Six months later... Hello
Six months later... Hello
Two poems from Kansas City
Dears,
Lately the idea of a “writing routine” seems laughable to me. I need a walking routine, an eating routine, a sleeping routine, a getting-through-the-day routine. Anything extra sounds like a joke. Who cares about accomplishments anymore? Staying alive, trying to stay kind and loving, day to day, is about all I can handle.
Six months ago, I thought maybe I’d collect a stack of quarantine poems. When the pandemic felt novel, grappling with the daily through poems made sense. I was a part of a poem-a-day email chain, and although I can hardly remember back then, I know I wrote quite a few poems through May.
May carried a couple of painful reckonings: We said goodbye to Dogfish, the reading series that kept my heart and made me feel like a vital part of the New Orleans literary world. Over the past five years, that show had become my best outlet to share my work with people, and it was gone. So that was one. And then, second, more painfully, Mom’s tumors had grown. Again. She had to go on chemo. Again. More bad news. Again.
I still wrote some poems, but I stopped thinking about what I would do with them. I decided to let all my pending submissions come back and just stop worrying about what kind of writer I wanted to be. It didn’t seem to matter at the moment. What mattered more was the simple basics: Take care of myself, take care of my mom, take care of my beloved family and friends.
I keep multiple journals, so I never “quit writing.” Maybe that’s also part of the reason a “writing routine” feels silly to me. Writing is a part of who I am and how I interpret, interact with, and make peace with the world. I’ve made peace with the idea that writing is not morally, spiritually, or professionally superior to taking a walk, making a nice dinner, or talking on the phone to someone you love. But for a lot of my life, I’ve acted like writing will — in some way or another — save my soul. Redeem me. Make me as whole and lovable as anyone deserves to be.
What I’ve realized is that the most important part of my writing is where I reckon with my feelings. That’s what opens me up and allows me to be loving to other people. No matter what sentences make it onto a page, writing isn’t going to love me back. What it can do is show me what love I’m looking for, and what love I have to give.
What I have going for me lately is a walking routine. I try for two a day — one in the morning, one at night. This morning, on my walk, I had an idea for this newsletter.
I went to Kansas City this past weekend to visit my family, and while I was there, I wrote two poems. I was thinking about them on my walk, and how I really liked one but not the other. And I was remembering how last winter, I gave away copies of a new chapbook with a little booklet called “poems to help you stay alive in 2020 and beyond.” It was nothing fancy — I had collected all my favorite poems that I’d read that year into a booklet. I wanted to share with people what it is that I like about poetry. How it can move.
Originally, I made this space to share quarantine poems with you. But now I feel like I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to both share poems and talk to you about them.
I wrote two poems in Kansas City this weekend. Here’s the first:
I wasn’t in love with this poem when I wrote it, and I’m still not. I wrote it inspired by things I saw on my walks: Halloween decorations and political signs. Someone had painted pumpkins blue and written “SICK OF THE ORANGE!” on them, and for some reason that just disgusted me. So much of how we casually interact with politics is just sickening: “Do you think that it’s wrong to do this thing that (a Republican) did?” “Well (a Democrat) did the exact same thing!”
I know the person who painted the pumpkin thought it was a silly joke. And maybe, too, they really wanted to “show” their across-the-street neighbor, whose lawn bore a Trump-Pence sign. But the whole thing, to me, was just grotesque.
Regardless, I don’t think this is a successful poem, and I don’t think the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The images are too top-of-mind, and the mask stanza isn’t really working with the rest of it. Mostly, I think this poem existed to help me clear the pipes, get some ideas out of my head, and explore writing a poem with a variety of different line lengths.
So that’s my unsatisfying poem. I may revise it someday, or I may just let it continue to exist, having served its purpose.
Here’s a poem that I think came out much better:
Yesterday, on the way to the airport, my dad had his phone hooked up to the car stereo, and the Hank Williams song “The American Dream” was playing. We were driving on Ward Parkway, and I was thinking of the people we saw doing yard work in the 30-degree weather.
Once we got past airport security and took seats, I saw the oil and gas sign, and the idea for the poem started to coalesce. We were sitting next to a young family. The little girl was upset because her brother had the better part of the stroller, in her opinion. I watched with empathy. With these two extra images, I felt like I was finding the poem. Finally, the security worker walked by with that lunchbox, and it came together. I threw this poem together, and with just a word change here and there, I was happy with it.
So this is my idea of the new newsletter. What do you think? I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written you. We all need some time, sometimes.
How are you? Please feel free to write back.
Love,
Cate