Make it Possible

Today's poem by Wisława Szymborska just begs for a response. After you read it, pick out the lines that resonate with you. Then using the start "I prefer" take 5 or 10 minutes and write your own version. You may find a new possibility. And that's what makes a Monday an even better Monday.

Possibilities 

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

Living a Writer's Life

You know one. One of those writers who confidently says, "I write every day." There are famous authors who swear that writing every day got them to the top. I've heard it at conferences, critique groups and most recently while hanging out with some friends at a pub. And if you are one of those writer's let me be the first to commend you.

But let's be real. I pledge to myself that I will write every day and I fail 98% of the time. Lately my journal is the only writing getting any action and it's not daily, no matter how I try. And it's not a lack of discipline, it's really more the choices I make.

While attending a poetry reading with Robert Haight, he said that at first he did everything to be a writer, writing every day, hanging out in coffee shops, even taking up smoking. But it wasn't until he decided that he wanted live a life of poetry instead of being a poet that he was able to write. And when I heard that I felt so inspired.

Yes, I do know that writer who writes every day. In fact, he told me that even though he may not write the best material every day, he will out work anyone. And yes, I still find myself a tad bit jealous that he has the "writer's" life. And I could stay up until 2 am or get up at 2am and start writing.

 But for now I am choosing to live. And in living I am writing poetry. It's there in the face of my little girl as I kiss her goodnight. It's even in the pile of dishes in the sink. And in the dog's dish and the icicles hanging from my husband's wetsuit as he comes in from winter surfing and in the swish of my skis and crunch of the snow.

 And I hope that when I do make the choice to write religiously again, all that life will become poetry on the page.

Being Gentle with Myself

Before my family moved to the country, I was involved with a poetry therapy group. This is just one of the many poems and experiences I had. It is a poem that I like to bring out when I am feeling overwhelmed or inadequate.

Our facilitator, Nessa McCasey, gave us a poem by Leonard Nathan entitled So? It is a poem about accepting who you are not and who you will never become but also about who you are. We were encouraged to write our own version by following the format of his poem.

It is admittance of your weaknesses, the shortcomings that you have imposed on yourself. But also the acceptance of your strengths. And it was liberating. I encourage you to do the same. Who have you always aspired to be? What have you hoped to do but know it is impossible? By writing my version of this poem, I let go some of those dreams and accepted who I am right now.


So?
Leonard Nathan

So you aren't Tolstoy or Saint Francis
or even a well-known singer
of popular songs
and will never read Greek
or speak French fluently,
will never see something no one else
has seen before through a lens
or with the naked eye.
You've been given just one life

in the world that matters

and upon which every other life
somehow depends as long as you live,
and also given the costly gifts of hunger,
choice, and pain with which to raise
a modest shrine of meaning.


So?
Regina Gort

So you aren't Jacques Cousteau or Mary Oliver
or even the Queen of England,
will probably never again read Tolstoy
or speak Japanese fluently.
You will never fly to the moon or
discover the missing link.
You have been given the ability to love
 and receive love.
And more than that you can look at yourself
straight in the eye and
honestly say that you matter.

Yes, Regina, there is a muse

A few weeks ago I was having a discussion about the muse. Someone told a story about a friend that believed her muse was her son's green parakeet. Even after the bird met it's demise, the woman froze the carcass and kept it for several years, afraid that disposing of it would cause the loss of her muse.

I could relate(not necessarily to freezing a pet). As a writer I certainly have quirks about what has to be on my desk, in my writing space and playing on my Ipod before I can write. At one point I had an aversion to blue pens convinced that blue ink would thwart my muse.

It's easy to blame the muse for the inability to produce work. And I am guilty of this as well.

But with our family's recent move to the Upper Pennisula of Michigan where I grew up, it seems I finally have no more excuses. Surrounded by nature and living life at a slower pace, I have been forced to own up to my muse.

Maybe it is the awareness of being in a grove of pines, the way the sunlight seeps into the moss carpet and reflects off the top of a mushroom cap.  Maybe it's the cascade of snowflakes that catch in my eyelashes or the crackle of twig snaps beneath my boots as I follow a chickadee call.

I have to believe that my muse has always been with me. But there is something here in the country that helps her more than survive.

So I have to ask, do you believe? Where do you find your muse? Does your muse thrive in certain conditions?

First Post: Carrot Juice and Coffee

The table is set and I am wondering who will arrive to partake. I would serve, of course, carrot juice.
-Regina Gort

What? I haven't even had my coffee yet.
-Juliet Bond

Welcome to our new writing blog!  We hope you will join us on this new venture, that you will share laughs, triumphs and rejection letters. That you might dust off your muse and rediscover what inspires you to write, live and love.

More than likely there will be poetry.

And book reviews and interviews.

Revelations and prompts.

But most of all the growth of a relationship with our muses, a little bit country and a little bit city.

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

-William Stafford

With warmth and welcome and a special toast to something new;

Load up the juicer!

-Regina

Nuh huh.  (Slurp.)  I'll stick with my non-fat latte.

-Juliet

Bring your own favorite beverage, and join us for a bit of nourishment.

Love, Us