I suppose I thought that, once the days had shaken themselves loose of the encumbrances of motion, and the menace of time, the twittering sky could finally waffle, untethered, under piecemeal clouds to consider her options.
I suppose I thought that, given the distance involved, someone might be better off to find oneself caught in the dilemma of giving up uncaring responses to caring questions than not to answer at all.
I suppose I thought that, with that last bitter twinge of guilt, not so hidden but buck-toothed and fuscia-brimm’d against the waiting whiteness, the notes might be in tune.
I suppose I thought that, underneath the quivering madness of illusion, hiding behind curtains in a living room full of misapprehensions, would come the smallest sigh, the narrowest glance.
I suppose I thought that, without a second thought, mysteries caught up in stubborn embrace of tired stories pinned to old trees never well-planted might actually find bards to sing their praises.
I suppose I thought that, with enough poetry strung out on lines of hopeful thought, and enough poets, kindling together those lines, breath might swell again into a coughing history.
Layers of green-backed mountains muscle their way through bruised-blue ocean. Hovering always beside us, they serve as our constant reminder to look this way, west, when lost (an hourly occurrence with me at the wheel). The air is grey, merging as one with the sky that frames it. Those, like us, whose weather experience is unyielding, unnecessarily hot, desert sun, often boast of the abundance of light. But, unlike the pushy, insistent sunlight of eastern Washington, the light here is complex, nuanced, shy and non-committal, like a teenage girl not quite ready for a boyfriend’s advances. Colors and textures are more discernible; faces, buildings, and backgrounds more sophisticated, not blanched and obvious from the brash directness of a boastful sun. This light is earned and, as such, even more deeply appreciated for its whimsical scarcity.
Rain here is currency, making this a rich place indeed. Its presence is more than just expected. Its certainty brings with it a comfort akin to the smug knowledge that umbrellas bring in clearly delineating tourists from townies. It’s dotage, over-eager but well-meaning, comes like a cleansing of the palette as it were for the hardened but friendly inhabitants who call this home. Anything more than about a ten percent chance of rain means, well, rain. Whatever ‘showers’ means elsewhere, in this place it is code for, Build ark and prepare thyself for an unforgiving shitload of vertical water and avoid umbrellas at all costs.
Tucked beneath the busy sky, layered mountains, and hungry sea lives a population reminiscent of a suburban Woodstock. Hippy loggers. Polite revolutionaries. Sidewalk artist news-junkies. Bag-ladies and street-dwellers with decent grammar. All of the above and us, the lone, traitorous Canadians living in Washington State trying to stumble our way around. That, with downtown streets twisting in corkscrew fashion in and out of side streets that double as alleyways that double as thoroughfares that smirk at our lostness. The roads, having been laid by drunken blind men in oneupmanship sprawl out like some wild, yet picturesque, game of snakes and ladders. Where the hell are those mountains anyway?
Those Canadians, famed for politeness, are the same ones who, upon noticing our Washington State license plate, find every way possible to angrily tailgate us into next week, regardless of our fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. A worthwhile risk, apparently, to he who must teach a valuable lesson to these wayward American ne’er-do-wells. “But wait,” I inwardly screech, “I’m one of you.” To no avail. This is what Canadian “aggression” looks like. I meet the same guy at a red light and he’s all smiles and waves. Here in Canada, polite is but shorthand for passive-aggressive, a set-up for the inevitable near-clash of non-words.
The reason for this ascent into the murky badlands of Vancouver Island rainforest otherwise known as Nanaimo? To deposit (or abandon, depending on your perspective) our youngest son into the fray where he will begin Jazz Studies at Vancouver Island University (not an oxymoron, I assure you) and a new life figuring out the politics of labyrinthine Canadian niceties. He may have been born in Vancouver but he has spent fourteen of his eighteen years in America’s Pacific Northwest. He is the most American of anyone in our family, a family more Canadian than most Canadians.
The long love we’ve harbored (yes, I went there) for screeching gulls alighting on fishing boats, grumpy clouds bobbing over bouncing buoys, and a permanent smell of pulp laden damp help us navigate the darker waters of parentalisms. Small comfort indeed in the face of driving hundreds of miles away, the face of one’s youngest in the rearview mirror. Good thing I’m given neither to melodrama nor self-pity or I might find myself writing about it.
