A Poet's Double Life

For poets working outside the literary world.

Tag Archives: Writing Life

Poetry in Plain Sight

by 1 Comment


photo-1
Winston-Salem Writers started a cool program this year where they put poetry on display in stores throughout the downtown area. My poem, “Something Missing,” was selected as one of four poems featured for the month of May. This poem has special significance to me because I wrote it on my birthday last year (April 12th) as part of the April Poem-a-Day Challenge and it is a poem about my father, a subject I have a hard time writing about. Here’s a link to the video of me reading this poem and two other poems, “Work Husband” and “Hold That Hot Potato.”


by 2 Comments

Lessons Learned from a April Poem-a-Day Challenge Veteran


april2013

Last month was the 4th year I celebrated National Poetry Month by participating in the April Poem-a-Day (PAD) Challenge. I wish I could say writing 30 poems for 30 days gets easier with time, but it is marathon writing experience. There’s a point in the month where I hit the wall and I have to push through. Fortunately, I’ve got a crowd of supporters whose words of encouragement keep me going until the end–which brings me to the first lesson from this year’s challenge:

1) Let MORE people know you’re doing the Challenge: Back in November, I made a public promise to share the April PAD poems on this blog and I’m so glad I fulfilled that promise. Posting the poems here introduced me to a lot of other poets and lovers of poetry who left comments or started following my blog. And I started to follow a few new blogs myself.

2) Work can be your muse: As a double-life poet, I didn’t have time to start writing once the prompt went up on the Poetic Asides blog; I had to get through an 8-hour work day first. Fortunately my “work husband” and other colleagues were more than happy to help me figure out what to do with the prompt, particularly the <blank> prompts that came out on Thursdays. My colleagues filled in the blank for the poems on day 4 (Hold that Hot Potato) and on day 11 (In Case of a Wild Hair), and work was clearly the subject of Day 15 infested poem, “During the Legislative Session” (my boss’ favorite).

3) Play with form: Sunday prompts in April were the time to use a specific poetic form. I was introduced to the sevenling, the senryu, and the shadorma, and wrote my first real sonnet (iambic pentameter and everything)! I also wrote in two of my favorite forms–the villanelle and the pantoum–and tried a bop. Writing in form makes me focus on the essence of the poem, which helps me tighten the language and imagery.

4) Be prepared to write anywhere: I usually have my journal, but I don’t  carry it with me all the time. Bringing a mini-notebook helps, so does the pad of scratch paper at the office and the iPhone Notes app. Inspiration will come at any time–even at milongas!

5) You will lose sleep: I promised myself I wouldn’t go to sleep before I sent out a poem, which meant some nights I didn’t get to bed until after 2 AM (remember those milongas?). Only once did I fall asleep while composing a poem, but I woke up at 1 AM to finish it. As much as I love sleep, sacrificing a few hours was worth it. Besides, May is a great month to catch up on sleep!

 If you have any lessons learned from the PAD challenge, let me know by leaving a comment.


by 1 Comment

March: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lion


march-lion1March was a busy time for me—this post is only the 4th one I had time to write this month. I did manage to blog about the most important things that happened in March: AWP and the six women writers that inspire my work.

But this month brought a lot of transition at work—moving into a new role where I lead projects and manage people. I am also spearheading a process to compile ideas for the next 15 projects we will complete over the next two years. I am no longer behind the scenes, but rather, have become a point-person to answer questions from my colleagues and do special projects for my boss, including being the staff support to the big bosses. We are also interviewing for four positions, so I spent a lot of time combing through 50+ applications packets to narrow down the few who might be my future colleagues.

I didn’t worry about writing in March because I knew I would need all that inspiration for April’s Poem-a-Day Challenge. But I did attend three open mics, including a new event at Matthew’s Chocolates in Hillsborough. With little emphasis on writing, I decided to focus on reading a novel—The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht was chockfull of imagery and rich language, and had an intricate story line. I was so enamored by this book, I posted quotes as my Facebook status and convinced five other people to read it. I finished up Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Selected Poems by Sharon Olds, and Final Poems by Rabindranath Tagore and checked out several from my favorite library:

Of course with all that reading material for inspiration, two poems found their way out, “Childless” and “Bicycle.” Today and tomorrow, I’ll be working to edit these and other poems for March 31st submission deadlines and preparing my manuscript, Black.Woman.Professional, for submission to the Cave Canem  first-book award contest.

And I got word that my science poem, “Transit of Venus,” won second place in the Carolina Woman Writing Contest! Suddenly, I’m feeling a little Helen Reddy: I am woman. Hear me roar!


by 3 Comments

My Half Dozen


Sou’wester recently accepted one of my November Poem-A-Day poems for it’s upcoming issue featuring women writers. As part of the issue, they have asked all contributors to list “Her Half Dozen”, the six women writers who have influenced their writing the most.ednavincentmillay_purple_1 After sleeping on it (and being awakened at 3 AM with the list fully formed), I decided to share the women writers who have influenced my writing the most:

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950): The Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first book of poetry I ever owned. It was a gift from someone I was trying to get to know and who was trying to get to know me. Her poem, “The Interim,” about the death of her husband, inspired me to write my first poem as a way of voicing the grief and loss I had suffered in 2003.

agathachristieAgatha Christie (September 15, 1890 – January 12 1976): The British crime writer is the only prose writer on my list. Agatha Christie inspired my love for reading. Growing up, I devoured every Agatha Christie book I could get my hands on, and started reading other British female mystery writers like P.D. James and Martha Grimes after learning their writing was influenced by Christie. Her stories piqued my interest human behavior because I wanted to understand what drives a perfectly normal person to kill another.

