poetry

22
Aug
2023

Devil’s Den (52 Parks : 52 Poems)

Date of Visit: 29 June 2023

West Fork, AR

93º (feels like 102º), forecast for hottest day of the year so far, afternoon temps around 100º, bright sun all day

Devil’s Den State Park may be one of the three best known parks in the state (along with Pinnacle Mountain and Petit Jean). It is renowned for its caves and its trails.

Once upon a time as a wee graduate student attending the nearby University of Arkansas Fayetteville, I hiked Devil’s Den Trail and made a brief appearance as a caver, a very brief appearance. Before my recent visit as a more confident hiker, I already knew that most of the caves were now closed in an attempt to stem the spread of white-nose syndrome in the local bat populations. Sadly, I learned that, in fact, all of the caves are now closed to the public. This lead to information that I know will make it into my poem about this visit: two endangered bat species live in the park, Ozark big-eared and Indiana bats, and Ozark big-eared bats only live in northwest Arkansas, northeast Oklahoma, and a bit of southwest Missouri. A remote cave in Devil’s Den hosts their largest surviving colony. I wish I could post a picture of one of these super cute little flyers, but alas. Also, FYI: “The maximum fine for harming endangered bats is $100,000.”

Like several of the parks I already visited, the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps played a huge role in helping to establish this rugged park. One of my favorite artifacts on display in the Visitor Center was this laminated edition of the 1936 camp newspaper, Voice of Satan. The Corps started work on Devil’s Den in 1933 and three years later, there were enough men earning a paycheck to send home to family to constitute a small town barracked amid the upland forest of the Ozarks. Ninety years after they labored, it remains easy to see the physical remains of their efforts. You can see the strike marks of their axes and chisels in the rocks that form the dam on Lee Creek, creating Lake Devil (the original major attraction of the park for visitors). Given my fascination with this history, I made sure I had time for the CCC Interpretive Trail, one of the least used trails at the park. Along the trail are remnants of rock foundations, a hand-built rock culvert and the ghostly, shadowed walls of a root cellar (I didn’t go in there). Walking the trail gave me a sense of the size of the camp, and in the heat, sweating and yet protected by sunscreen, bug spray, and good hiking gear, I thought of those men who dressed out in uniforms in the heat or the cold and got down to the work of making a beautiful but rugged space more accessible to the general public.

As an amateur (very amateur) hiker, my proudest accomplishment so far in all my travels may be completing Devil’s Den Trail. The trail guide calls it a “moderate” trail and lists the elevation change as 100 feet. What it doesn’t say is that the elevation change doesn’t just happen once. I hiked up; I hiked down; I hiked around and around and up and down. It was fabulous, but super challenging. More than ever, I was grateful I’d had the foresight to buy my Black Diamond Trail Back trekking poles (in my signature dark crimson, of course). While hiking the trail, I gained a new understanding of something I’d read in the Visitor Center. The caves here are unique in the US. Yup, in all the US! “According to geologists, 10,000 to 70,000 years ago Lee Creek removed enough material to cause a corner of the mountainside to break off, slide and crack, creating several interconnected crevices.” They have great names like the 50-foot deep Big-eared Crevice (where those big-eared bats I mentioned above hibernate in the largest numbers), Imp’s Leap (named by men from the CCC), and Dead Horse Crevice (sadly, self-explanatory). All along my hike, I saw small, unnamed crevices and found myself gazing down into the slices of rock, wanting to know what it would feel like to be down at the bottom staring up.

I ended my day at Devil’s Den on a bit of a disappointment. The heat got the better of me when I tried to hike Lee Creek Trail. There’s little tree cover, but there are supposed to be some great fossil viewing opportunities on the creek bed. I will definitely be returning to scope those out, and I also want to hike the short Woody Plant Trail in the spring. While I’ll go back for these experiences, the poem right now is shaping up to be bat-centric, alongside the extreme beauty of the rocky, sandstone outcroppings and shady upland forest. Central questions swirl around the influence of human hands on the natural world.

Next up, Prairie Grove Battlefield.

Posted by Sandy Longhorn
14
Jun
2023

52 Arkansas State Parks: 52 Poems

14 June 2023

Conway, AR

84º (feels like 92º) sunny with big puffball clouds drifting at a lazy pace

It’s been four years and one month since I last drafted a post for Myself the Only Kangaroo. I’m dipping a toe back in the waters as I’ve embarked on a new project some folx might find interesting, 52 Arkansas State Parks: 52 Poems. Over the next year, my goal is to visit each of Arkansas’ state parks and write a place-based poem there. While I’m starting slow and will travel to 16 in 2023, I’ve been granted a sabbatical for spring 2024 (thank you, University of Central Arkansas!) during which I’ll visit 22 parks, covering the remaining 14 in that summer. Or, at least, that’s the plan. I’m hoping posting on the Kangaroo will help me stay on track!

