth that prompted that comment . . .
Y’all are making me laugh hard.
Happy to see Brad here and, of course, I echo the above comments about Frederick!