Ars Poetica

Ars what? Ars who? Ars you kidding? It’s right there on the syllabus under Course Requirements: Ars Poetica (3 Pages). Fifteen percent of the total grade. When we get to this section of the syllabus our professor, a lithe, pretty, published woman with a PhD and an easy smile, mentions that we must write an Ars Poetica in addition to two “new pieces” along with one revised work, each piece being at least fifteen to twenty pages. I am silent. My chest is heavy with panic. Does this woman realize that I do not reside at a writer’s colony?  Sure, I'd love to be as prolific as Alexandre Dumas or Joyce Carol Oates but my production, given my real life situation, has its limitations. I’m going to need to establish the habits of Honoré de Balzac and write from midnight to dawn, pretend that sleep is not a daily essential.

I stay focused on her as she continues to rattle on about class participation. She asks if there are any questions. I appeal with parched lips whether our pieces must be a minimum of fifteen pages, what if they’re a little less? Uh oh, I think immediately, the dumb question. I asked the dumb question. “Well,” she responds, “if the story can be told, told well, in a little less than fifteen then that’s acceptable.” I sigh a bit and nod thankfully. I’m wishing I hadn’t forgotten my bottled water in the car. I could use a swig right now. I'm wondering if I'm the only one in the class who doesn't know what Ars Poetica is.

It’s a small class—only four students, including myself, and three of them are in the Master’s program, they are young, two are completing their theses, one is about to begin (I find out) teaching my daughter sixth grade Literature. I am the only student not in the Master’s program, but I am thinking about it, I say, at the beginning of the class during introductions. Considering. Thinking. I also say that I read quite a bit but I didn’t get as much summer reading done as I had hoped. I have two middle-school aged children, I mention, sort of as an excuse. So I have just confessed that I am old (which is self-evident), and that I am a mom and a slacker. Now I know what they’re all thinking: a soccer-mom-slacker; a suburban-soccer-mom-slacker; oh right, this will be an interesting addition to the program. I didn’t confess to the suburban-soccer-mom part but I’m sure that this is also self-evident, even though I have worn long boot-cut jeans (on a very hot day when I ordinarily would have worn a skirt) and a funky t-shirt to class. I am not purposely attempting to appear as a not-too-old-to-go-back-to-school-non-soccer-mom, or bohemian, Generation Y, or Gen-Xer—which I couldn’t possibly pull off anyway—but rather to look just cool enough to mask any connection to suburbia, and maybe the soccer mom thing(which might draw one to include that I'm a bored suburban mom in need of a "new thing"), or an SUV or any idiosyncrasy approximating eighties yuppiedom and conservative white-bread (not that I am either), yet I betray myself by way of introduction. And I suppose denying my baby-boomer conventional suburban lifestyle would be dishonest, even if it doesn’t truly represent my inner rebel, beatnik, free spirit (or is this just how I’d like to view myself?).

And this, I reason, is why I am back in school for creative writing. This is how I rebel mid-life. At nearly fifty years old, it’s time to follow my true passion, time to step beyond the evening adult-ed writing classes, time for some moxie, see if I have any real skill, finesse, artistry. It’s why I still have that letter my fifth grade teacher sent to me the summer after that school year, after Holy Family closed, after the coolest hippie-teacher ever—Mr. Sawyer—returned to New York in his shiny, baby-blue, white-capped VW bus. “Keep writing, Jayne,” Mr. Sawyer wrote, “keep it up, follow your heart.”  It’s why I am collecting dusty, esoteric books on writing and literature. I have a lot of catch-up to do. I have to look up Ars Poetica.

