learning all the time

Bernadette Mayer :: Walk Like a Robin

6 July 2019 by Kortney

Universal basic income–have you heard of this idea? Some people think it might be a help. This interview with Bernadette Mayer brings up questions of right livelihood, just compensation, and a living wage. And all in a poet’s voice–give everyone everything.

After I listened to the interview two times, I fell down the Bernadette rabbit hole. Here she is reading on her birthday:

How to Look in the Mirror Without Saying “I” is an extended piece from The New Yorker.

And this is the interview where Mayer describes the John Ashbery image of the river of poetry.

If this taste of Bernadette has whet your appetite, Modern & Contemporary American Poetry features Bernadette in many ways and means. I did a quick search and found this exploration of formal poems and how poets progress. Now I’ve got to dig out her list of experiments and read some Ted Berrigan.

Following the River

29 June 2019 by Kortney

By Andrea Scher

The river has been singing to me of late. Come with me as I follow her traces…

I read this interview with John Ashbery recently, it was one in an old Paris Review. He says whenever he wants to write poetry,

it’s like a little river that’s always flowing, and you can just dip into it and write. I think that’s a great analogy.

—Bernadette Mayer

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way,

just as the Scripture says.”

–John 7

If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come.

You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.

—Louis L’Amour

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

–William Stafford

The Deep River

24 June 2019 by Kortney

Holly Wren Spaulding suggests that reading poetry is a way to keep our poetic work vital even when we can’t get to the page.

Reading poetry, we stand on the shore of the deep river of words and push our little boat out into the current. Reading poetry keeps us circled close to the fire of our work, kindling near to hand.

Here are three kinds of books in my stacks just now.

Collections by Individual Poets

Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser

Dead Man’s Float by Jim Harrison

The Grace of Necessity by Samuel Green

Anthologies

Joy collected by Christian Wiman

The Maverick Poets edited by Steve Kowit

Poetry 180 collected by Billy Collins

Deep Dives Before Bed

Now and Then by Robert Hass

A Long High Whistle by David Biespiel

The Poet’s Glossary by Edward Hirsch

What books are keeping your practice lively?

Lent Means Spring

4 March 2019 by Kortney

Let’s welcome this new season with simple practices that make space for what’s most important.

I’ve written a wee book with a few ideas. Just click on the picture to download the book!

Bernadette Mayer :: Walk Like a Robin

Following the River