Seeing Poets, Learning to Adjust, Seasonal Change

Open Books reading night – Oliver and Su, Rick Barot, Billie Swift, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Seeing Poets

Last Friday on a blustery cold night, an old friend, Oliver de la Paz, long of the Northwest but now of Massachusetts, came to town to read from his new book, Boy in the Labyrinth, and he was reading with a poet I’d wanted to meet whose work I admired, Su Hwang, who also has a new book, Bodega. So I went out and had fun listening to poetry, talking about books and poetry, and visiting with friends.

Sylvia with Open Books haul

I also  came home with a new stack of books from Open Books (and got to peek at a first-edition Adrienne Rich Yale Younger Poet Prize book, signed)!

Sylvia is posing with them here – it’s Oliver and Su’s new books, plus Elisa Gabbert’s The Word Pretty, Billie Swift’s new chapbook Everything Here, and Rain Taxi. Already knew I would love the books, but the bad weather and cold made it easy to give myself time to read.

Last lilac with changing leaves, my garden

Learning to Adjust

Unfortunately, after having fun seeing people, I also seem to have come home with a new upper respiratory virus, so I spent most of the blustery week with a fever in bed. I even took Tylenol (which for me, is like, heavy-duty medicine!)

I feel like there is an adjustment period during this time of year, doing from the more mild long nights of summer into the short, dark, wet evenings of fall, and you have to care for yourself appropriately, You change your diet (soup!), your sleeping patterns (more!) the way you dress (getting out boots, sweaters, even winter coats.) You drink hot cider and hot chocolate and hot coffee, you watch shows you probably would give me a miss if was nice outside, you reorganize drawers and closets so you can get to your boots and cardigans.

Changing Leaves

As I move into my mid-forties, I also notice I have to adjust to life as a middle aged person. College students don’t always get my references to Kurt Cobain (or even Heath Ledger.) I need to wear moisturizer every day now. It takes me a little longer to bounce back after a night out. Old fillings fall out of my teeth. Teeth give you more trouble and are literally a budget item. (I swear I spend more on teeth than I do on clothes, which stinks!)

There’s also an adjustment period after being diagnosed with something like MS. You have to learn how to care for yourself with a new c0ndition, even if it’s not really new, just newly diagnosed. Once again, you learn that a night out means at least one down day, maybe two or three. It takes longer to recover from illnesses. I need to rest more, and if I don’t, my body makes sure I do it by giving me unpleasant reminders. So I’m working on increasing patience for my body, resilience from hard times, bad moods, and viruses, or even “normal” symptoms of MS that might not seem normal to me. Not yet. Recovering from rejections also takes me a couple of days now. They don’t stop me from writing, though.

A Book Birthday for PR for Poets

My alumni magazine/newsletter contacted me for a picture of myself with my latest book, PR for Poets, and I realized I hadn’t yet celebrated this book’s birthday, which actually occurred this spring. So here’s a picture of me, as requested, holding my book with a backdrop of glowing glass pumpkins (very seasonal, no?) Anyway, if you have a new book coming out and you have questions about how to promote it without 1. going broke or 2. having a breakdown, please check out this book. Order yourself a copy, or order a copy for your library, and recommend it to friends. It really is a helpful book (I promise!)

Wishing you a happy adjustment period to the new time, the new season, the new changes in your life. May your patience and resilience be greater than mine. Remember to enjoy the little joys of this particular season, your glowing pumpkins and cider, an excuse to stay inside with a book.