Let’s talk about our feelings.

{whoosh}

That’s the sound of men rushing out of the room. Almost ten years of marriage and I’ve finally learned the quickest and surest way to find alone time: What are you thinking about, darling husband? Tell me what you’re feeling.

So. Feelings. Other than the bone-crunching desire to slice off the penises of Penn State powers-that-be.

Nervousness. Hi-ho, hi-ho it’s back to clinic I go in a few days. I’m working through  my nerves with deep breathing calming images denial lavender tea a few good books.

If writing is one of the great pleasures and necessities of my life, reading is the place where it all began.

My family once road-tripped through the US. I spent the entire  vacation curled up in the back of the wood-paneled station wagon with a pile of books. My mom and dad begged me to look out the window. I insisted I was looking out of a window.

My beloved fifth grade teacher would go to the public library and handpick books she thought we’d love. I’ll never forget the feelings of excitement and pleasure on the days she came into class holding her canvas tote bags filled to the brim with hardcover selections. I’m sure the bags were heavy and I’m sure she worried about library fines, but she gave us that joy every two weeks.

Poet and writer Edward Hirsch does a good job explaining the feelings I have for reading:

Reading has been a deeply liberating experience for me. Like many of us, I feel as if it has given me most of my interior life and delivered me to myself. It has also taken me to extraordinary places where I otherwise never would have traveled. 

I’m also feeling fortunate. I’m lucky to have the virtual company of a circle of women who share these consuming passions with me. About two weeks ago,  I received a letter and a gray bracelet in the mail from Teri. The bracelet is stamped with three letters: FTF. Finish the fucker. This bracelet is gas in my tank, sun on my seeds, a little love incubator for my literary hatchlings. The bracelet is rumored to have magical powers which I can solemnly attest to…since receiving this gift I’ve had two more pieces accepted for publication! Forgive the exclamation point and know that details (and links!) are forthcoming. Finish the fucker, indeed.

A few days after I received the charmed bracelet, I opened my mailbox to find a manila envelope from MSB. Inside of the envelope was a book of poetry by a poet whose work was completely unfamiliar to me. I leaf through his pages and find myself submerged in another world, feeling grateful for another “window” to look out of and grateful to know someone who sees a treasure chest between two paper covers and thinks of me. Even better, MSB’s gift came with a card made out of one of her black and white photographs. Two loaves of salt-dusted baguettes. I feel nourished.

As if all of this isn’t enough, I kid you not, today my magical mailbox contained another gift. (Yes, I’m feeling sort of embarrassed by this shower of love). This recent gift puts a bit of a tangle in my secret admirer theories. Last time I received a book in the mail, I had no idea who sent it but I thought I had a hunch. To this day the secret admirer remains a mystery. But this time (evil laughter), though the gift was sent practically anonymously, I know for sure who sent it.  Days like today make me turn my gaze skyward, not in lament but in disbelief that I should be the recipient of so much love and blessing. My heart buzzes, not just for the joy of a new book which I can’t wait to dig into, but for the heart with which it was sent and the heart who sent it. Thank you.

And now I’ll let you go with a book recommendation:  The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Not only is Teri a wizard who knows how to concoct bracelet spells, she also knows how to pick a damn good book. I love it. I’m not quite done with it because I’m sipping slowly. I don’t want it to end. I allow myself a few pages, a little nip, every day. When I hold it I feel like I’m holding hands with a long-lost friend. It’s woven out of history, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Trotsky, Mexico, food, cooking, class warfare, art lovers, book lovers, screaming monkeys, guns, intellect, heart, a love letter that made me cry, friendship, longhand communication, an aspiring writer, broken hearts, and love sweet love. I’m a spinning top, giddy in love with this new book.

Ah, feelings.

——————

Today’s poem is for reading.

Dostoevsky by Charles Bukowski

against the wall, the firing squad ready…

Book nerd.

Sometimes even the most passionate book lover needs a break from reading or writing. I’ve gathered a few interesting ideas for book-related activities. Fun tangents to explore on the literary path. Meaty bits, dreamy bits, nerdy bits.

10. Open a clandestine used book shop. (Thanks to Elizabeth for introducing me to this heartthrob).

9. Read about a day in the life of a well-known author. (Thanks to Noan for this one).

8. Make a dress.

7. Build yourself a writing desk.

6. Become a surgeon.

5. Buy flowers and put them in a vase.

4. Get a tattoo.

3. Donate a few books to a highly selective used book store and lending library.

2. Take a trip.

1. Learn something new.

——————

Allow me one more delightful tidbit: today’s poem.

