Merry Holidays Everyone! My Christmas shopping is finished, the tree is up and decorated, and tomorrow I’m buying a tiny ham (well, tiny is relative – only four pounds!) for Christmas dinner. I am wishing you all a lot of writing time under the tree. Speaking of which…
Thanks Mary for your “three poems before the end of the year” challenge. I’ve now written four! I don’t think I would have done that without the challenge.
I also checkout out a boatload of books from the library. One was Gluck’s new book, A Village Life. I loved it. I thought, while it contained her usual themes “Autumn, Loss, Death, Etc…” (that’s an inside joke for you Gluck fans) it was more romantic and loose than her books have been in some time. The outer landscape of the village mimics the inner landscape of the writer. In particular, her poems about young love seemed touching and nostalgic. Some of the poems seem intensely personal – particularly ” Walking at Night” as she talks about her body being invisible in the summer night as she ages and “At the River” in which she talks about her father drinking wine “with his friend the Holy Ghost.” (Coincidentally, I was listening to Sarah McLachlan’s cover of the “The River” at the time) Liked it a lot.
Still thinking about whether or not I enjoyed The Magicians by Lev Grossman, kind of a Holden-Caulfield-goes-to-Hogwarts-and-then-Narnia novel. I think I would have enjoyed it more without the main character – A “Bright Lights Big City” style ennui-filled narrator. Are contemporary authors not allowed to write characters who are engaged with the world anymore? I had the same problem with The Corrections.
I also got a book of essays by Michael Chabon. And reading Allison Benis White’s Self Portrait with Crayon, which I like a lot so far.
I think there is a connection between reading for fun and writing. Can I get some funding for that study?
- At December 24, 2008
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In happy holidays
5
Merry Christmas Eve!
Well, the shortest day of the year is behind us. I’ll remember 2008 mostly for the weirdness, the combination of dramatically good with dramatically (and sometimes comically) bad.
For instance, the day in the middle of a Northwest cold snap I found out Kelli and I had won the Dorothy Prize (a hugely helpful poetry phenomenon in a financially tight year) I was also hospitalized for breathing trouble (a combo of asthma and bronchitis) and the propane tank of the cabin we were renting in PT (our source of heat and hot water) was repossessed because our landlord had some complicated problem with his bills.
It was really hard to celebrate that day, but that is something I’m coming to learn – you have to celebrate the good things when they come along, even if it’s hard to appreciate all that wonderful. To be happy despite. To count blessings instead of curses, even while you’re cursing.
In the last year, I’ve seen white deer in the woods, watched orcas and sea otters, taught marvelously talented high school kids about poetry and comic book heroines, finished writing a new manuscript, read hundreds of wonderful books, learned new poems by heart. In my new town, yesterday, in between rainy spells during which I was thinking about how I missed my Seattle friends and my family back in the Midwest, I saw whales from the shore, jumping around in the blue ocean. I watched egrets and phoebes and hummingbirds. My sweet husband baked cupcakes. I am breathing. These things make me thankful.
Here’s wishing you all a happy, healthy, bright 2009! Don’t forget to celebrate!
