Saturday, September 22, 2007

The Sunday Situation

We've recently begun going to a new church, which is helping--a bit--with some of the tensions and ambivalence I've had toward church for a long time. Still, there are Sundays when what I really need is space, when the thought of stepping into a church building and facing church people is more than I can bring myself to tackle.

A couple of Sundays ago was like that, and Scott graciously took the girls himself. He came back chuckling, saying that when the pastor asked about my whereabouts, he (Scott) had told him I was staying home, that I was Emily Dickinson. "Oh, we all have days like that," the pastor replied.

"I didn't even try to explain," said my husband. "What could I have said? 'No, you don't understand; her nickname among her college professors was Emily Plath. She really is Emily Dickinson...on a good day.'"

Great Scott also tells me that the pastor was making noises about coming out to visit. Maybe I can stay upstairs and send down little scrappets of cryptic poetry until he leaves.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Friday Quote: On Courage and Poets

"The courage of the poets is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness."

--Christopher Morley

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Goblin Fruit

An online poetry webzine, Goblin Fruit specializes in poetry '"of the fantastical", poetry that treats mythic, surreal, fantasy and folkloric themes, or approaches other themes in a fantastical way.' Working from three different continents, editors Amal El-Mohtar, Jessica P. Wick and Oliver Hunter (who is also responsible for Goblin Fruit's wonderful artwork) have put together a quarterly web publication that made me cry and laugh at once in a surprised sort of painful joy when I stumbled across it.

"Find your own images," a much loved mentor told me once, "and write them." My public personal images have been rural and home based--trees, field grasses, birds, garden flowers, cups, my daughters' hair--and these I've woven into poem and essay as I was taught, finding meaning in the ordinary, making the commonplace new. What I have been careful to keep out of any writing I intended for publication, though, is the mystical, the fantastic, hints of deeper and often darker things that even as a child I knew lay beneath the ordinary. This summer I began giving myself reading permission to return to my first literary love: speculative fiction. By July I was searching for mythopoetic markets, which is when I found Goblin Fruit through a link at Endicott Redux. I've found several other markets that I like, but none quite so well as Goblin Fruit. If you've got a few moments, an interest in poetry and a secret fairy tale fascination, go check it out. I do not think you will be disappointed.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

In Memoriam: Madeleine L'Engle

November 29, 1918 ---September 6, 2007

A great light has gone out of this world.

Friday Quote: On Pacing Oneself

"I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once."

--Ashleigh Brilliant