I was listening to On Being, to an interview with the delightful Jericho Brown. He's a poet. He feels like my twin. So much of what he talked about resonated, but the question of sending his book to his mom struck home.
He spoke with such humor about the interesting relationship between poets and their mothers. I relate, completely. I remember asking, a few years ago, if she'd like to hear some of my poems. I'm not sure that she said, "yes," but I found myself reading some of my favorites and really wanting her to hear them. I think that might have been the last time I was so enthusiastic about sharing my poems with her.
"Why can't you write nice poems," she said.
I think I might even have hung my head, there, on the other end of the phone.
I look back on that and laugh now, especially having heard Jericho Brown's interview with Krista Tippett.
He told a story about the time one of his poems appeared in Time magazine. He said that it was one of those rare occasions when something good happened and he sent the magazine to his mom. She was very happy, he said.
"Oh, that was nice. Now you're finally writing nice poems," he said she said.
I was stunned. And I laughed out loud. For a long time. Later when I told my mom about it, she laughed out loud too.
"See?" she said.
So much of what resonates are the ways he spoke about the vulnerability of poets. And how that vulnerability catches him by surprise most of the time.
How excited he was to know his latest book was coming out. How he was really looking forward to it. Until he remembered the poems he wrote. So many of them had to do with rape, and with calling rape, rape. He began to wonder what he had been thinking. Being a poet. Writing poetry. His kind of poetry. The kind that speaks powerfully about truth with vulnerability. And putting that out into the world.
I think about that often. The way I think about it is captured in this tiny poem I wrote a few years ago. While thinking about these things. And procrastinating around my poetry book, the one that is weeks away from release. Procrastinating because I felt vulnerable.
I write poetry
Take the clothes
Off my soul
I think I've forgotten more than I can remember about the interview. But the feeling of being known remains. It was one of those exquisite moments in life when you know you're just where you're supposed to be, doing what you're supposed to be doing, writing the poetry you were born to write.
The Great Summer Writing Retreat of 2019 riffs off of a Natalie Goldberg retreat I attended a couple of years ago. Every day, we wrote from prompts and then shared what we wrote.This series is my second annual 100 Days of Summer Writing Practice. I'm writing whatever comes to mind and not editing my ideas. So, writing and putting that writing out into the world. Every. Single. Day.
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