Poet is a Verb: Focus

This is not a Poet is a Verb entry about something I did today; it is about something I need to do. I need to be able to focus on one task at a time.

I won't tell the embarrassing story about the things I forgot to do at home this morning, because I was too busy doing them all at once. But I will say, that as I sat on the bus realizing all the things that I forgot to do and worrying about the things I probably forgot to do that I forgot about, I was thinking also about this week's Writers Island prompt: Unforgettable. I don't know if I can write about that prompt this week with a straight face.

The irony is that the art I like to do, poetry and photography and my renewed obsession with collage, requires focus. Most poets describe poetry as the act of focusing on details and relaying them with accuracy. At least, that's the beginning of poetry. Photography literally requires focus, for the selection and the clarity of the image. While I don't espouse to be a collage expert by any means, my experience on Sunday allowed me to achieve an almost Zen-like meditative focus as I combed through the heaps of materials to find my images. I love that experience when I am writing when I achieve that kind of focus that is both utterly calm and utterly specifically intense. It is then that I know that I am creating something. In fact, it is through these artistic activities that I become what I want to become: someone who recognizes and reacts to the little details.

At work, of course, I can focus on activities. I am the detail-queen. I can recall data and keep my desk and schedule well-organized. But at home, in my everyday life, this focus falls apart. It's like I can achieve focus in little bursts, when I have to, but when I relax, my brain goes wobbly and I forget where my keys are or how to put on clothes correctly. These are not the things I forgot today, unfortunately...I think.

I don't know if this is something that I can change about myself. If it is, I can only try to do better. If it isn't, then I think I'll need to create a checklist for myself before I leave for work in the morning.

Scavenging

Today, I was lucky to participate in a collage workshop at my alma mater. The event was sponsored by West Egg Literati, a student organization that produces an awesome journal and it was lead by my former advisor, Deborah Keenan. While Deborah considers herself a poet first, she is also a pretty accomplished collage artist and each year she runs this workshop.

It was great because it was a no pressure, creative event, like most workshops run by Deborah. All we had to bring was 30 words of writing, 3 backings, and scissors and a glue stick.She gave us a little intro where she discussed her approach to collaging, what works for her. Her approach is interesting because she collects mountains of collage material throughout the year and then when she goes on vacation, she works on her collages. She works with both words and imagery and tries to integrate both into the finished product, although they don't always end up combined into one piece.

After reading some poems, she sent us off into our corners. Once we got to work, we got to pick through her scrap reserves, which had a great combination of modern and older stuff. I found myself drawn to mostly black and white images, and religious iconography (for some reason), and I spent most of my time on the first one. It was very much a fluid, instinctive experience, although I don't know how I feel about the finished product...or what it says. When she gave us the fifteen minute bell, I realized I hadn't used much of my haiku that I brought, so I put together the more spartan second piece. I like it because it has more texture, although again, I don't know if it's done.

Finished or not finished, quality or crap, I enjoyed the process of cutting and trimming and gluing together these pieces, and I think that I want to spend more time collaging.

So, my question for you collagers out there, especially those with limited work spaces: how do you organize your scraps? I normally go through my magazines on the day that I collage, but I find that it creates kind of homogeneous pieces. I want to collect, but I'm limited on room. Any advice on organization would be appreciated!

Weekly Word Count, October 29-November 4

Still trucking along...I wrote 691 words for an article for Poetic Monthly and a poem based off of a Totally Optional Prompts prompt, which brings my weekly total to 1191.

29152 for the year.

And that's not even including NaBloPoMo....

On the Book I'm Halfway Through...

I have a bad habit of falling in love with a book while reading it and posting about it, when I'm about halfway through. Today is no different. So, if you've read this book and finished, please don't tell me the ending.

Right now, I'm reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and it is pretty amazing. The book describes her childhood and adolescence in pre-war Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. She is Somali by birth and she never seems to fit in, among her clan relatives in Somalia, her Christian neighbors in Kenya nor the strict Islamic community in Saudi Arabia. As a young woman, she struggles with her allegiance to Islam, because she tries to be a devout Muslim but cannot reconcile her faith with its treatment of women.

