Reading 1

As I’ve mentioned poetry was a catalyst for my love of words, reading and writing. A palate cleanser, too, if you will. When I first realized that, I was thinking strictly of my writing. I realize now, that it had a lot to do with my reading, too.

My first memories of being read to are tied up with poetry. In fact, poetry was one of the staples my parents read at bedtime. Walt Whitman was a favorite of my father’s. He read him often and dabbled in writing poetry along that vein. But my mother was more diverse, eclectic, even. The voice of poetry for me was my mother’s. Most often she read from our set of Junior Classics; The Young Folks Shelf of Books, Volume Ten, Poems, Guide and Indexes or Heart Throbs. Poems like The Duel, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, The Shut-eye Train by Eugene Field, The Owl and the Pussy-cat by Edward Lear, Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley, The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt, and, of course, Poe’s The Raven.

The raven’s voice, forevermore, my mother’s.

Finally, as my kids grew I began to write again. Between short stories, essays and novels I still wrote poetry, but rarely did I read it. There just wasn’t time. I was concentrating on writing romance novels and felt my time better spent reading what I was writing. Time was hard won and rare, but I found a way to finish nine novels, many short stories and essays, even some poetry. I had a few small successes but struggled along as most writers do.

For the last several years I have wanted to take a poetry workshop. Scheduling was the first difficulty I ran into. Then money, but I’d saved up enough for an online workshop when my illness hit. I was disappointed but frankly could think of nothing else but putting my energy into getting better. As I started to recover my desire to write grew but my mind just didn’t follow. Whether it was the medications or the illness, I don’t know but I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t get my thoughts to line up and make sense or from my mind to my fingers. I floundered and worried. I wondered if my writing was something else the illness had taken from me. It wasn’t the time for any kind of writing workshop, much less poetry.

Poetry, for me, took a bit more concentration and thought, but also free, maybe even, wild thinking and I just didn’t have it in me.

As my health improved I began working on a memoir, using my own knocked together ‘workshop’ to do so-still afraid my mind wasn’t working well enough to actually take a class. I picked two books: Writing Out the Storm by Barbara Abercrombie and Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach, to use as textbooks and diligently worked through them, page by page. One assignment mentioned in both books was to read a few memoirs.

And I did. It helped immensely as I began my memoir. Reading other memoirs was like a kick start and a carrot. A blind guide, a map for my own terrain.

Now, as I try to renew my poetry writing I decided to use the suggestion for my poetry and revisit reading poems. I still want to do a poetry workshop, but worry about my brain. The fogginess has left. I can concentrate but as I come off prednisone I’m uncertain how it will affect me. So, I’ve cobbled together my own poetry workshop, using two good poetry instruction books: The Mind's Eye by Kevin Clark and The Art and Craft of Poetry by Michael Bugeja. And I’ve started reading poetry again.

What an experience. I’m finding new poets I love and rediscovering old poets: Mary Oliver, James Applewhite, Jewel and of course, Rod McKuen.

More about that on another blog. My assignment to you is to read what you are writing, Then, go beyond that-to reading things that aren't your usual fare. It opens you up, fills your well. Try it.