Word After Word

Every writer I know wants big chunks of time in which to work. I’m off teaching for the summer, and then some–I have time now. And, as I’ve suspected, time is good but it is not everything! It’s not exactly what is needed. When I have a whole big giant Tuesday or a freckled loamy looming Saturday ALL HOURS FREE FOR WRITING I tend to falter, freefall, get cranky, and lose my way completely. I want more time when I don’t have it. What IS this all about?

Resistance.

You have to have something to push against, I think. It’s a Capulet thing.

So, I’ve spent this week with Tons O Time getting very, very little forward movement on my project–I’m writing about the same amount as when I have two hours in the early early mornings and a full teaching load. (Comparing myself to some other professors, but not all, this whole Sabbatical Choke is very common.) 

Today, I invented a new way of working. It’s called One Hour At a Time.  At the top of the hour I eat almonds. Make tea. Serve more almonds. Get very very clear about just what it is I will accomplish in this hour. (This is the hardest part, drawing a little square around the work, and going in to that spot super focused.) I pretend that’s all I have: one hour. I am better able to get out of time when I have less time. Time focuses us. But it can also swallow us whole.

Time isn’t the thing.

Getting out of time–losing track of it–that’s what we are after and it’s harder when you have Big Time–it’s like trying to lose Goliath. And when you have little time, little tiny time–it’s so hard to slip into that space. For me, an hour is a good amount of time to run for, to eat for, to write for, to have coffee with a friend for, to bathe or swim for. I love An Hour. It’s like the denim jeans of Time. It fits so many occasions.

Whole days, whole summers, six months–it’s like the Coronation Dress of Time. You will never feel like it’s the right occasion for this Time.

I am learning how to stitch a row of hours together.

Send almonds.

In the summer, it’s hard to leave the house without sunglasses, water bottle, and a book of poetry.  Three things that are slim and provide protection and sustenance. Here are three new poetry collections perfect for July:

Mary Jo Bang’s ELEGY.  Devastating poems about her son’s overdose. They’re very intense but what’s so astonishing about this book is how Mary Jo Bang captures the weirdness of grief. Grief isn’t sadness. It’s derangement, and interesting. Amazing poems and the book reads like a novel.

Beth Ann Fennelly. UNMENTIONABLES. I fell in Love with Fennelly’s work when she read, goddess-style, at my college a couple of years ago, when her first book came out. Here, kudzu, Faulkner, running, women and painting, being an artist, and desire co-mingle. It’s like gazpacho. And it keeps getting better each time I read it. I love these green glorious poems.

Marie Howe THE KINGDOM OF ORDINARY TIME. Our teacher, Abigail Thomas, suggested we read this book. Howe writes about her kid, New York, bad friends, purposeful misunderstandings, regular days, kind of stabbing at things I walk right on past. She’s very funny. Like the other two books I am suggesting my poetry students read, these read straight through beautifully, they are clear narrative poems–this is a book that walks around on its own. You read it in a park, a bed, a car.

Pandas: what are you reading?