Why this project? Why now?

I have now lived in Arkansas for longer than I lived in northeast Iowa, the subject of the place-based poems in my first two collections: Blood Almanac and The Girlhood Book of Prairie Myths. While I have been curious about the land in my new home, land that is dramatically different from the glacier-sculpted rolling hills of my origin, I have not written much poetry rooted in the environment here.

I’ve read, over the years, about Arkansas’ six natural divisions and learned, in theory, the differences between the Ozark Mountains and the Ouachitas, which are separated by the Arkansas River Valley; I’ve studied the creation of the Gulf Coastal Plain in south Arkansas and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain that covers the east, those long flat croplands that hint at familiarity, and I’ve tried to comprehend the geologic miracle that is Crowley’s Ridge. Thanks to participating in Writers in the Schools as a graduate student way back in the day at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, I’ve driven from one end of the state to the other visiting towns small and large, and have, over the last two decades in the normal course of life, logged endless hours on I-40, I-55, I-530, I-49, and many state highways in between.

Compared to the sweeping, tallgrass prairie land of my youth, I walk on more rock these days and old swamplands with poor drainage. And the dirt, the dirt here is an entirely weird shade of light brown. Still, it grows sweet cantelopes and peaches, fat tomatoes, and legendary rice, among a host of other plants, shrubs, and trees.

Because I was born curious and inquisitive, I’ve learned about not only the land but also the people, the various cultures of the past and the present. I may be the one person in the last thirty years who’s checked out the entire shelf of Arkansas history books at Torreyson Library at UCA, and only the Google gods know how many hours of online reading I’ve done in the area. I can trace the lineage of the original peoples, the Osage, Caddo, and Quapaw and how they were nearly erased by first the French and then American settlers pushing west toward our manifest destiny. I live alongside descendants of slave owners and slaves. I am one of many northern “transplants,” and I am watching as new immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, the Middle East, and Asia reshape our sense of self.

However, the people, largely rural or suburban (but trending toward town), mostly working class and proud of a day’s hard labor, some born into racism and homophobia, others working towards a more inclusive sense of community, these are people I recognize at the root. These people, the same as the Iowans from which I sprang, both embrace and wrestle with the land to the same degree. This, the people and the land, are what will drive the poems I aim to write.

It seems that without my even being terribly conscious of the transformation, I’ve become an Arkansan. Finally, I feel like I might have something to say about this place and the authority to say it, as well as to ask the questions that need asking. Knowing that 50-ish pages of poetry make the minimum for a book of poetry, when I learned last year that there are 52 state parks here, it seemed serendipitous and sparked the idea for the project. Discovering that 2023 is the centennial of the formation of the Arkansas State Parks system was the icing on the cake.

It’s a big project, one about which I’m excited and energized. Let’s go!

Selfie with Arkansas river in background
Stout’s Point at Petit Jean State Park
overlooking the Arkansas River
Posted by Sandy Longhorn
29
Sep
2017

September 2017: An Accounting

68º ~ finally a cool-down after highs in the 90s, dry dry dry, no rain since Irma brushed by

∞

My hopes of returning to my blogging days remain unfulfilled. Still, I’m here, and I want to celebrate a major accomplishment. At the beginning of the semester (8/21), I committed to carving out writing time on Friday mornings. I spent the first few getting my drafts organized and sending out work after a long hiatus. Staring September 1, I focused on writing new drafts. There were 5 Fridays for this month, and I have 6 new drafts! Stunning. Unprecedented success in all my years of teaching. Wahooooooooza.

Given that I also started sending work out, I’ve also started receiving results. Since June, I’ve sent out poems to over 15 journals. In late August and September, I recorded 5 rejections and 1 acceptance. I also had 2 journals solicit work from my self-ekphrastic project, which I submitted as a book to 1 press over the summer.

In the meantime, I’m teaching, working on pulling all the loose ends together for the C.D. Wright Women Writers Conference, and coordinating our undergraduate creative writing programs. My days are filled from rising time to falling down exhausted time, and I love it all.

I hope each of you find your own way to preserve your writing time and that you receive many happy moments of success.

Posted by Sandy Longhorn
01
Aug
2017

How to Write a Poem While Walking

81º  ~ this air a comfort, showers hovering just a few miles to the north, taunting us, a pattern repeated all summer, the birds, chipmunks, & squirrels go about their business as usual

∞

How to Write a Poem While Walking (for those able)

  1. This is not about speed, not about exercise, not about burning calories (the last two are side benefits, of course).
  2. Choose a safe path, free from obstacles, threats, dangers*.
  3. A treadmill may work, if free from distractions.
  4. Leave your earbuds at home.
  5. Walk at an even and steady pace, one set by your body rather than by music or an attempt to reach your target heart rate (attempts to regulate your pace are a distraction to the mind).
  6. Carry a smart phone (on silent) or a small notepad and pen.
  7. Divest yourself of the notion that anyone is watching.
  8. Walk and observe. Breathe. Be open to wonder.
  9. Let your mind wander.
  10. Be patient and alert.

