In the Company of Poetry

Spring is approaching at the Beach House, and along with warmer weather comes the appearance of open umbrellas on the patio, more cyclists and walkers on the shared bike path, and the promise of longer days. I live only about five miles away, so what's the value of having had a separate space over the past nearly nine weeks? It's like night and day, actually!

To spend my days immersed in poetry has been nothing less than transformative. It has, in effect, set my brain on a new path. These days, even when I'm not actually sitting at my desk, my most recent poem tends to be stirring around in my brain. I might get a thought about changing a word, phrase, or title, or even an idea for a new poem during lunch, while I'm driving home, or just before falling asleep. Rather than letting such thoughts sink into oblivion, as I might have done in the past, I now keep a notebook and pen or a recording device close at hand to capture each fleeting phrase. In addition, I'm choosing to read more poems by others, which is central to writing, as well as reading books on poetry. My favorite volume at the moment, which I've been savoring bit by bit over lunch since I got here, is Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee, edited by Earl G. Ingersoll (BOA Editions, 1986), a selection of interviews with one of my favorite contemporary poets. It's the sort of book that invites underlining and committing to memory; as, for example, Lee's comment on the sentence as a fundamental structure within the poem: "The sentence must be a unit of consciousness. When you're reading it, you're inhabiting that unit of consciousness."

My task now is to keep that consciousness awake after the residency, to find spaces either in my own environment or elsewhere that can allow this time of immersion to extend into my daily life. This is very much the same as my experience spending time at a silent meditation retreat, which can deepen and extend the daily sitting practice that comes later. As coincidences go, I just happened to be thinking about the value of residencies and retreats when I received the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, which happens to feature in-depth articles and helpful pointers on writers' retreats, self-styled or sponsored, plus listings and deadlines for applying those away from home.

In my next blog posting, which I hope to complete before I close the door to the Artist in Resident's Office for the last time this coming Tuesday, I'll talk more about the outcome of the precious time that seems to have gone so quickly here at the Beach House, as happy as can be in the incomparable company of poetry.