Stick Season writing

Stick season brings more indoor time, more time to nurse cups of tea and ponder revisions. This past week has centered on a picture book revision (yes, the market is soft, but writing is writing!, some Hildegard revision, revision of a poem based on discussions with my new poetry critique partner and some research.

I need to keep going on my ARI poems. There is so much to write about my experiences last summer. I want to capture the summer in a group of poems - poems that will make any ARI family member smile into their own memories and poems that will send images of life at ARI into the world.

Poetry Friday

To honor all the aunts about to share Thanksgiving dinner with us, listen to Kevin Young's poem "Aunties" at Poetry Everywhere. Here's an excerpt:

there's a way only
your Auntie can make it

taste right -
rice & gravy
is a meal

if my late Great Aunt
Toota makes it -
Aunts cook like

there's no tomorrow
& they're right.


My mind is still on the gorgeous film, Vision, about the life of Hildegard of Bingen. I expounded on it in this week's Wednesday blog. Here I'll share the poem, first published in the journal Color Wheel, that came out of my visit to Hildegard's monastery ruins.

CLOISTER RUINS

Seeds sprout in holy space until
beech and oak arch over toppled stones.
Larks trill in a hilltop canopy
where psalms once floated upward,
and leafy hands now murmur prayers.

The stones, weighted with
longing whispered in secret,
sink into the earth.
Centuries ago they tumbled, like thunder
rumbling through the Great Silence.

Ivy anchors their moss velvet faces.
Rose thorns ramble over crumbled gables.
Helpless to shelter, the stones stand sentry,
mute witnesses to divine desire.

Did you think wind, rain, the shifting of earth’s crust
conspired to collapse these hallowed structures?

Know this - the human heart
beats a hunger for its creator
more powerful than natural forces.
Echoes of supplication saturate each stone.
Ages of murmured ardor pull stronger then gravity.

These stones are deaf now.
Speak freely.

Thanks, Diane for rounding up poetry this week over at Random Noodling

Hildegard in Living Color

I traveled to Boston to see the film Vision on Sunday. It's a beautiful film about the life of Hildegard von Bingen, and the acting is superb. The cinematography is fabulous! Watching it was like seeing my book come alive. Of course, I thought my story is every bit as good as the screen story!

It was interesting to see what Director von Trotta and the screenplay writer chose to emphasize in Hildegard’s life and where they departed from known facts.

The same abbot was shown throughout, though Hildegard, in fact, knew three abbots, at least. I suppose this was for continuity, and I can understand this.

I have never read anything in the sources about a pregnant novice, though I'm sure it could have happened, especially in a double monastery like Disibodenberg. The device provided a believable motive for Hildegard to move the cloister, although sources say it was because a vision told her to move.

I was surprised at Richardis's reaction to Hildegard imploring her not to leave the cloister. Richardis’s jealousy of Hildegard's fame and power seemed to come close on the heels of her devotion with no time to develop. It seemed more likely that she was trying to please her mother, but even that didn't play right when she had shown herself to be headstrong in wanting her own way and so desirous of being near Hildegard. My choice was to have her grow weary of the way Hildegard tried to mold her into a leader who would one day take Hildegard's place. Either treatment is a product of imagination, so all is fair.

It was interesting to see that strict enclosure is not portrayed in this film. We begin with Hildegard being brought to a convent of sorts at a young age. Current scholarship says that she quite probably studied with Jutta at Jutta's family home from the age of eight. In 1112, Jutta and Hildegard definitely were enclosed in an anchorage and another young woman named Jutta is named, also. Since I found no further mention of this second Jutta, I left her out of my story. But I think there is a lot of drama contained in the enclosure years, even though we can't access it. The conflict introduced through the younger novice named Jutta in the film did add interest, however.

I was glad to see that nuns and monks worked side by side in the scriptorium. I had used that idea without being able to validate it. Also, it was interesting that the film has Hildegard elected by her nuns, and that is something I researched and included even though the sources didn't describe it.

Movies have to end somewhere, and books, also, but I'm happy my story continues and shows a bit about her travels and preaching and her final conflict with the archbishop. I think it shows her tremendous strength and faith in that she maintained her stand for what was right in the face of excommunication at an old age.

If Vision plays near you, go to see it! It’s having short runs, probably due to the English subtitles, so don’t delay.

Now I am energized and continuing revisions suggested by a dear colleague who has a strong interest in Hildegard and now lives in her homeland. Thank you, Barbara!

Poetry Friday

"You can smell a poem before you can see it." Denise Levertov

This is my first Poetry Friday post. I'm excited to join this effort that honors and recognizes the richness that imagery, rhythm and metaphor add to our lives. I'm also thrilled that my poems are starting to grow again. The seeds were nourished in the rich soil of the Asian Rural Institute last summer. This is the first fruit!

I write mostly free verse, but sometimes fall into a form of sorts, with no regular end rhyme, but listening for internal rhyme. I wrote this poem yesterday, spurred on by Poetry Friday. As Levertov says, before the poem shaped itself, I smelled the dark soil on my hands and strawberry juice on my fingertips.

Lotus Field in June

Strawberries glisten in Lotus Field
but Tuesday’s harvest is hours away.
“Pick?” Nilushi asks her group.
A murder of crows hovers above.
Glossy feathers flap to the ground and
beady eyes fix on the fruit.

Trays are ready on harvest day
for crimson nuggets ripe with juice.
But pale fruit waits under leaves.
No berry bites leave telltale clues.
Who raided the strawberry patch?
Butog grins, “Maybe black-haired crows.”

Coal black wings now dangle from a pole.
Victim or thief in Lotus Field?
We pound stakes low to the ground,
crisscross string over leaves and fruit.
It keeps out wings. Not sweet-stained feet.

Check out other Poetry Friday posts at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub

creating light with words

Today I'm thinking about the many kinds of writing I'm involved with on a daily basis. There's the occasional note card, emails, committee meeting minutes, editing, and biographical research notes. I try to fit in revisions for my Hildegard novel, short stories and picture books. I enjoy all this work, yet find it difficult to start fresh work.

Is there a name for this type of writer? I feel like I'm dabbling, like my focus keeps shifting and I never have a large enough block of time to attempt something new. Actually, I don't need to write new material since my files are full of manuscripts that would benefit from revision. Or is there a point when a writer just scraps everything and starts anew?

Today I received a gift - an invitation to become poetry critique partners with a writer friend! It is a gift because this practice will lift me out of my the daily writing pattern I feel stuck in. I will produce at least new poems because I know someone will be waiting to hear them! I want to create poems that process my summer memories of Japan and write playful children's poems.

I'm going to try to participate in Poetry Fridays, too, once I figure out how to do it! The long dark season is upon us now here in New England. We have to light up our surroundings with our words.