High School Poetry Visits and Library Book Groups and Invisible Illness Impacts

Tonight is the first ever “Redmond Reads Poetry” book group meeting at the Redmond Library. I’m excited to try this out, but I have modest expectations for tonight’s attendance. Although I love our first book pick, Kathleen Flenniken’s Plume, and think it will be really fun for a Redmond techie-type crowd to talk about. Hopefully some folks come and we have a good time. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a poetry book club!

Monday I did a high school class visit at Redmond High, which I really enjoyed. Surprisingly, you might not believe me, but high school kids love Gluck. No joke, I have never had kids not love poems from Louise Gluck’s Meadowlands (the first poetry reading I took my then-seventeen-year-old little brother to was Louise Gluck when she was touring for Meadowlands, and he still has a signed copy of her book.) “Telemachus’ Detachment” has got to be one of the best teen poems ever. We also read some Lucille Clifton, and a poem from Becoming the Villainess and She Returns to the Floating World. The students were really attentive, they laughed in the right places during the class, they were excited to talk about their latest comic book/video game loves, they wrote really good persona poems and then actually spontaneously clapped at each other’s readings of the exercise poems. One in particular I remember was a young man’s poem in the voice of a supervillain, which seemed to be a revenge poem but turned into a really touching meditation on mortality. The kind of poem I wish I had written! The teacher was also enthusiastic and great to work with.”Oh my God,” my husband said when he picked me up outside the school, “I’m on the set of Degrassi.” It is a school full of bright, articulate, telegenic teens. They asked me really interesting and thoughtful questions, like, “Was getting the MFA worth it, or was it mostly stuff you could have done on my own?” And after I answered the standard answer, that the MFA gives you discipline and encouragement and the benefit of experienced mentors, and they followed up with: “And it’s really hard to get poetry mentorship outside of a graduate program, right?” I said: “Not a day goes by I don’t wonder about that myself!” No, I didn’t, but I thought it loudly. They already knew about the youth programs at our local literary center, Hugo House, and about Poet’s Market. They were sure more aware of the writing “game” than I was at seventeen or eighteen.

I have to admit that I think the Poet Laureate work has been taking a bit of a toll on my health, I seem to have a never-ending flu (for about a month I’ve been running 101 fever and waking up coughing in the middle of the night almost every night) and some new migraine/heart stuff I’ve never had before. It’s always an internal argument with me; my physical, emotional, and mental energies aren’t exactly at the same levels, and I need to decide what’s worth the physical energy output, how protective I need to be. This is difficult to talk about in a public forum (anyone with “invisible” health problems like autoimmune or bleeding disorders or rheumatoid arthritis or allergies or MS or etc already knows this, because you look “fine”) but I think it’s worth discussing because a lot of writers have health problems that limit what they’re able to do physically. In fact, Christian Wiman recently wrote a really touching essay recently on his cancer, about having kids and having faith/hope in the face on an incurable and increasingly debilitating disease. I’m learning more – as scientists research more – about some of my genetic conditions, like for instance, with PAI-1 deficiency, a chronic low level of plasminogen may lead to increased inflammation, which may be the root cause of some of these never-ending illnesses and joint problems (although it does seem to decrease my risk of diabetes, at least, in rats.) I may be oversharing, but then again, I want to be honest about the chronic health issues and how that impacts my life as a writer, working, family life, even minor things like not being able to travel to AWP every year because sometimes I end up in the hospital with flu, or have to cancel readings. And I have to be aware of how much I take on, how many social engagements I make, how often I shake hands with children (whom I love, but who are, how shall I put this, terrific vectors for all things infectious.) It puts limitations on a life I wish could be lived without limitation. Then again, if I hadn’t gotten ill, chances are I would probably have decided to become a doctor, or at least remained an upper-to-mid-level manager at a tech company, instead of a poet. The enforced time of rest, of required disengagement from ninety-hour work weeks, meant I have had time to write for the past seven or so years, time to write, in fact, several books and attend a low-res MFA program (as discussed above) and spend time sending out poems – time I might not have had if I was totally healthy, time I might have seen as extravagance I couldn’t afford. Anyway, I just have to make decisions based on the information and health levels I have at the time, and adjust as I go. I look forward to things – like celebrating my fortieth birthday (and hopefully, a third book) next year. Making new friends. Having a positive impact on my community when I can, and maybe even creating, you know, art that makes a difference.