A Secret World — A Special Soliloquy

Inside the books...

Is where I find Lulu, in the family room scanning the tall shelves, the hundreds of books. Have you read all of these? she asks.

Ah huh, I nod, just about. Wait, maybe I didn't read Sister Carrie.

Wow! I don't know why I hadn't noticed these before. I never really looked at them all. 

Yes, I say, well it's not a big deal. I've had a half century to read stories.

Lu swipes her paws across the paper spines and smiles, Hmm, true, but it's still a lot of books.

These books have been my secret worlds. Each one of them, with their own special suns and stars, seas and rivers, pyramids, canyons, gulags. They are made from Poof! Just like this multifaceted planet on which we make our home.

Max tells me that it all started with a bubble, or foam, from which things popped. Or fizzed. I ask him where the bubble, or maybe the foam, came from. There must have been air. Was this the kind of foam in which you could take a bath? He shakes his head, up, down, Yup, yup, that's the question! Exactly.

Planets, universes, worlds, or books—the Poof! came from something. May I suggest, a mastermind?

This was the world before Poof: someone, something, yes, a mastermind conceived a plot, a situation, characters, conflict, tension, climax, resolution, catastrophe, revelation, and designed, created, this story within a dramatic structure, along a sweeping arc, born of a secret world, and put it (and run-on sentences, too) out there, in the air, in space, in the universe, on the planets, on Earth, on bookshelves, at Amazon, for us. For our pleasure.

This is true.

Poof!

This January I will be joining another kind of secret world. For the next two years, in this mystical, somewhat secluded bubble of a world (a/k/a  The Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College), I will be working with some brilliant and highly regarded authors, and will be reading no less than one-hundred books. And maybe, writing one. Actually, I'm registered, matriculated, and have already begun the work. January will bring the first of five ten-day residencies over the following two year period. This full-time process, in theory, should culminate with a Master of Fine Arts degree in writing and literature.

I'm pretty excited.

And terrified.

I am not a mastermind, but I'm hoping for a big Poof!

This, of course, will require a lot of dark (or white) space for a while. Not quite a vacuum, but a space with clear, colorless, odorless air in which to breath, void of fiery comets or space debris, or anything that has the potential to crash into my secret world and throw me off course. You know what I mean. It will require many days at the library. Cloistered. So here, my friends, may be my last post for a long while. I won't say forever. But, well, you know I'm no multi-tasker.

Saturday night, Michael and I went out to listen to Red Molly, a girl band (as they refer to themselves), a really fabulous girl band about whom I wrote, in a Frolic, nearly a year and a half ago. They were performing in a small town in Massachusetts. There, in an acoustically perfect coffeehouse, at the very end of the evening, past 11:00 PM and bordering on breaking some serious rules (wrap it up girls—our traffic detail needs to go home!), they sang their final song.

May I suggest.

And this song, I forward to you, a Thanksgiving of sorts, a Thank You. Until I once again emerge from my secret world...

Poof!

 May I Suggest by Suburban Soliloquist 

May I Suggest

By Susan Werner

May I suggest


May I suggest to you


May I suggest this is the best part of your life


May I suggest
/ This time is blessed for you


This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright


Just turn your head
/ And you'll begin to see


The thousand reasons that were just beyond your sight


The reasons why /
Why I suggest to you


Why I suggest this is the best part of your life



There is a world


That's been addressed to you


Addressed to you, intended only for your eyes


A secret world


Like a treasure chest to you


Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerize


A lover's trusting smile
/ A tiny baby's hands


The million stars that fill the turning sky at night


Oh I suggest
/ Oh I suggest to you


Oh I suggest this is the best part of your life



There is a hope


That's been expressed in you


The hope of seven generations, maybe more


And this is the faith
/ That they invest in you


It's that you'll do one better than was done before


Inside you know
/ Inside you understand


Inside you know what's yours to finally set right


And I suggest
/ And I suggest to you


And I suggest this is the best part of your life



This is a song


Comes from the west to you


Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun


With a request / With a request of you


To see how very short the endless days will run


And when they're gone


And when the dark descends


Oh we'd give anything for one more hour of light



And I suggest this is the best part of your life

Ars Poetica III - Such Rubbish

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Bwah, ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee.... (madman's laugh).

Well, I don't know whether I've done the thing or not, but I do know that I've lived through this horror, having spent a weekend in the Dark Ages—laxity's revenge. It struck a dissonant chord. Just me and a raging war, a bubonic like plague weakening my limbs, squelching my strength. Shuttered in the room of my own, no symphony, jazz, good reads or movies. No theatre, museum, library, shopping, friends or family. Not even NPR! I spent a century in the Dark Ages, hours writing just the first sentence. Or so it felt. Not a beam of sun, or moonlight. Not a drop of culture (ok, except for a middle school basketball game, if that qualifies as cultural experience), alone in that room of my own, in my tattered pj's, with nothing but crumpled paper, stained coffee cups, spent ink cartridges and trace cookie crumbs. I'm not sure if I even showered. Wait, there were no showers in the Dark Ages (except for those spurred by the Gods), so...

Oh, but what came from it! The drivel. The nonsense. And alas, the Ars Poetica.

Ta da...
**Warning, read no further if you are not interested in academic codswallop.**

(And I promise I will return to my old self, later today, once I've handed in this mess to the English Dept.)

Ars Poetica

My first written words of the semester were tossed randomly, like dice on a craps table, prefaced by an apology that I was no writer, and that I hadn’t the authority to roll out my cursory version of what makes a story. Those early words muttered that story should be told with honesty, humility; should be relevant, compelling and believable, so as to capture its reader, suspend all notion of disbelief, regardless of how fantastical, unreliable, improbable the story; they stumbled that story should deliver a message of hope, contain substantive value, and heart; and, buzzed that its message should be transformative. They sighed about responsibility.