Eventually, the words will come, perhaps first as a phrase. Repeat the phrase. Speak out loud, letting the words unfurl (see #5). Do not force yourself to compose; instead, keep walking, mulling over this phrase or idea. There are better than even odds that with your body in motion under its own power (and your inability to be distracted by other looming tasks), lines will begin to suggest themselves. Again, say them out loud and feel the rhythm of the language in the motion of your body.

When several lines have strung themselves together, you have some choices.

The old school method would be to keep memorizing lines as they come, repeating the whole draft out loud as you walk. Most of us, however, no longer have the memorization skills that our writer predecessors possessed. Luckily, technology fills that gap.

One way of recording your lines is to pull out that notepad and pen and jot them down. Since the purpose of this walking is not to exercise (see #1), there is no harm in stopping mid-stride to capture your thoughts.

Another choice at this moment is to use a smart phone to help capture the lines. I’m a fan of this method because I use the voice dictation function, reinforcing my speaking of the lines out loud, and I can continue to walk as I do this, keeping the natural rhythm alive. Voice dictation can be used in almost any text function on a smart phone and is usually indicated by an icon of a microphone within a program. You could text yourself, compose and send an email to yourself, or create a note. Of course, you could also use the voice memo function. I stay away from this because I don’t like to listen to the sound of my own voice.

Once done with the walk, you can sit down to compose the draft in your habitual way. While it would be easy to copy and paste if you’ve used a smart phone to record your lines in text, I do advocate for re-typing (while speaking the lines aloud), as another way of revisiting and revising as you go.

 

*Sometimes, you will need to walk a path on several occasions before any words will come. Sometimes, your body needs to learn the route so that your brain doesn’t have to make decisions.

Posted by Sandy Longhorn
31
Jul
2017

Process Notes: The Dolorist Confesses

83º at almost noon ~ no heat index! window open, cicadas doing their thing, home construction noises in the background, the sun delightful & no threat

∞

With lots of busy work under my belt, work for the C.D. Wright Women Writers Conference mostly, but also some recording of rejections from recent poem submissions, followed by sending out the poems anew, I have turned back to a focus on writing new poems. Lately, I’ve gotten back into the habit of walking, perhaps the writer’s best physical support system. All through history, in both the West and the East, great writers have recorded the connection between walking and writing, and I’ve seen that connection at work in my own past many times. It’s great to be returning to an activity that sparks new poems. (I should note that the spark only works for me if I’m walking without listening to any kind of music, NPR, or audio books. It works when I simply walk and observe, listening to the world around me.)

Because of this recent return to walking, I’ve had several lines rattling around in my head. I knew these lines were the beginning of a political poem, one that, again, records just how exhausting it is to be woke. However, once I put the lines down in my journal and then in the computer, I knew the poem wasn’t finished. It hadn’t accrued that critical mass necessary for survival. This time, I turned to a trusted friend and sent the “wee draft” for a diagnosis. Said friend hit the nail on the head and gave me awesome advice for coming back to the poem in the future. Thanks, friend!

In the meantime, with those lines out of my head and off in the world, I started re-reading (Laynie Browne’s The Scented Fox) and word-gathering. Normally, this sparks lines to form. Instead, it sparked me to remember a thought I’d had while walking this morning. I was thinking about a letter that I needed to write and about how I went into a minor depression at the beginning of the summer, a depression I’m working myself out of thanks, in part, to walking. So, I set down the lines I’d imagined including in the letter.

It wasn’t a lack of funds that kept me
but a lack of fortitude, of fiber.

The poem evolved in couplets today (my native form), and at first the poem was titled after a phrase from Browne’s book. After the poem showed me where it needed to go, that title no longer fit. I cast about. I scrambled. I came up with “The Dolorist Confesses,” but I’m not super happy with it.

Also, I had the poem laid out in three parts with subheadings. However, with only three couplets per section, the headings quickly proved to be too heavy. Then, when I got to the last “section,” I realized that the real ending would need four couplets instead of three. The three sections announced the onset of the depression, described what happened to my body because of it, and then detailed how I started pulling myself up out of it. Now, they are simply one poem made up of ten couplets, still covering the same content. I did use several of the words I’d gathered from Browne’s book, but much of the energy of the poem came from the initial phrase I’d constructed while walking.

Here’s to breathable air and the time to stretch my legs (and mind) in it.

Posted by Sandy Longhorn