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.

It's National Poetry Month--and NaPoWriMo Starts Today!

Image from http://www.wildviolet.net/

Today for the first time I'm participating in NaPoWriMo, a month-long challenge for poets to write a poem every day for the month of April (National Poetry Month). I'll be posting my daily poem here, then probably deleting it, so keep checking back if you want to see what I'm up to!

Also check out the Bloof Books blog, where Shanna Compton is posting a selection of NaPoWriMo work.

Join me, and wish me luck!

I Take Your T-Shirt to Bed Again

And by now it has almost lost its scent—

your scent, as when you were here and turned

towards the wall while I pressed my body

into your body and sighed, “You smell like candy”

into your t-shirted back. Yes, the smell is yours

the shirt warmed by your lean torso, tufted

and delicious. I’ve washed my clothes in your soap,

but that wasn’t it—there must be something sweet your pores

pour forth. In three days you will be here and we will drink

from and with each other, sleep in close quarters,

naked, awake to heat and singing cells and slickness. But now,

 too tired even to please myself, I breathe the shirt that covers

my pillow and dream—our yes and yes and yes opening and opening—

----Amy Lemmon

Published in The Best American Poetry 2013 (Scribner, 2013)

Originally published in Vitrine:a printed museum

best american poetry....and best of the net!

I'm getting some great poetry news so far in 2013. My poem "I take your T-shirt to bed again..." was selected for The Best American Poetry 2013, which will be published by Scribner in September. I've written for the Best American Poetry blog several times, but this is the first time my work will actually appear in that estimable annual collection.

Furthermore, Gerry LaFemina's poem "Bright Windows," which I selected for the Summer 2012 issue of Ducts.org, was chosen for the 2012 Best of the Net Anthology! That should be online later this month, I hear. I'll post again when it's out.

with a little help from my friends...

Poetry, like life in general, has its solitary moments, but it is also a very collaborative art. Sometimes, when the going gets tough, the only way I can get going is with a dear and capable friend holding my hand. Case in point: the poems I have had the privilege to write with the amazing Denise Duhamel, some of which have been published in ABBA: The Poems by Coconut Books. Our publisher, Bruce Covey, was in town from Atlanta this past week to read his hilarious and devastating poems, including his latest book Reveal (which was composed with the help of Google "I feel lucky" searches). He gave a fantastic reading (with the prodigious Amy King) and I got to "reveal" to him that Denise and I are collaborating on some new poems. Stay tuned....

ducts.org issue 27!

The new issue of Ducts.org is up and running! Go here to read it. If I say so myself, we have a very nice poetry section, featuring work by Valentina Cano, Shanna Compton, Derek Otsuji, Elizabeth Poreba, and Dana Elyse Tarasavage.

Check it out!

literary mama

Vicki pointed out that a new review of Saint Nobody, by Ginny Kaczmarek, is now up on Literary Mama, one of the coolest webzines around. I'm thrilled to have my book mentioned there!

abba: the poems

It's here! A chapbook of poems that I wrote collaboratively with my dear friend (and personal heroine), Denise Duhamel. Our publisher, Bruce Covey of Coconut Books, is selling away at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Denver this week.

All 21 poems were written with the same constraints: 1) each poem must be eight quatrains in ABBA rhyme scheme; and 2) there must be a reference in each poem to Europop superstars ABBA, or their music.

We had a blast writing these and hope our readers have as much fun as we did!

my first interview...

Last spring, Samuel Lloyd interviewed me for the online version of Southeast Review, published at Florida State University. It's very cool to have it published--now everyone from students to my parents can see what I have to say about the writing life (for what it's worth). And I admit I'm hoping it will bring a few more book sales--keep them trickling in! I thank Samuel for his patience (he had to wait four months for me to answer his questions), as well as Julianna Baggott (the online contributing editor and one of my writing heroes), for setting things in motion.

You can read it here.

online broadside and commentary

I have probably mentioned a wonderful poet and editor, Sam Rasnake. (If I haven't, I have now, and sorry I took so long, Sam!)

Sam is the one who selected Fine Motor for the Sow's Ear Poetry Review chapbook contest, and he has also published some poems in his online journal Blue Fifth Review. He also publishes and online broadside series, and selected "Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra" for the current issue. He also asks poets to write a commentary about the composition of the poem--a deliciously torturous thing to do.

Thank you, Sam, for your efforts on behalf of poets and poetry!

it's heeeeeeeere!

I am holding in my hands the first physical copy I have seen of Saint Nobody, the book. It is not even my own--my colleague Michael pre-ordered it, and it arrived Saturday. He brought it to work today and let me have it to tide me over until I get home (mine has just arrived at home via UPS). I'll be getting more copies at the AWP Conference in Chicago later this week, and will be signing at the Red Hen table on Friday from 2-3pm and Saturday from 1:30-2:30pm.

I am overjoyed, and more than a little stunned. This slim volume represents 18 years of work--as long as some of my students have been alive. I am so grateful to Red Hen Press for taking it on, and for doing such a bang-up job of it. Cover design by the fabulous Mark E. Cull; layout by Sydney Nichols. What a Valentine!

"the new phone books are here! the new phone books are here!"

Not really, but I did just receive first round galleys of Saint Nobody from my beloved Red Hen Press, and I'm giddy as Navin R. Johnson in The Jerk! Thrilling, exciting, and scary! Can't wait to see the cover...I promise a peek when I do.

welcoming the godfather

It's been years in the making. Lee Gutkind, dubbed "the Godfather behind Creative Nonfiction" by Vanity Fair, is our writer-in-residence this week at FIT. I've had the pleasure to welcome Lee to two of my classes and introduce a lecture he gave yesterday on the public and private voices in creative nonfiction.

Tomorrow, he's reading from his own new work:

Room D211
Fashion Institute of Technology
7th Ave @ 27th Street
1-2pm

Books for sale. New subscribers to Creative Nonfiction magazine will get free back issues. A fantastic time will be had by all.

a parliament of owls

Tu-whoo! tu-whoo! What a to-do!! Bobby and I have been reading The Silver Chair from the Narnia series, and I feel I need to quote the wise owl Glimfeather, because my contributor's copies of the fabulous first issue of Barn Owl Review have arrived! I'm so glad to be published in this excellent magazine from my home state with fellow Ohioans Nin Andrews and Susan Grimm, and many other wonderful poets.

The poem is "Subway Blunder," from the collaborative series that Denise Duhamel and I have been working on, ABBA: The Poems. Our rules are that each poem has eight quatrains, rhyming in abba scheme, and there must be one reference to 70s pop superstars ABBA. We've had a lot of fun with these poems, and fortunately, Barn Owl's Mary Biddinger is an ABBA fan!

Happy 100th Post, Saint Nobody!!!

Yes, it's finally happened, and how appropriate that it occurs smack in the middle of Down Syndrome Awareness Month (and could it have happened without Tricia's challenge? Prob. not.).

In honor of the Saint's centenary entry, I would like to officially announce that Saint Nobody, the poetry collection, has been accepted for publication by Red Hen Press! More details, and plenty of grateful admiration for this wonderful press, will most certainly be forthcoming. Don't change that dial!

Thanks to an anonymous tip from a Very Scholarly Blogger, I researched the medieval concept of a "Saint Nobody" and found the illustration you'll see if you scroll all the way the the very bottom of this page. The motto reads, "Nobody is my name that beyreth [beareth] every bodies blame." I'm considering asking the designer to incorporate it into the cover art.

Now it's on to revising the manuscript! Woo hoo! (or, as Tricia would say, "Woot.")