Rita Dove (August 28, 1952): Her laurels speak for themselves: appointed the U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993–1995; became the secondritadove African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987; served as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004–2006; and edited The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry, published in 2011. And she’s an avid ballroom dancer! Needless to say, Dove is my poetry role model.

kay-ryan2Kay Ryan (September 21, 1945): Ryan was appointed the 16th U.S. Poet Laureate in 2008. After reading her collection, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, I stopped feeling bad about myself for writing short poems. I love how Ryan can bend a sentence to her poetic will.

Nikky Finney (born Lynn Carol Finney on August 26, 1957): Nikky Finney was one of those poets I had heard about but had never read—even after she won thfinney3e 2011 National Book Award for her collection, Head Off & Split. Last June at the Cave Canem retreat, I had the fortune of not only meeting her, hearing her read, and seeing her interview Nikki Giovanni, one of the women who influenced her as a writer, but also learning from her how to weave the personal, local, and historical together in a poem.

Leslie Ullman (April 28, 1947): Leslie was my creative thesis advisor for my last semester at VCFA. After working with men for the first three semesters, I felt I needed a woman’s touch to help me give birth to the collection of poems for my thesis (Fun Fact: Leslie leslie_ullmanwrote a poem titled, “Midwife”). When I was completely stressed out trying to finish the thesis and juggle work responsibilities, Leslie advised me to stop doing what was stressing me out—even if that meant I had to stop writing, which it did. Her calm and grace were exactly what I needed in a moment of panic.

Who are the women writers who influence and inspire your work?


by 2 Comments

After “One Love”


Last week on Valentine’s Day, over 2,200 14-word poems were handed out throughout the Triangle as part of the 14 Words, One Love event. I wrote over 40 poems in less than two weeks—and was ecstatic to learn we had surpassed our original goal by 800 poems!

And then I hit the wall. Runners often talk about the runner’s high—that rush of adrenalin that keeps them going during a marathon. The 14-word event definitely fed all the good poetic energy and reading and commenting on other people’s poems increased that positive vibe. That energy stayed with me throughout Valentine’s Day when I handed out poems to my office colleagues, distributed poems at an off-site meeting, and made special home deliveries to a few of my friends. But afterwards, I felt rung out like a worn rag. I couldn’t think about picking up a pen, let alone convincing my mind to conjure up an image to bring to life on the page.

That’s probably why it has taken two weeks to get back in the blog saddle. I had to re-group, feed the space that opened up after the “one love” was gone. So I turned to poetry books: first, to Rabindranath Tagore’s Final Poems, and then, to Sharon Olds’ Selected Poems. I spent time memorizing one of my favorite poems by Olds, “Topography,” which is now the fourth poem I know by heart (more on that later). Monday’s visual prompt for Living Poetry ended the drought.71752_518868581492385_1203357513_n

Danish “Heart Book”

Closed, it is a question
mark missing the finality
of the dot that holds
its fragile curve in place,
half of what it could be.

Opened, a great yearning
lives in the curlicue of each letter,
yellowed pages burdened by the black
ink of a centuries-old plea: for misery
to end and turn into good.

After that, two other poems I had jotted down in my journal and on my iPhone finally started to take shape on the page. Now I feel like I’m back on track.


by 2 Comments

14 Words, One Love


For the last week, I’ve been supporting my fellow double-life poet, Jodi Barnes, in her effort to collect 1,400 14-word love poems to distribute on Valentine’s Day. The first day, I wrote one poem, but since then I’ve written no less than three poems each day and as many as six! The 14-word challenge has been a great way to build up to a daily writing practice, strengthen the mind-paper connection, and focus on crafting concrete imagery.

I’ve written a series of poems, “to understand love / you must understand <blank>,” where I fill in the blank with an object or concept and then find seven other words that both describe the object and the idea of love. Here are some examples:

to understand lovegenes

you must understand genes—

their endless patterns

uniting, splicing, reforming, reborn

to understand lovedogs

you must understand dogs—

waiting by doors, tails wagging

in anticipation

to understand love

you must understand rings—

encircling delicate fingerssaturn_false

and all of Saturn

to understand love

you must understand tea—tea

slow sips of honey

warming your hands

I haven’t counted them yet, but I have three typed pages of the “to understand love” series, and about six 14-word free form poems. Every evening I come home eager to prepare the next day’s patch of poems, and every morning I wake up excited to post what I’ve written and watch the number count creep closer to the goal. Most importantly, I am having fun while supporting a worthwhile effort to spread love throughout the Triangle.