Anagrammer by Peter Pereira

If you believe in the magic of language…

Pocketfuls.

A Native American ceramic pot, a guide to jellybeans, sweatpants. These are a few of the gifts my sweet traveling husband has brought back to me because he doesn’t like coming home empty-handed from business trips. He travels to small college towns and his schedule is crammed with meetings, so with little time to browse, he usually ends up finding something in the university bookstore or the airport. I appreciate the gifts (the sweatpants have become my go-to item on cold, sick, or PMS days) but I appreciate the thought behind them even more. Still, we made a joint decision to put a moratorium on the trinket purchases; I know he loves me and I don’t need a lavender spice rub (lavender on meat?) to tell me so. A few months ago, though, S put a moratorium on the moratorium and returned from a trip with a present.

The university bookstore is following the trend of many college bookstores today, and is transferring their book sales to an online distributor. The university book store will no longer sell books. What will they sell, I asked S. Granola bars and teddy bears apparently. I’m dumbfounded, and the gift is bittersweet. Every book in the store (there were few left by the time S got there) was reduced to one dollar. I’m not sure if I should be celebrating or mourning this bargain. S lugged home eight books of poetry- he bought almost every book of poetry that was left. I was familiar with a few of the names, but the work was all new to me. So I’ve been digging through them, finding some gems and discovering the work of poets I probably would never have taken the time to explore. All for 8 bucks. The best gift, though, is the man who will scour deserted and forlorn book racks to find gems for his wife.

Another gift came via email yesterday when a friend emailed to ask for poetry book recommendations. She wants to buy her husband his first book of poetry and is not sure where to start. I was delighted to be able to help and to be included in a small way in the celebration of their love. It thrills me to know that people are talking about poetry and the discussion is leaking out of the blog forum into our daily lives. Last week I had lunch with my dear friend M. Same time, same place, same drinks, same meal (except M stepped to the wild side and ordered fish tacos instead of her usual). We gabbed and laughed, and even talked about a poem I posted a few weeks ago. I love how poetry clears a pathway to topics that might not typically be discussed. A poem is successful at the point where it stops being just about the poet, and becomes about the reader as well. A poem is a meeting place between writer and reader, and when the poem is shared with others the meeting place becomes a community, a gathering, a shelter from solitude.

And a final gift this morning: my mother came by this morning and gave me a book. My mom took an early retirement after my brother had his bi-lateral lung transplant. After retirement and after my brother’s recuperation, my mother devoted herself to pursuing interests she never had the time for, such as art and dance. The thing about my mother is that she succeeds at whatever she devotes herself to, so she became a successful artist and dancer. But recently she has been wanting to work again. So she put her suit back on and got herself a job. And all of this to say: she’s been going through old work books and materials and found an anthology of poetry about leadership which she surprised me with this morning. I’ve been leafing through it and I already adore it.  It has some poems I’ve never read before as well as some of my most beloved; but I especially appreciate it because each poem was submitted by a community leader as a piece which carries them and which they carry in their daily lives and work. Poetry put into action, read daily, used daily by teachers, administrators, mental health workers, congresswomen, pastors, mothers, you and me. Find a poem you love and put it in your pocket, then put a poem in someone else’s pocket.

I don’t think I’ve asked you yet: what’s your favorite poem?

———————-

Today’s poem is one of the poems in the anthology. Today’s poem is because you do not know, and will never know, your own diameter.

The Diameter of the Bomb by Yehuda Amichai

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters….

34.

This is how I celebrated 34 years of this life…

Los Feliz/a neighborhood in Los Angeles named for a land grant owner/feliz in Spanish means happy/can’t hear the name without thinking of happiness/coffee free birthday upgrade/blue sky afternoon for lunch with loves/pickle plate because i love my salty/mexican coke in glass bottle and hoegaarden/a bookstore worth loving/dinner with mother father brother angel S/laughinglaughinglaughing/have you ever tried to get your family to all fit on one chair for a picture/funny face pictures/kisses from S/story from the angel/presents/phonecallsmessagescards from friends near and far/facebook wishes peppered the day with exclamation points/crap maybe I’m not the loner I’ve always considered myself to be/sunshine and rain: love pouring down on me/(fuck you 37)/wrote: my birthday felt like a memorial/but so much better because I am alive to feel the love.

A few highlights…

A poetry section not relegated to the dark corner in the back.

Pickle plate at Umami. Mmmm salty!

Refreshment.

The token insane lady. Insanely happy.

I felt loved.