I jot down notes: get Lydia Peelle—Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing. Pick up Virginia Woolf—To the Lighthouse. Wait a minute, don’t I already have the Woolf book? I’ve already read it, haven’t I? I strike through the note. I look at my young, cagey classmates. What do these kids know about flax and prunes and Metamucil and perimenopause? Could they craft a literary work of art out of prunes and purgatives? Bloated peri-prune prose? I’ll bet not one of them has ever scrambled down the laxative aisle at CVS. Why am I thinking about this?  Probably because I’m sure they can write circles around me just as easily as my children can (with knees straight) touch their fingers to their toes. See? Like it’s the sort of thing anyone can do anytime. I’m just not that limber—of leg or locution. I’m the only one who can’t write down one damned word in my notebook when our professor tells us to quickly scribble our thoughts on what a story is. What is a story? Hmmm. What is a story? Hmmm again. Everyone is writing but me. Blank, nothing going on here. I’m just the kid who’s going to ask all the dumb questions which is exactly why I refrained from asking what should have been my first query: if the professor could please clarify the meaning of an Ars Poetica. No, I refuse to expose myself as this student—yet I know I’ve already made the fatal error. I start to write choppy sentences about story, from a reader’s point of view, and maybe from a writer’s, but since I am not a writer (not really) I feel no authority. And then, what I fear most happens: she asks us to read what we wrote. The young students, the ones who haven’t had a twenty-eight year hiatus between semesters, write full lyrical sentences about what they think a story is. I read mine, the last choppy-sentenced paragraph: tell with honesty, humility. Sustained suspension of disbelief (duh, I can’t believe I just read that, isn’t that Story 101?). Theme should deliver message of hope… must contain substance, relevance, heart… so its audience may be captured by its spirit, transformed by its message. “Oh, a tall order,” says the professor, “story as transformative…”  I respond saying that I do believe that writers have a certain “responsibility” and we discuss this for a moment, thankfully just a moment, because I want to run my  philosophy right off the road as it’s launched from my lips, realizing that I have once again undeniably dated myself by the use of one term: responsibility.

Funny thing about writing is that I am so engrossed with the craft, honing technique, words and phrases constantly running around my brain, the need to jot everything down as soon as the thought springs, that I have become an irresponsible mother. I am the mother who is late to pick up her kids, who forgets to buy blue knee socks, pick up a gallon of milk, even make dinner sometimes. I’m inarticulate for fear of cognitus interruptus, my kids ask me questions and I’m mute, mind full of words, fractured sentences pogoing in my head. Completely irresponsible. Ars Poetica irresponsible.

The professor passes out a reading selection to be discussed at our next meeting, and asks us to bring in an author’s piece to review next week. The dumb question leaps from my mouth again, a conical dunce cap, it asks, “Contemporary?”  Yes, contemporary confirms the professor, Faulkner and Hemingway will not do. Remember?—relevance? —that is what I wrote/said isn’t it? The professor wraps up the class an hour before it is due to end. The young ones seem happy to go. But wait—an hour? I have a sitter until 7:00pm! I can’t go home now. I get in my car and decide drive over to Barnes and Noble and look for Lydia Peelle. They don’t have her, so I look at other literature, I browse the new hard covers, I look at the “how to” books, books about writing, and grammar. I buy Lorrie Moore’s new book—A Gate at the Stairs; and, Mystery and Manners—a book that I hadn’t before seen which contains select Flannery O’Connor (a favorite of mine whom I don't believe would be considered "contemporary") writings. I’m near the one hour mark now and should really go home, so I make my purchase and head outside, into falling darkness, for the car.

When I get in, my husband is in the kitchen and our sitter has left. He has prepared dinner for the kids and I am grateful, I’m still working through the student-to-mom transition, not yet ready to dive into household minutiae. I ask him—my clever, bookish husband—if he by any chance knows the meaning of Ars Poetica. “Know, I don’t,” he says simply. And mon dieu, I am encouraged, I am plumb delighted! My husband, the one with the English/Creative Writing degree, does not know (or, at the least, does not remember) a thing about Ars Poetica! Does this mean there is hope for me? I race to my laptop, plug "ars poetica" into Google and find that it is a term meaning: the art of poetry. What that translates to is essentially writing poems about poetry, literary poems, like those of the greats—Aristotle and Horace—not geometric shaped limericks, haiku, sestinas and cinquains. This does not bode well for me, as I am not terribly excited by poetry, I am too pragmatic for poetry, I am about as poetic as a rock. For me, poetry is to literature as scrapple is to gourmand, the entrails of both frightening to me. But perhaps that’s because I never quite flushed out the proper seasoning.

So I’ve got my work cut out for me. I have serious fear factor to confront. Tonight though, I think I’ll start decompressing by making school lunches, ironing clothes, washing dishes. I’m welcoming the distraction. I will listen to my children, I will answer their questions, I will tuck them in at a reasonable hour. After which I’ll review my favorites—a little O’Connor, some Capote for smiles, and maybe doze off with Lamott’s Bird by Bird, which has been perched bedside for some time now. I always keep it by me for inspiration and courage. I wonder if Ms. Lamott has ever written an Ars Poetica.

Feeling Negative, Anxious, Frustrated... Change Your Trailer

Feeling low, negative, anxious, suspicious, angry, frustrated, intimidated, trapped, misunderstood, paranoid? Dr. Wayne Dyer (and who doesn't love Dr. Dyer?) talks about paradigm shift, casting away conscious and unconscious crutches, taking a look at old habits and excuses and recognizing the absurdity of these crutches. Once one has acknowledged ones vices, one is freed to turn it all around, alter the path. Well, that's only a smidgen of Dr. Dyer's philosophy, in a bitty brown nutshell, but it's healthy advice and good therapy. 