This book is very scary, at parts, but also very touching because she balances the difficulty of her upbringing with a sense of fierce independence. I would strongly urge you to pick up this book and read it, if you're at all interested in learning more about a woman's experience battling fundamentalism and discrimination.

Everyday Poetry is Poetry Every Day

I realized on the bus yesterday that there has been a shift in my writing over the past year or so. I’ve begun to write “everyday” poems. By everyday poems, I mean that they are inspired by my daily life and they recognize the poetic in that life. This is a huge change for me.

When I was in college and grad school, a poem had to have meaning. It had to have a political rhetoric or a deep significance to my childhood or my Identity As A Woman, or some such. Now, I believe that type of writing still has its place, but quiet frankly, I’ve exhausted that route. There’s only so much I can write about those heavy topics. So instead, I’ve transitioned to writing about my domestic, work, and interior lives.

Part of this has definitely been inspired by the quantity of writing I’ve been doing. I’ve been lucky enough to be inspired by several good prompt sites, including the dearly departed Poetry Thursday, Writers Island, Totally Optional Prompts and the soon-to-be fabulous read. write. poem. With these three current sites, I have three opportunities to write poems per week. And those poems can be inspired by something as simple as what I experience every day.

In grad school, one of my teachers called these “out the window” poems. She said this while talking about Cornelius Eady’s first book. There are a lot of political heavy poems about race in this book, but then there are just poems where he looks out the window and records what he sees. I didn’t understand the significance of this type of writing until now. I gravitated towards heavy political poems because they were Important. It seemed almost too mundane, just to write about what happened in my real life. But that’s all the fodder I have now, and I like where it’s taking my poetry.

Maybe it’s the Donald Revell talking, but I think that poetry may be about the act of noticing, rather than the idea I’m trying to convey.

Voting is up for Poetry Book Club in November!

I've cleared much of the Poetry Book Club Selection plate, due to low votes and just to shake things up. But I've retained Merwin's Migrations, all because of last month's cage match. Here are this month's options:

Migrations by W.S. Merwin
Northern Oracle by Kirsten Dierking
you are a little happier than i am by Tao Lin
The Glass Age by Cole Swenson
A Thief of Strings by Donald Revell

Voting will close in a week, to give people enough time to buy/rent the selected book. Remember, if you have any PBC suggestions, leave me a comment or an email. This month's discussion on The Pajamaist is also still up, so check it out!

Back When It Was 6 to 2, Not 9 to 5

The theme for this week's Totally Optional Prompts was work. When I was in graduate school, I worked 20-40 hours a week at a local Pier 1 Imports, until it closed and I got my teaching job.

One of my favorite/least favorite jobs was unloading the 6:00 stock truck on Wednesdays. In the summer, it was awesome. It was warm in the morning, I got to be outside, and the stock tended to be smaller discount items. In the winter, it could be awful. There was slushy gray black snow, freezing cold, heavy boxes of furniture (better sellers in winter) and the myriad boxes of Christmas ornaments that were always broken.

This morning, on my way to breakfast, I saw a freight truck pull into the alley where my store used to be, and the dawn was breaking blue and orange across the empty street and I wrote this.

Walking to Work, 5:42 AM

Streetlights dot the sidewalk,
pierce the dark sky like stars.

Salt, gravel and ice slide
me forward, unsteadily. I know

what is coming next:
eight feet, ten feet, twenty

of packed semi, buttressed
by sheets of plywood. I will hop

left-right-left-right, blowing
warm breath into my freezing

fingers, taste rubber work gloves
on my lips. I will not talk

too early, will not wear a back brace
over shirt, under coat, will not

breathe black exhaust fumes, will not
ask for help hoisting the oak armoire

on the lone two wheeler, while
guiding it safely inside. The only

conversation will be two unfunny
morning DJs cackling on the radio

and my internal counting of cardboard
boxes, minutes on my time sheet,

minutes until the sky burns blue
and I crawl tired, home.