How fun indeed.

———————-

Although I hope to harass you indefinitely with mind dribbles and “today’s poem”s, today’s poem is the poem I’d give you if this birthday would be my last.

Moose In the Morning, Northern Maine by Mona van Duyn

At six a.m. the log cabins

nose an immense cow-pie of mist

that lies on the lake…

All lit up.

Thank you to those in my reading/writing community who recommended Mary Karr’s Lit. I gobbled it. I’m putting down a few of the lines that drenched me awake because I want to share them with you and also because I want to hold on to them long after the book is returned to the library.

Some lines from Lit by Mary Karr…

On youth

What hurts so bad about youth isn’t the actual butt whippings the world delivers. It’s the stupid hopes playacting like certainties.

On love of language

Words warranted my devotion–not drugs, not boys. That’s why I clung to the myth that poetry could somehow magically still my scrambled innards.

On writing

But humming through me like a third rail was poetry, the myth that if I could shuffle the right words into the right order, I could get my story straight, I could write myself into an existence that included the company of sacred misfit poets whose pages had kept me company as a kid.

On learning

I befriended a stately Holocaust survivor who showed me you could live like an intellectual whether you were in school or not. He loaned me a translation of Dante’s Inferno, which I left on a bus one drunken night, badly lying that it was stolen–what mugger says, Hand over the Dante!

On learning to write

[Etheridge Knight] wanted me to picture a woman climbing five flights in a Harlem apartment building in summer heat, then having to go back down with armloads of garbage. He said, If you’re standing on the corner of 116th Street poeticizing, what could you possibly say to help her climb back up?

On courtship

Warren counters with “Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness…”  Watching his unkissed mouth shaping those plush syllables is the libidinal equivalent of a studly crooner mouthing a love song.

On attraction

Occasionally, deliciously, my foot brushes his muscled calf, which makes me go all creamy in my center like a stuffed chocolate.

On survival

Build a wall around the day and don’t look over it.

On procrastination

What happened to the poems I was going to set the world weeping with? Tomorrow!

On drinking

I took the whiskey, planning a courtesy sip. But the aroma stopped me just as my tongue touched the glass mouth. The warm silk flowered in my mouth and down my gullet, after which a little blue flame of pleasure roared back up my spine. A poof of sequins went sparkling through my middle.

On drinking in a hotel room

And why a mini-bar when a maxi-bar is clearly what’s called for?

On accepting help from someone

You’re not gonna pay me back, he said. It’s not that linear.

—

So many lines, sharp as arrows,  to choose from. These are just a measly handful to whet your appetite for this galloping book, this galloping life. Even though she and I share more differences than similarities, reading Lit made me feel (as Karr herself writes in the memoir about work she adores) somebody out there knew who I was even if we’d never met–or would never meet. Reading this book also made me feel, for a thimbleful of a second, that I might want to believe in prayer again. The feeling didn’t last long, but still, it counts for something.

————————–

Today’s Poem: (click on link to read entire poem)

Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

Every morning

the world

is created…

Mirth returns in the shape of cake.

Happy birthday to my angel who turned nine yesterday. In the typical blossoming cooler-than-thouness of nine year olds, she has adopted the practice of rolling her eyes whenever I hug her. I tell the child she can roll her eyes from here to Kentucky because she’s stuck with my hugs forever.

Now for some housekeeping…

*For those of you who read about my recent clinic visit, I have an update. The no-show endocrinologist called and offered me a sincere apology and a telephone consultation. Although it doesn’t make up for the hours I lost, the courtesy is worth something. Points, doc.

*For those of you interested in the April raffle, I promised I’d announce the books that are up for grabs. I’ve selected anthologies to increase the odds that there will be something for everyone. Although I don’t own any of these titles, I’ve been wanting to add them to my own heaving bookshelf and the next best thing is to give one as a gift. The winner will choose from one of the titles below:

She Walks In Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems, selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy

Poem A Day, Volume 2, Edited by Laurie Sheck

Best American Poetry 2008, Guest Editor Charles Wright

Begin booklust now.

*A reader whose blog I visit on a regular basis responded to my last post with this virtual gift:

It’s a reminder we all need every once in a while, and now I have it on my phone to look at whenever I  need to be reminded. I’m so thankful to MSB for capturing the sentiment and sending it over.

*Another treasure came in the mail from N in reply to my momentary rant against words:

A fabulous article from the great Michael Cunningham on writing…a writer should always feel like he’s in over his head.