I've been feeling a little defeated lately, unsure of the direction in which I'm headed and whether I've got the tools and chutzpa to get me there. A little concerned about this semester's writing workshop which starts tomorrow (haven't got a single idea in my head, completely, utterly blocked). And then I saw this—a bit of unconventional therapy and inspiration (click on the arrow!): 





So there you go...  think of your life as a movie (oh, the drama—or maybe it's more like Monty Python, in which case you need not read further). How's it playing? Having fun? Waking up with a bright smile on your face or dread hovering over your head? Feeling like it needs a little recalibrating, take a few things out, move some items around? Here is another mode of paradigm shift:  Change your movie. Change your movie's trailer (after all, do we not review our life as a series of snippets?). Edit and tweak until you are beaming with benevolence, have affirmed your self-worth, inner-goodness. Re-write the whole damn thing if you have to, but make sure its ending is heartwarming. Change the soundtrack, too—to something that makes you want to clap your hands and roll your shoulders. Let the revised version play over and over in your head. Self-affirming trailer.


Oh, happy Sunday. Glorious, rainless, staggeringly brilliant day. Absurdly bright. Shining. A hummingbird breezing about my hanging fuchsia. Today, is the perfect day for a hike up Solsbury Hill, a paradigm shift, a trailer transformation...

Ring Ring Goes the Bell...

(Feel free to keep groovin' to the music while you read this.)


Books covered. Check.
Lunch packed. Check.
Uniform ironed. Check.
Calculator functioning. Check.
Summer reading complete. Check.
New schedule in hand. Check.
Smile on Face. Check.

'Tis true—the very first day back to school for you, my sweet eighth grader.  Do you look the least bit worried?  You couldn't be happier—how you love your school, you think your going off to a party, a Chuck Berry concert, twisting the day away, a back-to-school lollapalooza of World History, Algebra 1 and Art. A full year of Art! Again! What will you do when you have to take a real elective, like...well... Spanish or French (oh Français s'il vous plaît, please choose French)?

Eighth grade, where The Language of Literature awaits you, Little Man—I'm already sifting through your at-home duplicate copy (which I purchased online because I know that you'll forget to bring your book home and anyway, it's an awful heavy reader to be lugging to and fro school) of this hard-covered magnum opus. I see a whole section dedicated to Mark Twain. Twain—the one who wouldn't let school interfere with his education (but I won't tell you about that particular quote) yet still managed to become one of our greatest American writers. Perhaps you read about him in this year's Old Farmer's Almanac—you know, the one in our first floor bathroom. Maybe I will actually convince you to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this year. Maybe I'll read it again myself. And maybe your English teacher will help you understand the significance of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451—your required summer reading—the little novel that so frustrated you, its theme you thought irrelevant, or maybe just odd (technology attached to you at the hip). But know this, Little Man, in 2010 this fifty-seven year old parable, a literary classic, could not be more relevant! Oh, maybe I should just rent the movie and have you watch it. 

Eighth grade, where Science will reveal many serious matters, compounds, mixtures and important minerals (like diamonds), and we can talk all about Libebcnofne and Namgalsipsclar... and other little tricks... and my days in chemistry class with Mortimer Simons—the original mad scientist.

Eighth grade, where the algebraic equation is waiting to wrap its linear arms around you and perplex you with all its inequalities. Sorry to say Little Man, I won't be of much help to you in that cozy little huddle. I recall the cold cuddle I had with Mr. Buonanno when he told me with his mean molars and thin eyes that I passed his high school class "by the skin of my teeth."  It won't do you (or me) much good if I finger through the duplicate copy of that colossal codex—ask your uncle, the one with whom I went to college, about my, shall we say, adventure with Math 109. I've forgotten now how many times I took it. (And as far as I'm concerned, parentheticals and expressions ought to be reserved strictly for use in sentences.)

Enjoy 8th grade little man, because after this year it gets pretty serious, in high school that is. Doesn't it?

Hail, hail, off you go Little Man... 

...American history and practical math, you'll be studyin' hard and hopin' to pass. (Won't you now?!) 

Meanwhile, I'll be waiting for your 'lil sis to return to school—next week!—at which time I'll be doing the twist. Hail, hail School Days!