So, this is part of a fun blogger’s initiative called a “Blog Hop.” Here’s how it works. I was invited by writer/poet friend, Lesley-Anne Evans, to join what amounts to a writer’s pyramid scheme. The rules of the game? Tag three other bloggers, all of whom will answer four questions about writing and the writing process. We post two weeks after the previous crew. Therefore, every two weeks, the number of bloggers posting grows exponentially!
The goal is simple – to connect writers who blog in a tighter community and hopefully, enrich others looking for answers to their own writing questions. Lesley-Anne is a gifted writer and poet who spends much of her time beautifying neighborhoods, cafes, street corners…wherever really, with poetry “installations.” She also does a fun thing called “Pop-up Poetry.” To see her contribution, click here.
We begin:
1) What am I working on?
Light Write poetry/photography exhibition, June 26/14
These days, apparently, poetry is the language I speak. I’m learning to speak this language with more weight (as Lesley-Anne would say!), clarity, and authenticity. But also, simplicity. The degree to which my language learning translates into quality production remains to be seen. But, like my poetry, I’m a work in progress.
I’m pleased and proud to be an active participant in the process of broadening the literary/artistic voice in the Yakima Valley. This is a valley of varied, often harsh, beauty. Many poets, writers, artists, and musicians have stepped up to sing her praises. Recently I was chosen as one of thirty-four poets to contribute poetry for a mixed media art show featuring the work of local photographers. The event? Light Write. Read more about it here.
A snapshot of my work and process will soon be available on an exciting new Facebook chat room, Altarwork. Alongside finishing a new EP with my son, Calum as producer, I’m working on a book of sacred prayers, poetry and liturgy, listening for a book of poetry to emerge with the working title, The Beauty of Wasted Space and helping my wife in her own process of writing a novel.
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Performing at Light Write with Piper Renee-Richmond
On one level, I’m not so sure it does. However, as a poet, I am deeply influenced by old school poets. But, I seek to bring their influence to my own emerging voice, all the while writing in more contemporary genres. It gives a certain “traditional non-conventionality” to it.
I am an advocate of language for its own sake. The beauty of the words themselves brings a joy that predates the images and meanings derived from those meanings. But I also love the challenges offered poets from adapting ideas and thoughts to preexisting forms. It’s my tip of the hat to iambic pentameter, triangle poetry, Haiku or sonnets!
3) Why do I write what I do?
My words here will echo every other writer I’ve ever heard who’ve answered this question. I write because it is a compulsion. That compulsion might be out of anger or frustration surrounding some issue about which I need to weigh in, usually for my own conscience! More often than not I write because I’m inspired to ‘word up’ what I see in the world around me. My experience of that world yields a seemingly endless supply of emotional detritus needing to find its way out. When it does, I’m either writing and/or composing.
For me, poetry is contemplative prayer. It is as much a spiritual exercise as it is literary, and one of the primary ways by which I connect to my center and to the Sacred Center of all things. What is most freeing about this arrangement is how seriously and, at the same time, laissez faire, I can take my approach to the art. At least right now, it grows from much that is yet un-mined in my spirit. If you’re okay with it, I am too.
4) How does my writing process work?
Assuming the process actually does “work”, it differs depending upon what I write. It has also changed. In terms of poetry, it is becoming more about less. It was at one time a game of output. Now, it’s more about input. I read much more poetry than I ever write.
Composing prose is more an act of ‘pin the tail on the donkey.’ I chase around an elusive gem that needs to be caught, tamed just enough to stay on the page, and released back into the world for the consumption of other hungry readers. I have discovered that writing works best for me when I simply barf up whatever is bubbling in my literary stomach and then ‘read the leavings’ for anything substantial, worthy of further consideration. I’m not generally an outline kinda guy!
Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for listening! For the next stop on the blog hop, I’ve tagged the following stellar individuals.
Seymour Jacklin is one of those delightful serendipities. A fellow ex-pat, he is becoming my friend alongside his considerable skill as apoet, blogger, editor, educator, and story-teller. We’re also mutual fans and players of Celtic music! Hear him play right…here.
Kelly Belmonte is a recent friend, having met online as mutual admirer’s of one another’s work. She’s a wonderful writer and a deep soul. But, rather than just tell you, you need to go and discover more about her right…here.
Paul Bowman and I began a friendship journey in 2008 when sharing a cohort in an MA in Spiritual Formation and Leadership from Spring Arbor University. We’ve since graduated from that program and are supportive of each other’s quest to spread salt and light through words to a thirsty world. Find out more about him, his writer-wife and gorgeous kids right…here.