N has sent gifts in the form of interesting tidbits, links of interest, and literary treasures since Day 1 of this blog. Just seeing her name in my inbox brightens my day.

*Yesterday my beautiful R sent me a photo of something she encountered on her way to work:

I hope you gave the driver a thumbs up, R. Thumbs up (and quiet, heartfelt gratitude) for everyone working to end this disease. Your name will be on the cure.

So many presents to unwrap and savor, I feel like it’s my birthday.

*One final bit of excitement…

I found this in a jacket pocket the other day:

A crinkled fortune in an old jacket, but there’s no harm in recycling fortunes. Perhaps the unexpected event has already happened, but maybe, just maybe, my life is about to sizzle with excitement.  Either way, I’m thrilled. I put it back in the pocket to find it again next year.

Birthdays, mirthdays, delight in the mail days, and excitement on the verge days…all cake worthy.

———————————-

Today’s Poem: (click link to read entire poem)

A Little Tooth by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,

and four, and five, then she wants some meat…

Love smells like paper.

I love words. I love words, a multitude of them, the way a lifelong bachelor can never decide between his cool blonde, his spicy red, his velvet brunette, or his blade edge black.  I love the friction and sizzle that an unexpected pairing of words emit. I always instinctively sensed the corporeal energy produced by language, but was unable to fully comprehend what I was sensing until I read an interview of poet Naomi Shihab Nye who explained her experience of language like this:

The older I get…the more I think energy is everything. If we have it, feel connected to it, we are rich. If we don’t have it, we are forever searching. High school students frequently say that emotion is the key to life..but the older I get the more that key, that source of all living, seems to be energy. Energy comes from many places including juxtaposition and contradictory things, elements, experiences, impulses coming together. The energy that comes from rubbing one image up against another in poems is quite surprising and majestic, and I think our brains are desperate for that energy.

Language is generous. It doesn’t ask us to be loyal or forsake the pleasure of one beautiful phrase because we’re smitten by another. Today I want the hard drinking, tin can poverty of Bukowski, and tomorrow I may need Neruda’s Latin American tumult and flame.  Today I might crave magical realism, tomorrow I’ll want Steinbeck and his dry tear-stained American earth. Within a particular book, each passage has the potential to turn my world on its head, spinning me head over heels in love, countless times (see photo above).

Language is powerful. It has the ability to create universes, real or imagined, within the dark tunnels of our mind, to set off a battlefield of firing synapses. Language is pleasure. It’s the bacchanalia we indulge in without repercussion, a smorgasbord for our hungry minds.

A few days ago I saw this:

This business concept allows clients to select a favorite passage which is then printed and applied to their wall of choice. Literary decor; throw pillows and a quote. The thought is enticing, especially for someone like me who prefers the warmth of books and language to a wool afghan. I wanted to love the idea, but I could not.

In that split second of terror at the stop light (how does one choose?!), I was schooled in the ways of the eternal bachelor. Because how could we possibly be asked to choose just one? Charles Simic’s Orphan Factory, the book I’ve been spending my time with lately, is just one example of a book full of beauties that turn my head with each turn of the page. Here are a few:

If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.

After a while, I listened only to the silence deepen, the night continue to hold its breath.

The experience of being eludes language…the advantage of the poetic image is that it preserves the wordless.

Like poetry, humor is subversive.

The night sky loves only the solitary ones. To the one sitting in a corner with his face to the wall, it offers its own secret invitation on the breath of the night wind. When he finds himself in the desert or on the mountaintop, he will want immediately to confide himself to the sky. Oh the things we would all say to the stars in the sky if we found ourselves alone in a lifeboat at sea.

Perhaps bachelors are onto something. Perhaps they are our true romantic poets who understand that the experience and appreciation of one inherently leads to and enhances the experience and appreciation of another. So I refuse to emblazon my walls and live happily ever after with just one.  My first confession: I’m an eternal lingual bachelorette. My second confession: I dogear my library books…please don’t tell.

Do you have a word, a phrase, a poem, or passage that you love more than any other? That guides you or comforts you or drums your heart with pleasure every time you read it? A passage that you could wake up to every morning and share a sink with?

———————-

Another juicy plum of a find in Simic’s Orphan Factory is a poem he discovered during his earliest years in New York. I imagine Simic holding onto it like a carefully wrapped piece of secret chocolate stashed in a cupboard, taking a satisfying nibble every once in a while.

For pleasure, in every incarnation.

The Peasant Declares his Love by Emile Roumer

High-yellow of my heart, with breasts like tangerines

you taste better to me than eggplant stuffed with crab…