Twinkies (and Bucatini) to Linens and Back

I was going to make bucatini with a creamy bolognese sauce (a wonderful recipe that my sister-in-law generously shared with me) for tonight's dinner. It's a three hour ordeal, minimum, but so worth it. I had visions of that rich sauce simmering all day in the vintage mustard colored Chantal cast iron dutch oven—a large pot  that I could barely pick up—that my sister gave to me (part of her purging process before permanently moving to New Hampshire—up until I got the pot her move was only semi-permanent). But first I had to run to the post office to overnight an iPod touch that my beautiful niece had left behind (she and her beautiful family had been visiting from Chicago) beneath the linens in the bed in which she had slumbered. And then I had to run to Dave's Market to gather the ingredients for the bolognese: ground meats, pancetta, onion, tomatoes, parmesan, etc... and I'm not sure precisely what happened next, but I remember the Little One tossing a soy milk in our shopping cart as she danced around the end of the canned fruits/vegetables aisle while gingerly offering me a cup of coffee and a Twinkie, both of which she held in her outstretched hands, and this must have been the moment when I got thrown off course. A Twinkie? Are you kidding me, a Twinkie? It was at the coffee station, she explained, fully wrapped and there for the taking. Actually, it was a lemon frosted, lemon custard filled, sort-of-Twinkie, and since I didn't see the packaging I can't say for certain that this spongy sweet was, in fact, a Twinkie. All the same, it smelled (from what I vaguely remember) like a Twinkie. Wait a minute... whoa there, didn't we have chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast? But there was fruit, too, right? Fresh fruit. And whipped cream. But the fruit. The fresh fruit trumps all, right again? Erases all the garbage, correct? So I stopped asking myself questions, stuffed the lemon Twinkie-like sponge thing down my throat, and followed it with a washing of very light coffee. The Little One and I continued through the frozen foods aisle and I filled the cart with nearly everything she asked for (which—for the most part—meant ice cream), but I didn't fret because I was still on my lemon Twinkie-like sponge thing high.


After returning home to unpack the bags I discovered that I had forgotten an essential bolognese ingredient. Not to worry, I still had to run out for a last-minute birthday present for a friend of my very forgetful child (whose party he was presently attending)—I would stop back in at the market after hunting down the greatest, most unequaled, most unique gift in the world (because this is what I pathologically do every time I search for a present). But before running back to the market, I had to run home (to wrap the present)... where I found all the linens... in the washer and in the dryer... and got to folding... and the dishwasher's dry cycle ended... and the Little One got bored with her art project... and then the phone rang... and Hubby came home.


And so, here we are, at 8:30 in the evening without the bucatini or the bolognese sauce. But, thanks to last night's massive grilling gallimaufry, there are leftovers.

Let's see: burgers, pizza, chicken, flank steak... hmm. Not feeling it. I am just not happy with this picture. Is this it, is this all there is in the fridge? This is not penance. This is not what I should be consuming this evening, not after this indiscriminate, undisciplined, cholesterol-clogged day. But wait, look what Hubby whipped up, and just when I thought the day had been a complete gastronomic flop.

                               This is called the "I Will Help You" dinner.


Greens, grilled chicken, sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, avocado, oil and vinegar. Amazing what Hubby can do with leftovers. Thank you, darling. Thank you for making it OK for me to have inhaled a lemon Twinkie-like sponge thing. And chocolate chip pancakes. Now, do you mind if we pop out that fruit topped Boston creme cake from the fridge? Hey, it's a leftover, too!


Never mind, I'm shutting the door—I won't be peeking in the ice box again (unless it's for prunes). Not tonight.


I never did deliver that perfect present—the one that's sitting on my kitchen island. Think I'll make the beds up with some of those fresh linens, tuck myself in for the night and deliver the gift in the morning when I pick my son up at his friend's house. After which I will (I will) start the bolognese sauce. Night, night.

Skimming the Surface - A Short Story

Lulu waxed the top of her board just like she was told to do at the store. She held the square of white Zap wax in her left hand and rubbed it generously over the skimboard. “Momma,” she said, “why am I waxing the top and not the bottom of the board?”

“So your feet will stick, darlin’ and you won’t fall off the board,” I replied. Then I corrected myself, “Well, it will make it easier for you to stay on the board, not slip off.”

Of course she did slip. And fall. She ran down to the shoreline, holding the skimboard by her side, and then flipped it into the shallow salty water. Waves rushed in, engulfing the board, raising the water level, as she hopped with her two wide feet, slightly bent little toes, hammertoes—an ancestral anomaly, poor girl—onto the waxy board, arms flailing out and then swinging behind her derriere as she tumbled to the cold, murky floor.

