#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Enchanting Woods
Oh, the mud. Boot weather. I sunk my boots quite down into the muck getting this picture of the marsh marigolds blooming in the middle of the brook on a Trustees of Reservations trail. Was not sure I could pull my foot out and keep my boot on, but I held onto a branch and it shlopped out. I stayed out much longer than I expected today, lingering in Rocky Narrows, sliding down a slope to the river, climbing back up, looking around at the boulders and moss and thinking happy, swampy, marshy, fertile thoughts. Everywhere the ferns, fuzzy and tightly furled, are poking up from the cold dirt. I love watching them inch their way up into the world, unfurling soon. The house was quiet today and I worked the whole happy day at my computer and tonight I interviewed the poet Cynthia Manick about her poetry collection, Blue Hallelujahs, and her process, and she read her fine poems, and I didn’t have to even leave the house; our intimate conversation happened with her in Brooklyn and me here. I asked her about these things she said in a PEN Ten interview:
· the writer’s identity: I think the writer’s identity is admitting to yourself and others that writing is a core part of you and it affects the way you move through the world. It’s also an amalgamation of subjects you write about and personal tropes. For me it’s family, body, erasure, and lyricism but that may change as my writing changes.
· the writer’s job: It’s a writer’s job to take truth and empathy and stretch it every direction; to make sense of things that don’t make sense.
· writing as resistance: But I believe the act of writing is a form of resistance. Writing your story is the resistance to silence, censorship, invisibility, and the blank page. I’ve noticed that writing your truth, whether it’s what you’ve seen, experienced, or believe, can make people nervous. But let them be nervous.
And now, it’s definitely time for sleep.