The short list of literati and authors that influenced that anemic summary of story, as well as my wrting: Truman Capote, Flannery O’Connor, Virginia Woolf, Kurt Vonnegut, Samuel Beckett, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ayn Rand, Richard Feynman, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus. Regardless of their style, the common thread is a matter of being and essential truth, whether channeling metaphysics, perspectivism or existentialism. But these days, I find that the writings of Jorge Louis Borges, a poet and novelist guided by the "chaos that rules the world and the character of unreality in all literature” is writing at its best—long, winding prose and magical realism in non-linear time, weaving stories that illustrate truth, at best, to be elusive.

But writing is getting at the truth, no matter how illusory: the truth in reality, in fiction, in the smallest gesture and grandest idea; it is a tangible manifestation of both my gentle dreams and nightmares, my need to create, expose, illuminate and provoke. It is the process of finding these truths—as I perceive them—through storytelling, which is at once terrifying and freeing. It’s a treacherous white-knuckled drive through an ice storm, the roads are salted and pocked, slippery and questionable, a pole is missed only to tumble into a ravine; but the vehicle is restored and skates on, unsteadily, to its intended (and sometimes, unintended) ending—the ordeal nothing but a calamitous blur.

Although I attempt to write deliberately, my best work springs from a subconscious domain, one where the ideas, dreams, incubate as if in some sort of disorganized hatchery. And once the story has been laid out it invariably tells me the same truths, these universal truths that I long to share, as if no one already knows: life is full of hypocrisy, absurdity, disappointments, it drags and stalls, it begs to be spat at; and it pleads for vigor and meaning, cries for warm hugs, compassion, laughter, love; its core dreadfully complex, yet, so simple.

And while writing can be staggeringly arduous—and though I may have little skill or sway—it is important, because I write to make sense of things, get perspective, explore, question whether essential truth is “a mystery that pervades the whole of human existence.” I aim for honest, original prose; to never displease, mislead, deceive or indite gratuitously; only satisfy, captivate and ultimately illuminate with a measured optimism in reverence to the reader. I mean my writing to portray reality as, indeed, magical and timeless. This is authorship, and I suspect there is a bit of authority and responsibility buried somewhere in there.

So there, take that Professor B. (Oh dear, I have a feeling her sword is mightier than my pen.)

Wiki

Ars Poetica II

For those of you who have asked, Yes, I am working on my Ars Poetica; and, No, I haven't yet written it (but thank you for asking). It's clawing its way out of the belfry, but hasn't scratched the vellum. At the moment I am thinking about defenestration. The subject/victim might be me. Or Professor B., in the fourth floor conference room. With a window—two, actually.

Under the impression, and enlightened by the internet, I thought my task was to write a poem about poetry. I'd geared up for this all semester. I hadn't bothered to consult Professor B. Then she throws this at me: Or Just What Is It You Think You're Doing, Anyway? Ordinarily, I'd take this personally, but in light of the fact that she asks the same of my classmates, via handouts, I decide to file it under: I Am A Complete Dope (for relying solely on the www). Or just: I Am A Dope.

And I thought my task was something vaguely analogous to the art of poetry. Instead, Fiction. Writing about my fiction writing. (Oh, is that what I've been doing?) What writing should be, do, try to do, never do, unless... This kind of introspection makes me sweat. It's like swallowing horse pills. This is what writing should never do. Poetry would go down with more ease.

So instead, I send out emails, I fiddle with laundry, I have a banana and peanut butter snack, I drink copious amounts of coffee, I read, I tweak legal documents (oh, that's right, I have a real job—sort of—and I procrastinate there, too) and I blog, when what I surely need to do is wiggle my ears and shuffle my way to an elocution of passable Ars Poetica.

So, with this Friday as a deadline, I guess I'd better mosey along.

G-g-goodbye, Snow White. Back to the mines...

I Miss My “ ”

My “ ” is gon. Wipd from its shiny black ky. 


Vaporizd into thin air; 


rubbd out lik a Mafioso rat by robust and ruthlss punching. 


Bginning with th uppr right arm, 


followd by its middl and lowr branchs, pummld colorlss, 


lik th middl C that I printd on th piano with indlibl markr whn I was just thr. 


Nothing bing prmannt. 


" "—A mathmatical constant, the slop of a tangnt lin (of a crtain function), th valu of a drivitiv; 


an irrational numbr of utmost importanc. 


(Not that I shall vr attmpt to us it as such.)


It’s tru—I undrstand now—how th “ ” is th most commonly usd vowl. Utilizd, consumd, xhaustd. I’v witnssd its slow annihilation 


at th hand of th oily skinnd undrsid of my lft middl fingr;


a lon swirling print complling vidnc.


Thoughtlss. Mrcilss. 


But what to com is mor troubling: th gradual dtrioration of T, who’s uppr right cap is missing; 


and th I! Oh my! A mr smudg at th cntr of th raisd bvld squar. 


What to do whn my grayd lttrs hav all vanishd?! Th aging mind drawing blanks. 


How will I find my way? Will th sound of th rat-a-tat tap carry m through—rkindling th addictiv, habitual lik movmnts of my tn rhumatic digits?


Lik a musician’s traind ar, a singrs cultivatd vocal chords? 


Whn all my comrads hav bn limnd bald, will I still hav a story to tll? A song to sing?


But just whn I wondr how I can b m without th lttr “ ”, I am succord by th stubborn blot of my lingring “I”,


my dtrmind vowl. A syllabl, a pronoun, an uttranc unto itslf.  

I wondr if this would qualify as Ars Potica? Profssor B?

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.