Writing Is My Drink and My 26-Minute Memoir

This summer I had a few precious weeks of more open-ended time that I could spend writing. It was quite terrifying and I felt the pressure to produce after long stretches of go-go-go work and home life. I knew I had to find a way to avoid the self-sabotage of frittering away that all-too-rare time.

In moments like these I cling to my collection of "writer's self-help" resources. One of my go-to books has been Writing Is My Drink by Theo Pauline Nestor. I was particularly inspired (once again) by her description of breaking through a terrible block writing her graduate thesis after reading Virginia Valian’s essay “Learning to Work” from Working It Out: 23 Women Writers, Artists, Scientists, and Scholars Talk About Their Lives and Work. I discovered this long out-of-print book in FIT's library while developing my Creative Imagination honors course over a decade ago. I am so happy that Theo has provided a PDF of Valian's piece on her site.

At the end of one of the chapters Theo gives a prompt for a "26-Minute Memoir" and directs readers to her website for more information. I did the exercise and decided to email Theo my piece, even though she hadn't published any new ones since 2015.

Lo and behold, a few weeks later, Theo wrote back and said she had been thinking of posting them again, and wanted to start with mine!

This morning, on the brink of the Fall 2017 semester, as I prepare to lead my department and teach my students (and support my son, who is now taking classes there), I got an email from Theo with a link to my piece on her website. I am even more terrified--of what it reveals about me as a person, and of what it means to me as a writer. Now I really have no excuse not to do the work. I am learning, thanks to Theo, Virginia, and many others who have done it before me, and to my students who will just be starting this adventure next week.

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 10 (skipped some)

Passacaglia

I still make inside jokes with you
even though you don't get them
strings wavering

The moon is a bright tired thing
everybody thinks they own
night buzzes along

Salt water was your favorite
so cleansing, the passages
crisp folds marked

Hold the bow lightly
technique finally perfected
doors fly open

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 4

Message in a Bottle

Rescue me from the tyranny of water
Rescue me from water all around
Rescue me from calculus, both kinds
Rescue me before this island sinks
Rescue me until you're rescued too
Rescue me when you think I'm okay
Rescue me from fear--I'm trapped and grounded
Rescue me above the time - the time
Rescue me from this time and this place
Rescue me from a blank bulletin board
Rescue me from solitary hashmarks
Rescue me in case of flood or fire
Rescue me break glass but remain clam
Rescue me and I meant "clam" not "calm"
Rescue me - tornadoes in my dreams
Rescue me - in quicksand ever sinking
Rescue me - running always running
Rescue me - the water heats to steam

Written with students and colleagues @ FIT in Traveling Through Language presentation and workshop with Anca Cristofovici

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 3

The Ultimate Confessional Poem, Take One

 “Grief is a world you walk through skinned, unshelled”
 --Ariel Levy

I hear the noise of my own voice:

Prince, you’re a prince. A dog a man

in the commonplaces of the asylum. 

All’s misalliance.

Far-fetched, tenacious, captious: fan
in that narrow diary of my mind,
The ultimate American,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot

Yet why not say what happened?

There is enough here to please a nation. 

As sure as God made Granny Smith.
The trees have more than I to spare.

Strange, not to wish one's wishes onward. Strange,
and fasten a new skin around it.

Let me study the cardiovascular tissue, 

Ich, ich, ich, ich

My dear, it was a moment

I have to nudge myself to stare. 

The garden's garter snake

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.  

Outside of us the village cars followed

Then told my parents, analyst,   

If it's been good, be glad it's been.

Neither you there, nor coming. Heavy change!

collage/crowdsourced from John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Ann Sexton, W.D. Snodgrass, and George Starbuck

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day 2

The Duration

The East River looks frozen, choked
eddies pulling in oppositions.
Cumulocirrus skies leak blue in spots.

You are not waiting at home
as you were so long, long ago,
solid point 'round which my currents churned.

Picking my way through stepped-on
frozen slush, I push my heart rate,
building stamina for the long haul.

How much longer?
How many more miles without a you
or any other you?

Families pass on the promenade. The men
have all married younger wives.
The women are plush and beautiful,
their lips open delicately when kissed.

I have not forgotten how I had
to teach you softness, the relaxed tongue,
the release that made you squirm.

Spring is so late this year
we may never thaw again. Hard
to believe, harder to bend not break.

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day 1

I'm doing this! It's National Poetry Month, and that means another round of NaPoWriMo. I will be writing a poem a day all of April. This year I'm part of the crew posting on the Bloof Books Blog (thank you, Shanna Compton!). Here we go!

Daily Wonders

The weather had us, umbrellas charged
and ready. Another Nor'easter swipes
the city. We pour out of the theater,
headed for dinner to be photographed
on our phones.

Our pens have forgotten how to write,
so stiffened our writing arms from texting.
It's not the pain so much as the wind
that buffets human invention.

We cross the street mid-block to skirt
the lake drowning the gutters at the corner.
Dinner is better with a little truffle oil,
so we all have the orzo mac and cheese.

South of here, a mess of PVC ignited
to wreck a bridge, sink a highway.
We were not in traffic at the time,
we were not texting while driving,
we were nowhere near the overpass.

Why press these sticky notes to the page?
The organ bellows, the wine mellows,
the crowd goes wild. It's been too long
since we touched a piano. Touch this.