Try your hand at a 14-word love poem by leaving a comment.


by 3 Comments

Why I Prefer the Double Life


Another double-life poet sent me an article about the day jobs of writers, using T.S Eliot as an example. Eliot worked as a bank clerk for Lloyds Bank in London, and as the blogger puts it, “he was really good at his day job.” The blogger goes on to admit that as a writer with a day job himself, he’d rather imagine that every writer is making a killing off of writing instead of needing to have a day job.

This, of course, got me to thinking: “Would I rather make a living from poetry or live the double life?” I can’t answer this question without considering the fact that the primary way I could make a living from poetry was if I taught at a university. I could have gotten an academic job after I got my PhD in 1998, but decided that life was not for me. After I got my MFA, I get the same question. I have the same answer: “Hell no!”

So then, what makes me want to continue to have a non-literary career, one that by its very nature of using my analytical mind, takes my mental energy away from something I love to do? Because I still get something good from my day job, things I can’t get with poetry alone:

1) Affords my current lifestyle: Yes, the money, health insurance, and retirement benefits are very important to me. I’m very thankful to have a job where I can afford the poetic life—writing retreats, workshops and conferences, submission fees for poetry contests, and all those books!

certificate_achievement_award2) Satisfies my need for praise: There’s no pat on the back or “atta girl” every time I finish a poem. And getting rejection letters after 9 out of 10 publication submissions is the norm. As a poet, the most praise I could hope for is imagining that someone will read my poem and smile or pause with hand over heart or whatever one does when one reads a good poem. In the meantime, my non-literary career comes with professional recognition awards, annual performance evaluations, staff meetings where we applaud each other for doing a good job on presenting a report, and more often, verbal and written expressions of gratitude for completing a task while the project is still going on!

3) Allows me to interact with colleagues: Writing poetry (or anything else for that matter) is such a solitary venture. Sure you can gather a group of friendly poets once a month for a critique group or book club discussion, but the work of poetry happens when you’re alone with the page. The words show up, but sometimes, they are not very good. And that muse who is supposed to contribute the inspiration can be a very flaky co-worker—showing up late or not at all, making you do all the work and stepping in at the last minute to take all the credit. My real colleagues are not like that at all. We work on teams and pitch in to get a project done. I like working in an office where we can bounce ideas off each other, find a sympathetic ear to vent our frustrations, and crack ourselves up around the break room table.

Not to mention the endless poem ideas that emerge from the whole experience!


by 1 Comment

Writing on the Road


I’m in week 2 of a 3-week vacation. The first week I had access to Wi-fi and blocks of time to pen this blog. Since then, I’ve been without immediate and instant Internet access. There’s a shared mobile Internet card and not enough time in the day to collect my thoughts. This morning, I’m headed to a elyunqueeco-hotel in the middle of a rain forest. From past experience I know that the wireless is spotty at best when it is available, but often shrouded by clouds that perch themselves on the top of the mountain, blocking out the satellite connection.

Whereas blogging has been challenging on vacation, writing has not. Puerto Rican journalist, Hector Feliciano advises us to treat writing as a form of exercise. If you do it every day, it is easy; the longer you go without writing, the harder your muscles have to work to get back into shape.

I have been building to a daily writing practice–jotting down ideas in the Notes on my iPhone, carving out three-minute poems, and using larger blocks of time to scribble in my notebook. Of course, writing on the road must be fed by reading. I’ve brought along the Kindle with several fiction and non-fiction books and 3-4 poems arrive every morning in my inbox. And the ideas keep flowing!


by 4 Comments

Poet Resolutions 2013


2013-goalsIn my year-in-review post, I promised to share my resolutions for the New Year. Each one of these goals pushes me a bit outside of my comfort zone:

Teach a poetry workshop: Yes, I think I’m ready. I’ve toyed with the idea several times, but haven’t made the time to do it. Some of the ideas that come to mind are found poetry, erasure poetry, or maybe even a workshop on finding the journal that’s right for your work. Actually that last topic is not a bad idea.

Write a sonnet: To me, the sonnet is the pinnacle of poetic form. I love reading them, but have been very intimated by the thought of writing one because I’ve read so many good ones. But I do have one on my mental list of poems I need to write, inspired by Adrienne Su’s “Asian Driver”. It will probably take me the whole year to find the courage to write it.

Six poems published: Same number as last year. The over-achiever in me wanted to set the bar at 10 publications, but I’m going to try to get her to take it easy this year. Either way means I have to continue to Write! Write! Write! Submit! Submit! Submit! and that’s the part that pushes me.

Share my poetry: Last year I realized that publications aren’t the only way to share my work. I posted my April poems on Facebook, but took them down at the end of the month. The November poems are still up there, so that’s a step in the right direction. But to push myself outside of my comfort zone, I will start posting more poems to this blog, like “Winter Solstice.” Maybe I can make the Three-Minute Poem a regular feature.

Talk to more double life poets: I know they are out there. I read their work, but I don’t reach out to them. I want to feature their work and their creative process on this blog. I want to learn from them.

Blend double lives more: I started doing this when I updated my LinkedIn profile. I don’t know what this will looks like or how to do this, but I have a feeling it will be an interesting journey.

Let me know some of your writing resolutions for the New Year by leaving a comment!