An Inspired E-Museletter about Writing, Publishing and Creative Expression

Vol. 1 Issue 1
Published: Eve of Vernal Equinox, 19 March 2003

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In This Issue:
* Views from the Muse
*In Praise of Poetry! April is National Poetry Month
*Get Inspired! Poetry Resources
*Gina's Scheduled Talks on Writing and Publishing
*Have Questions about Writing and Publishing? Use the Muse
* Parting Words: "La Poesia" by Pablo Neruda

Views from the Muse

What better time to premier this newsletter than the first day of Spring -- the season of new beginnings, -- with the world outside my office window verging on efflorescence?

And what better genre to initiate this endeavor than poetry? "Poetry is an act without a beginning or end," says Arabic poet Adonis. "It is really a promise of a beginning, a perpetual beginning."

So I commence this stream of musings with a focus on poetry, the sweet spot in a sea of writing categories. In a rally cry to encourage your poetic experiences, I share snippets from my recent excursions into reading this timeless art form, along with favored poets and their works, and a few additional resources.

For those of you who've found poetry to be mostly bumpy and unenticing, and especially to those whose only experience with it was being force-marched in high school Literature class, I urge you to give it another go. It's not all highfalutin and full of swank, as the aura still encircling this genre would lead us to believe. Contrarily, I've found it to be a direct and accessible form of inspiration that serves me in my daily life and work (more ruminations on this, below).

With National Poetry Month just around the corner, treat yourself to one of the volumes listed herein, or plan to attend a poetry reading in your area. Be fully present in the experience. As Walt Whitman declared, "Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems."

In Praise of Poetry!

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ---Plato

Wake up and love! Author Robert Housden suggests that all poems could be condensed into this single command. To be sure, poetry has roused my passion for people, things and places I love. When a certain special poem touches my heart, I accept its invitation to become more fully immersed in the momentous occasion of living. Swaddled in so carefully appointed words, poetry calls forth my deepest being and dares me to go ahead, be myself, venture anything, dance upon the edges of ecstasy. For this reason, I adore poetry.

Rainer Maria Rilke said it best in his Love Poems to God:

"You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent."

These past few years in particular, I've been drawn to poetry like never before. Admittedly, this proclivity has been accompanied by a yearning to unearth more of my own emotional terrain.
Writing about things I'd submerged for so long made me weak in the knees, and I worried if the world outside my mind would find worth in the writings. Mary Oliver's words gave me courage:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."

Reading fine poetry not only makes me a better writer, it makes me want to be a better person. Poets' words remind me that everything matters---from the infinitesimal to the infinite. A teardrop becomes "the anticipation of the eye's future" (Joseph Brodsky). Weeding my garden, I relish "the green fists of the peonies [that] are getting ready to break my heart" (Oliver). As I watch my son warm up at bat, I recall David Whyte's endearing vision of his own son:

"The mere shape of him
in silhouette
I love so much.
The whip of his wrist
and rascal slant
of his cap
like some hieroglyph
of love I deciphered
long ago
and read to myself
again and again."

Poetry seems to reduce the complexity of living into manageable definitions that can be savored on command. Enormities like "heartache" immediately make sense: "Love, like fire, can only reveal its brightness on the failure and beauty of burnt wood." (Philippe Jaccottet). "Failure" can be re-imagined as raw material that transmutes into something sweet: "I dreamt Ý that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures." (Antonio Machado). Even "childbirth" is made more beauteous in these lines by John O'Donohue:

"Someone is coming ashore inside her.
A face deciphers itself from water
And she curves around the gathering wave,
Opening to offer the life it craves."

Poetry also preserves my appreciation of places to which I travel. In Summer 2001, surrounding a trip to Ireland, I steeped myself in the works of its native poets: Keats, Yeats, Cavanaugh, O'Sullivan. Resting snugly one night in our thatched cottage after an excursion to the remote and mystical Dingle Peninsula, Seamus Heaney's sentiments expanded and intensified my experiences. Even now, nearly two years removed from the trip, his words carry me back. When he describes "the cold smell of potato mould," "the squelch and slap of soggy peat," "the hammered curve of a bay" and "islands riding themselves out into the fog," he gives the impression that nothing, absolutely nothing, gets lost in the translation. I am once again on the craggy cliffs at Slea Head, gazing beyond the ancient beehive huts to the Blasket Islands, which seem to reconfigure themselves in the rolling mist.