Oh, what a vexing irony: to sit and type out words about a losing game of hide ‘n seek with words. I will certainly not be the final voice on finding a lost literary voice. It’s just that, well, I didn’t think it would happen to me. So soon at least.
Shit, I’m only fifty years old. I’d hoped this wouldn’t happen until I had left an entire generation agog over my mastery of linguistic flare, and deftly adroit word choice. This is what happens to the aging novelist with one good one under her belt but finds herself paralyzed producing a second. Not me! I’ve yet to be published. By that I mean, more than the occasional University research paper, blogging, and the guy with the cleverest quips in birthday cards. As a writer, I am reaching for more than the guy with the best Facebook posts.
Shit, I’m already fifty years old. Shouldn’t I have something significant to say by now? One would think that this well-earned silver crop of thinning hair and commensurate wrinkles might have shoveled a thing or two into the loading bay. This sagging, white ass is well deserved I say. It’s watery impression sadly shaped into my favorite writing chair.
So, what happens when the words dry up? When the notes that come from pen or strings or keys no longer woo, titillate or otherwise amuse? When, instead, they are the stale, reused, overused bag ‘o tricks of a modern hack? When nothing sings anymore, but mutters imperceptibly under its own muffled (bad) breath? When one becomes a caricature of oneself – a sorry lump of stigma buried under borrowed artistry?
Can good art descend as easily from the ordinary, unadorned lives we live at kitchen tables, card games, and board meetings as it does from our bungee jump moments? Does one’s life, in order to become pregnant with words needing midwifery, require the overheated backdrop of anger, anxiety or joy? Perhaps then the super cooled, glacial faces of fear, pain, doubt, foreboding, even despair? Can the altruistic and universal issue from us as easily when our feet are ablaze with the dance of heaven and running onward to new adventure as when they’re encased in the cement of toilsome drudgery?
Men love when women laugh at their sorry ass jokes. I’m convinced that far too many women are far too polite as to give our jokes what they deserve – looks of disgust or grunts of disapproval. My wife still laughs at mine, oddly. I think, in part at least, it is because she’s often funnier than I am and feeds well off my fumbling attempts at humor. Mine is the bump and set. Hers the spike. Mine the missed lay-up. Hers the rim hang slam. She knows exactly what I’m about to answer when someone asks a question or tells me something either stupid or clever. If that was you, nothing personal.
My tricks are used up. Nothing surprises anymore. Little takes her by storm. This is okay in a good marriage. Not so much if one is the keynote speaker for a plenary address. Tell a bad joke to a packed house met by stony silence just once and you’ll never forget it (or so I’ve heard).
The flaccid, often noodle-y jokes that belch out of me these days are a good example of what I’m after here. To the uninitiated they may still speak or cause a chuckle or two. But, they’re not exactly earth-shattering stuff by any stretch. And every writer wants that – to be earth shattering, hugely entertaining, eternally perceptive, generously intuitive; all topped off with that orgasmic metaphor that leaves the reader with tousled hair and a far off look. We want to write that paragraph that causes readers to light one up afterwards.
I feel stuck, like the last dander of spring, clinging perniciously to the dandelion stalk refusing to admit summer. I’m that solitary bat hanging to the brick wall humming happily to myself while everyone else made it to Batman’s photo shoot an hour ago. Okay, so I exaggerate to make my point.
As a musician and songwriter, I’ve crossed this bridge before (there, see what I mean?) and what I’ve discovered is there are only three ways to overcome composing dry spells. One, write. Two, write. Three…well, you get my point. Best of all is when I’ve emerged from the songwriting dust heap I am always the better for it and have generally gleaned something helpful along the way.
So, here I am. I write to be a gooder writer, writing even gooderer stuff than ever before. It may feel awkward, like walking straight with one leg shorter than the other. But, at least it will be. I will have refused to be stifled by something, which, itself, refuses imprisonment. It barks insistently for release into the atmosphere it craves for its own freedom.
I’m not asking so much for the words as to dive deeper into the life from which those words await the pickaxe to dig them out. I don’t ask for inspiration as much as consternation that what comes has passed through the honing tapestry of a life, fully lived. I don’t ask for clever turn of phrase (well, that’s only partly true) as much as an honest churn of thought, where the ambivalence, arrogance, innocence and yearning that, together, form my life, blend and cohere into a face and a name to call my own.
Rob's Lit-Bits 