52º ~ a squirrel with its jaws pried wide open around some treasure cautiously descends the tree in the neighbor’s yard, bright morning sun begins to make its way over my shoulder, the revival of Wednesday’s rain remains, no breeze to speak of
It’s been a wild week with the death of Lou-Lou, the hosting of another successful reading for the Big Rock Reading Series, and the inevitable collection of papers to be graded. This afternoon, there is an appointment at the auto-shop for the 60,000 mile maintenance & oil change on my Honda.
Still, I put my butt in the chair this morning. Knowing that I might struggle I bit, I wanted the most help possible, so I returned to Lucie Brock-Broido’s The Master Letters, a book which has been fruitful in suggesting titles, but which is also jam-packed with words that ricochet around my brain and make sparks.
Here’s a picture of today’s process.
I’ve really begun to like the idea of mapping as I go. So that when two words wind up on the page together and suggest something (this is the hard part to explain), I circle them or draw arrows or lines & whatnot so I don’t lose the energy of that combination as I continue to sink into the draft. I included the book as well so you can see that I mark up the poetry I read. In fact, the more marks the higher on my list of favorites.
Today’s draft “Long Sliding Toward Oblivion” gets its title from a line in Brock-Broido’s poem “Into Those Great Countries of the Blue Sky of Which We Don’t Know Anything.” It ended up being an epistolary poem to the sickly speaker’s unnamed, female mentor (playing off Emily Dickinson’s & Lucie Brock-Broido’s letters to an unnamed ‘master’). It begins:
A range of mystics has arrived.
And I love you being a poet in front of us!
Awww. Thanks, K.
I love such moments, too. Thanks for sharing yours.
P.S. Rampion is what Rapunzel's mother ate from the witches garden, leading to Rapunzel's imprisonment in the tower
Thanks, Molly, and thanks for the fairy tale connection.
Thanks, Molly, and thanks for the fairy tale connection.
Hi, Sandy. I don't hear much about LBB now-a-days, but I've always liked her. I had a course in Napa with Mary Jo Bang, and she raved about the The Master Letters.
I once wrote a poem about LBB and Steven Segal meeting for a tryst in the Museum of Modern Art. I loved writing it, but it never got accepted for publication. Can't imagine why 🙂
Hi, Whimsy. In a list of spoof t-shirt mottos for AWP that was going around last year, someone suggested:
"Whatever happened to Lucie Brock-Broido?"
It makes me sad that others aren't reading her.
Your poem with LBB & SS sounds like a trip. 🙂
I love that feeling as well. I love being awash with language!
Thanks, Tara! Great description of the feeling.