Wham-O’s Pre-Skimboard Preparations say that “...it’s a good idea to start by closely watching the conditions on the beach and the wave breaks. Take some time to watch the waves and stretch your muscles. Watch the beach and get a feel for where the waves break.” They also suggest that you keep an eye out for hazards—like, say, other people.  After you do this, it is stated, “you should have a good idea where to begin skimboarding. But Lulu, the impatient, impetuous, lean, sinewy little lady, does not observe the beach. She dives right in, as she does with everything. She is the child, as her pediatrician once said, who will push the limits. “A function of ADHD,” he postulated; however so, exhausting, infuriating. She is the child who never slept through the night, humming self-composed melodies, inviting imaginary toddler friends to 3:00AM tea parties. She is the child who, upon threatened with the loss of her stuffed animals after leaving her bed “one more time,” preempted parental discipline by cramming garbage bags with dozens of her fuzzy animals and presenting them to me, declaring, “Take them, Momma, I know I can’t do it.” She is the child who still snaps her bedside light on after tuck-ins and scribbles journal entries until midnight. No inimical consequence, enticement or reward (of my own devise or of those recommended by the professionals) has ever been effective in altering or mitigating these habits. 

BE SAFE is in bold yellow lettering. This is what I say to my children when they leave my watch. Be safe. I love you. Under the yellow letters is advice to check water for rocks and hidden objects before skimboarding. “Keep control of your board and try not to let the board get away from you,” I read on the flier—the same flier that my daughter, who is down at the water, did not pause to peruse.

I watched from my brightly striped beach chair, watched Lulu raise herself up from the frothy water, smiling, giggling into the moist sea spray, waiting for the right moment to propel her wooden board, nose up, into the air and chase it as it lands, calculating the exact moment she would make the leap. She did this countless times. I saw a man approach her—his skin golden, his salt and pepper hair cropped close, a silver skimboard tucked under his arms. With both hands he extended the board in front of him, chest level, bent his knees sharply, and lifting the tip of the board slightly he gently thrust it along the rippling shoreline. She watched him, her body shaking with excitement, as he jumped on his board, twirling along the thin edge of the tide that was pooling in. And then the man waved back at her as he advanced along the shore.


Overheated, I pulled myself up from the low chair and walked down to the breezier and cooler coast where the little one amused herself. I  examined her efforts for a while, and then offered her advice (after all, I had read the directions, I had observed the experienced skimboarder, noting technique and style) but the little one wouldn’t have it, rebuked me, telling me with her tight little mouth that I hadn’t the right, the business, to offer such consult. (And I supposed she was right.) Lulu needed no guidance, she contended, and broke away from where the sorrel beach mud had swallowed my feet.

I retreated to my shaded space and Lulu—my little gamine—pitched the board in the air again and skipped on to its waxy coated top moments after it hit the surf. Each time she did this, she fell, or nearly fell, the board getting away from her. It was amusing, admirable how she kept at it with such tenacity, expression triumphant despite her many failures. But then, upon her last try, her feet fixed on the board for a spell, and she was riveted. She sailed up from the seashore, sand flying out from under her feet, “Did you see me, Mom? Did you see me?!” she bubbled. She did. Bubble. Percolating mirth she was. I saw it rising from her flaxen crown. 

“I saw you,” I said. And I did. But I only half saw her. I knew, at the shore, she was safe. I knew as long as she didn’t wade out to the enormous, relentless curling waves she was alright, I could dig my heels into the sand. The lifeguards were there, too, as my back-up. So every once in a while, as she skimmed along the coast, I opened the book—Peter LaSalle’s Tell Borges If You See Him—that I had started reading the night before, and stole a few words for myself. If I hadn’t been so fatigued the night before I would have made it through the first short story in his compendium, but my eyes were heavy with heat and tingling with exhaustion from yet another sultry summer day with the urchin spitfire, and I stayed wakeful only long enough to skim over the scene where Emily tells her boyfriend Jack, a Harvard student, that she is going to Cameroon with the Peace Corps. They're sitting in the Hayes-Bickford cafeteria, in Harvard Square, and he tries to talk her out of Cameroon, tries to save her, suggesting Ghana as a more stable, safer alternative. But he is unpersuasive, and you knew Emily wouldn’t be coming back. I thought both options rather risky, although a grand idea—the Peace Corps. Had some illusions about it myself at one time, only my parents had big concerns which I didn't get then, but now as a mother myself, I fully understand. I’d worry like hell if my daughter ran off to Cameroon (which is just the sort of thing she'd do). Then again, I’d worry if she ran off to anywhere.