All My Favorite People Are Poets
And three of them welcomed books into the world this month
April is National Poetry Month, but it turns out this September is Amazing Poets I Know Publish Books Month. In the span of 10 days, three gifted poets and lovely humans have added to the goodness in the world with the beauty of their words and the depth and breadth of their curiosity and insight. Carey Taylor’s second poetry collection Some Aid to Navigation has been making its way across the Pacific Northwest since September 15th. Carol Park’s debut Songs Sharp and Tender arrived a month earlier than expected on September 18th, and The Long Invisible, Michael Dechane’s debut drops on September 24th.
I didn’t know any poets 25 years ago when I wrote my first poem (featuring a serrated knife carving up emotions) and emailed it to a few unsuspecting women in my prayer group with a mixture of exhilaration and anxiety as I awaited their long-in-coming (AOL dial-up days) replies.
It seemed strange to me even then that my creative writing attempts were poems. I wasn’t a poetry reader. Though I’d been surrounded by books growing up, they were Reader’s Digest Condensed and Book of the Month Club novels. In high school I hadn’t understand the little poetry I encountered (sonnets by centuries dead Englishmen), and I studied Political Science in college.
Still, I was drawn to poetry for reasons I would later be able to name: the compactness of form as opposed to writing a story or book—which for a new writer made completing a poem feel doable, the selection of powerful and purposeful details, the precision of language, the imaginative leaps poetry allows and often requires, the sheer joy in immersing myself in words, and the call to share my discoveries/poems with an audience in service to a greater good.
Writing is portrayed as a solitary activity, but poetry, with its roots in the oral tradition has always involved, invited, and inspired community. Speakers and listeners in conversation with each other, in person, on Zoom, across the page.
Once I came into contact with living poets (often in living rooms), I realized that poetry doesn’t have to be dense and un-understandable, filled with allusions to ancient works I’ve never read.
Poetry can be humorous, relatable, straight-forward, basically everything by Billy Collins, as well as Linda Whaley, from my Gig Harbor days, who can rhyme anything. And form can actually be physical: an early classmate typed out a poem about a hairdryer in the shape of a hairdryer. My brother-in-law, Sterling Warner, is the king of the Fibonacci form.
Poetry has carried me through grief and loss, especially Jan Richardson’s Cure for Sorrow, and anything by spoken-word Poet Laureate of Colorado Andrea Gibson.
In short, all my favorite people are poets, and I’d like you to know more about these three, and the good words they’ve just let loose into the world.
I met my dear friend Carol Park a dozen years ago, both of us earning MFA’s in creative writing while our children were in college. We’ve been roommates at residencies and writers conferences, guests in each others homes, and readers of one another’s work. Carol is often outdoors in the parks and trails around the San Francisco Bay and I love the way the smallest flower or seed pod can spin into a poem about mothers and daughters, and her sensitivity to what is often unspoken. Carol’s continued study and commitment to her craft is astounding. Read more about her and order Songs Sharp and Tender.
When I lived in Port Orchard Carey Taylor made a two-hour round trip from her home in Port Ludlow to write in my living room for two hours once a week for several months. We’d both lived on Bainbridge Island for a time and had heard each other read a poem at a few community readings, and it was a delight in this intimate setting to discover where the prompts led her, which was often to her early life living in lighthouses, the theme of her new book. The grace of her writing and the confidence in her poetic voice is captivating. I had the honor of “blurbing” her first book, The Lure of Impermanence. Check out Some Aid to Navigation.
Michael Dechane and I (along with Carol) are alumni of Seattle Pacific University’s MFA in Creative Writing. I graduated long before he enrolled, but Michael friended me on Facebook as soon he joined our MFA group, and I became a fly on the wall in his vast writerly web spun not only from his generosity and championing of poets, but from his sheer jaw-dropping talent. Seriously. His poems have been picked up by top-notch journals with big readership. Everything I’ve read has me nodding in recognition at profound truth so lyrical, so unique, so startling, so reassuring. Last fall I met him at our MFA reunion and heard him read in person. Wow. Just wow. Bring home The Long Invisible. Now.
Oh, I almost forgot. I have a short story up about families and forgiveness at Radix Journal. It was decades in the making — set aside to simmer for a looong time — You can read Granny Squares here.