I'm inspired not only by masters of this craft, but by aspiring poets who work with words on a consistent basis. Are you one of them? This past year, I've had the pleasure of meeting a number of individuals who are tilling language's plenitude, emerging their own poetic voices.

I'm thinking now of Ben, one of my editing clients, whose in-the-works collection chronicles not only his struggles with dyslexia and the early death of his father, but what he's gained from these childhood traumas. And Ronda, who attended one of my recent journaling workshops; she now pens soulful poetry filled with splendor and awe for simple daily acts: nurturing a baby, loving a husband, finding time to write. Although she enjoys "the marathon of a novel or the slow figure skate of a long romantic sonnet," Ronda told me her favorite poetry "is more like an Apollo Anton Ono short track speed skate right into the heart."

As a writer, I sometimes need to be grabbed and shaken from my known existence, and levitated to a higher ground that contains all the seeds of my unrealized creative imaginings, awaiting germination. Poetry takes me there again and again.

Poetry Resources

A few of my favorite contemporary works:

MARY OLIVER
New and Selected Poems
American Primitive

DAVID WHYTE
The House of Belonging
Fire in the Earth
Where Many Rivers Meet
Songs for Coming Home

SEAMUS HEANEY
Selected Poems 1966-1987
The Spirit Level

JOHN O'DONOHUE
Conamara Blues
Echoes of Memory

ROBERT BLY
Eating the Honey of Words

ADONIS
The Pages of Day and Night

GALWAY KINNELL
Imperfect Thirst (Thanks, John, for turning me on)

OCTAVIO PAZ
The Siren and The Seashell

SHARON OLDS
The Unswept Room

SHEL SILVERSTEIN (wonderful poetry for children)
Falling Up
Where the Sidewalk Ends
A Light in the Attic

For better or worse, most of the poets whose work touches me most deeply are deceased. Here's my personal Dead Poet's Society, all venerable stand-bys on my bookshelf for whenever I crave a poetic elixir:

ANTONIO MACHADO (1875-1939)
Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Trans. Robert Bly)

PABLO NERUDA (1904-1973)
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (published when he was only 20 years old!)
Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon: Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda (Trans. Stephen Mitchell)

RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875-1926)
Letters to a Young Poet
Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

W. B. YEATS
The Poems of W. B. Yeats

JOHN KEATS (hard to believe he died at age 24!)
The Complete Poems of John Keats

WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)
Leaves of Grass
Song of Myself

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)
William Wordsworth: The Major Works

RUMI (1207-1273)
The Essential Rumi (Trans. Coleman Barks)
Delicious Laughter (Trans. Coleman Barks)
I Want Burning (Trans. Coleman Barks)

WILLIAM BLAKE
The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake

EMILY DICKINSON
The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

KAHLIL GIBRAN (1883-1931)
The Prophet
The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Emerson's Complete Works

HAFIZ
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master (Trans. Daniel Ladinsky)
The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz (Trans. Daniel Ladinsky)

And, finally, here are a few of the best literary journals and books on the craft of poetry:

Slipstream Press: A yearly anthology of some of the best poetry and fiction you'll find today in the American small press.

Poets & Writers: resources for creative writers.

Yawp Magazine: independent arts and literary magazine.

Handbook of Poetry and Blue Pastures, both by Mary Oliver

Gina's Upcoming Talks on Writing and Publishing

Print On Demand Publishing: Why This Form of Publishing is "In Demand"
Monday, March 24, 10 a.m., Mystery Lover's Bookstore, Oakmont, PA
Contact: Gina at inspire@zoominternet.net

Publish, Don't Perish!: An Overview of Self-Publishing and Writing for Publication
Thursday, April 17, 7 p.m., Robin Hill Cultural Center, Moon Township, PA
Contact: Dianne at Robnhill@aol.com or check it out: www.ginawriter.com/home.htm

Use the Muse

Have a specific question about writing, publishing or the creative process? If so, email it to me at inspire@zoominternet.net. I'll do my best to answer it in the next issue of the newsletter.

Is there a particular topic that you'd like me to address in an upcoming issue? I'm open to all ideas for and feedback on this newsletter.

Parting Words

LA POESIA

And something ignited in my soul,
fever or unremembered wings,
and I went my own way,
deciphering
that burning fire
and I wrote the first bare line,
bare, without substance, pure
foolishness,
pure wisdom
of one who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open.
---Pablo Neruda

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