Some of you know that I’m a huge time travel enthusiast–reading about it, watching movies, delving into the scientific possibilities.
And I’ve always wanted to write a time travel novel.
Well now I finally have!
It’s a romantic adventure called Time Flash: Another Me.
There are no DeLoreans, but there is a wacky scientist.
And a possibly-magical cat.
I’ll be releasing my novel soon.
Stay tuned for more details!
I am so excited to have just received my copy of Philip Levine’s posthumous collection, The Last Shift.
I am savoring reading his words, which have always affected me so deeply.
His very first poem in the collection, “Inheritance,” moves me to tears, especially the last few lines. The poem is about a watch and other items Levine, as a child, coveted of his grandpa’s. He used to sneak into his grandpa’s room and look at the objects.
Here’s how the poem ends:
…I could call them
“Infinite riches in a little room”
or go cosmic and regard them
as fragments of a great mystery
instead of what they are,
amulets against nothing.
I met and spoke with Philip Levine only once, but the memory of his humbleness and humanity will stay with my whole life.
I wrote an elegy for him the year he died (2015), but never presented it anywhere. My verse adopts Levine’s practice of the 9-syllable line (mostly), a syllable off from what the ear is used to with the more common English 10-syllable line, giving the overall composition an uneasy bearing or forward momentum.
A Simple Truth
in memoriam for a great poet
I imagine Philip Levine time-
shifting in Trafalmadorian
fashion to 1936 where
he is an angel-on-the-shoulder
weeping as Lorca is tortured, then
murdered; to Fresno State his first year
teaching where on a lunch break he sits
with a student reciting Roethke;
to one April in Detroit, the mud
Biblical, men milling, cued up
for news of work that never arrives;
back to the mills, haunted as the men’s
eyes who labored there, understanding
one human being is everyone.
And how many more lives than the six
million hearts stopped by Hitler does he
daily visit with his words? Grass, boats,
dust, wind, the darkening skies, two sons,
a brother, the loves declared, unnamed
desires that were answered not by
their aims, but by the simple truths, small
red potatoes, melting butter, salt.
The book is open to the first page
yesterday. Tomorrow is always
the fourteenth of February. And
today it is 1941
five minutes to 8AM, sweet Phil,
Billy Pilgrim, this day never ends.
Yes, oh yes, it is enough to say
what you can, the gift of transcribing
ordinary suffering into
extraordinary joy, your name
hangs in the brilliant morning air, a
feather, eyelid of a magpie, closed.
I have been practicing my art. Badly.
Reading science texts and taking notes. Working from the notes to make poems.
But the poems are not coming. Nothing is happening.
This has been a fallow week for my poetry project.
The consolation is that my soul is growing anyway. Because I am practicing, even if not succeeding.
And I did write and submit three ekphrastic poems, so that counts for something, right?
Here’s to keeping up the practice regardless of results.
Here’s the thing. I’ve come clean previously on this blog about my depression since the 2016 election and the state of our country and the world. I’ve recently managed to pull myself out of the dark depths, but it takes every ounce of practice and resolve to stay afloat. Self care is hard, especially when we need to be putting positive energy out into the world.
One thing that really helps me is reading for delight. Books that transport me to another world–a world in which the awful things that happen are resolved, and justice prevails. It may be fantasy, but it does give me hope.
Two books which I read recently that have been pure delight, are The Plot is Murder by V. M. Burns and Ghosts in Glass Houses by Kay Charles. Both are cozy mysteries, and in cozies, the world is better at the completion of the story than at its beginning. If only real life was like that!
So much to love about the first book in Burns’ Mystery Bookshop Series. First, is that the lead character Samantha is a bookstore owner! What writer doesn’t fantasize about that? Second, is that she’s also a writer, writing her own mystery. So there are two mysteries happening concurrently in the book. But what really makes this book special are the senior citizen cast of characters that help Samantha investigate the mystery. They are quirky and fun and lively and radiate joy. I want to be any of them as I head toward Medicare age. Frankly, they not only make me smile, but give me hope for my future.
Kay Charles’ book is all about voice. The main character Marti is snarky as all get out. She’s sarcastic and funny as she deals with her quite dysfunctional family, some of which are dead and appear to her as ghosts. Haunt and harass her is more like it. The story is all about redemption of one’s sense of self and that too is empowering. This is also a first in a series, and I look forward to the protagonist becoming more and more comfortable in her ghost-seeing skin as the series continues.
Literary fiction that explores the depths of human suffering is a necessary art that informs and inspires. And the beauty of the language can bring delight. But right now, I need more humorous delight in my life. And I am very grateful to authors like V. M. Burns and Kay Charles who brighten my spirits. That is a necessary art as well.