THE POEMS
Writing, the need to write, comes from deep within; it is part of me and often the way in which I am best able to articulate my thoughts; it is my way of exploring and trying to understand different sides of a subject or event, or simply capturing a moment. The process of creating a poem helps me to strip away any errant or excess thoughts and (hopefully) leave only that which is important. It is a way to slow down and order my brain. My hope is to share life’s journey – past, present and future – through poems, old and new.
Life As A Poem began to take shape around 1980 as I became aware of the differences between my childhood in a New England village and the lifestyle my children were experiencing as my husband and I moved around the country in response to the demands of his career. The earliest collection, The Cat Journal, looked back at my life in the nineteen fifties and sixties, while exploring my world and that of my children in the eighties and nineties. Woven throughout is a little of the magic that happened when a young stray cat and her soon-to-be lone kitten were sneaked into our household against doctor’s orders. I have always enjoyed the companionship of pets, and had expected my children’s world to be similar. Our youngest child, however, had allergies even as an infant and her birth coincided with the loss of our dog. Except for the occasional small rodent, fish, or bird, we remained pet-less – and it’s difficult to snuggle with a goldfish.
In the fall of 1988, we moved to Seattle and settled into a house the following spring. Not long after we adopted a stray cat, Annie Tiques, who was supposed to live outside, fulfilling the spirit if not the letter of doctor’s orders. Annie soon took up residence in the laundry room atop the warm dryer; at the same time it became painfully obvious our daughter had no idea how to interact with a touchable, huggable animal – Annie had to stay. Daughter was sworn to secrecy about the cat during doctor visits, while we tried to reconcile adding a cat to our household – was it really any different than letting this child go outside when the streets ran green with pollen each spring? Anne gained weight, and continued to gain weight; she and her lone kitten, Coco No!, would remain a part our our family for almost two decades.
By the late nineties, our oldest child was grown and our youngest had started college. No longer sure we needed the ‘big’ house, we began a multi-year search for a more intimate and simpler existence as we looked toward the next phase of life, settling on a small cape cold in an old and wooded neighborhood surrounded on three sides by water; life was surely more intimate, but hardly simpler, as the cottage was an ‘as is’ purchase without air conditioning and needed a new heating system for starters. “New ship, new cruise” didn’t begin to describe the undertaking; it was the beginning of a long and grand adventure. Occurring simultaneously were imperceptible but real changes in my husband: a numb thumb that lingered; an arm that seemed out of step as we walked our new neighborhood; odd little things. Within two years he would be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In 2003, Maisie the puppy became part of the daily chaos, followed a few years later by the tiniest of kittens plucked from a bag of trash. We have grandchildren. Is life simpler? No. Is it richer for the chaos? Definitely.
Early poems began as transient thoughts mostly lost before they could germinate; a few survived to be jotted onto the side of a paper cup, napkin corner or perhaps the back of a grocery receipt – suffering a high mortality rate. Amidst daily life with three children, a husband often gone – and work – an occasional essay might take shape, but while ‘essay’ had a nice ring to it, the structure didn’t really fit me. In between moves, family and work, writing seemed a luxury but more and more felt like a necessity. Late at night, I could sleep, read – or write.
Now and then I stumble across something handwritten or typed from decades ago, perhaps the product of a dot matrix printer. I embraced computers as the sole repository of my thoughts: at the end of a move, one unpacked the computer and, voila!, my innermost thoughts reappeared as soon as the unit was plugged in and turned on. Nothing would ever be lost again, until I learned about hardware and software upgrades that often didn’t support what I’d written in earlier programs. Our sixth grader became the ‘go to’ guy during crises, and as most adults know: if one needs help regarding computers or anything electronic, find a teenager. As my guru, he led me through the wilderness of large floppy diskettes to smaller and more efficient hard discs, zip drive and CDs. Unfortunately, even he couldn’t retrieve everything I’d written in earlier formats, usually because I’d waited too long. Lesson: never estimate the staying power of pen and paper. While I occasionally dictate to Siri, old habits die hard; recently, a paper cup with a few words scrawled on the side was hastily retrieved from the trash before the recycle truck came by, and there are still dog-eared spiral notebooks laying around.
The poems that are lost are gone, but there will be new poems to write and memories to revisit. As with life, my poetry is mostly about the ordinary as opposed to the extraordinary – that place often overlooked in the hurry to get through today and reach tomorrow. It is an invitation to slow down and reflect on the simple and often extraordinary world that is all around us.
Instagram participation started as an occasional foray into social media – a photo or two with a brief comment. Eventually, I created short, blank verse poems, pairing each with a photo. My Instagram hashtag, “9line1clickmoments”, describes the process. While I might generate verse on iPhone or scrap of paper, each poem is ultimately restricted to nine lines on a 5″ x 7″ yellow lined pad. One click represents the photo paired with the verse. Sometimes a photo is my starting point, other times it is an idea. Each photo and verse pair connect in some way.
Instagram has served as a platform while making decisions regarding my website. Nine line one click moments is a different creative format than the poetry on my website. Both are enjoyable and I hope to continue Instagram as I move forward with Life As A Poem.