The dead man in the huckleberries

Source: CNN, courtesy Scott Mitchell Leen, Chihuly Studio

Travel and illness are both estranging, and I've managed quite enough of both of late. Yesterday I felt like myself again and promptly wrote a poem about a visit to the Chihuly show at the Vanderbilt estate, Biltmore. I found this surprising because I no longer write many poems where the "I" is so clearly related to me. Lately I've written two long series of poems that ostensibly have nothing at all to do with my days, though of course that's a feint, a bull's red flag, a dropped handkerchief. Maybe the little poem was just grounding me--hey, I'm back in my life!

After that, I worked on a forthcoming novel. I had a dead man to tote to another part of the manuscript, and then I--poof!--turned a long passage of description into a scene starring the main character interacting with various things, including the hair of that aforesaid dead man.

The dead are heavy but portable. Sometimes they make more sense in one place than another. This is true in life also, but we don't get to choose. Although I do know a few people who carry around the dead in urns. On a mantlepiece, the dead are strangely magnetic. They provide a kind of focus to a room. Not the fashionable kind that house decorators desire... This seems wrong, of course. The dead are already magnetic without being physically present in a room. They follow us whether we will or no. They crowd around as we grow older. We ignore them most of the time, but now and then one becomes vivid.

Here they are, getting in the way of my blog post.

Possibly signaling for attention?

This morning I shall go take a look at my dead man, lying where I planted him in a patch of huckleberries, somewhere in the northern precincts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. If he is not content to lie there, perhaps I shall move him again.

* * * * *

Despite getting so little work done (North Carolina, hurricane Florence, northern New York, a retreat at Mons Nubifer Sanctus, etcetera), I have a number of pieces of good book or book-related news but shall save them until some time after the next Rollipoke goes out, as Rollipokers get the news first--that's the deal. So if you're the sort of person who likes to be on tenterhooks, go right ahead.

Hodgepodgery

Yellow-blue morning

Four male and three female goldfinches perched on the feeder, backed by a lawn that is a low meadow in shades of blue scilla and a few yellow crocuses. Plus a persistent squirrel. I am recalling my father's electrifying squirrel-defenses....

More on my wanderings, for the curious or downright nosey--

Grovewood Gallery by Grove Park Inn

After I returned from Paris, I devoted three weeks to a North Carolina trip. This one was entirely personal, as I went down to give my mother (now 88, not 89, as I had thought--weak math!) a hiking companion (thank you, Etheree Chancellor, for being a good hiking friend) and more. My mother is still active volunteering for the North Carolina Arboretum, gardening at her home in Cullowhee, and weaving, so she is still up for many outings and for hiking in the Nantahala Forest or Panther Falls Trail (near Tallulah Gorge, GA) or Pinnacle Park in Sylva or near Fontana Dam, etc. We also explored interesting or just plain wacky museums (rocks! tartans! historic houses!) all over western North Carolina. We ate out constantly (when we weren't home with such deep-South favorites as green boiled peanuts and field peas and okra) in Asheville and Franklin and Sylva. We marched all over the Asheville arts district, rambling through studios and galleries (stopping to eat at White Duck Tacos because my mother said she had no one who wanted to go there with her) and to the Grovewood Gallery at Grove Park Inn, and to see weaver Susan Leveille at Oaks Gallery in Dillsboro, etc. etc.

Now you know.

I came back in time for a wonderful Holy Week, and now here I am, company departed and ready to work. I have a batch of manuscripts to read, a novel to revise, poems to write for a special project in the fall (I'll write about that in The Rollipoke, for those of you who are subscribers), and a talk for Buechner Workshops to contemplate and begin.

Jordan Murray and self-publishing

As Jordan is a friend and daughter of friends and was in Cooperstown to sing (we have occasionally sung together in choir, though she is a far better singer than I am) and babysit doggies, I invited her for Easter dinner. I'm curious about self-publishing and have been interested in her progress. (Remember when her possible covers were posted? "Help Jordan Murray Pick a Cover." She picked one and The Emperor's Horn is now out.) Since she writes fantasy and science fiction, I'm fantasizing that she will find the pot of gold at rainbow's end and go to Clarion and meet lots of writers and have the fun of going through the fine-tooth comb that is Clarion critiquing. (It is transformative fun, or so say the Clarionites. Though the ones I've met also say they didn't sleep all that much for six weeks.) I've asked her for some comments on her road to publishing, and here they are:

There is undeniable value in the artistic freedom that self-publishing enables.

Respecting that value with high quality work takes vigilance and sacrifice, and it takes a great deal of time. Commitments to goals are easily sabotaged by impatience, one of the ugliest enemies of any author or artist. After all, isn't self-publishing supposed to be faster and easier than the traditional route?

Self-awareness is an essential part of the process.

Self-publishing requires the author examine their work with staggering levels of humility and honesty. They must learn to recognize their weakest skills and confront them until they either get better at it or hire professional help. There's no shame at all in hiring a professional editor or artist. True, it involves more up front expenses, but, it also provides the rare opportunity of choosing your collaborators.

It's important for independent authors to realize that extensive editing is only the beginning of their commitment to self-publishing.

Repeated, time-consuming tasks that have very little to do with the simple joy of writing will fill days, months, and years of their lives. Will it make them a better writer? Yes. Will it teach them valuable life skills? Frequently. Will it make them a bitter, frustrated person who resents their choice? It might. But, the choice for one person to do it all need not be a permanent one.

Contracts with editors and publishers elapse, change, and evolve in traditional circuits just as self-published authors may choose to become traditionally published during their careers. There need not be such a strong division between the two. The path an author takes to crafting and publishing a good story can be uniquely suited to their own needs. That is an exciting prospect, and the pursuit of art for art's sake is equally important to keep alive during the process.

Glass for Good Friday: Ken Carder

Here are my pictorial musings about the glasswork of Ken Carder, who came to glass by a path through painting and sculpture. Ken Carder developed a method of glassmaking that unites the two traditions into something new, using stencils and "painting" fine ground colored glass over sculptural castings. Pictures were taken at North Carolina Glass 2012 (October 28, 2012 - February 1, 2013, Western Carolina University) with my tiny digital camera. I love these small shows where one can discover new artists, and where the gallery allows you to record a visit with diary-like photographic notes. 

Alas, I did not record all three titles, but this one is "OH NOVEMBER," 2011,
glass and metal 30" x 12" x 9"

Ken Carder: "Over the past 30 years or so I have done my best to develop a method of using instinct rather than formula in my approach. This leads to less predictable outcomes and much greater room for original invention."

Quotes drawn from North Carolina Glass 2012: In Celebration of 50 Years of Studio Glass in America, a catalogue

for The Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University

Take a look at this one.

See more work and a biography at the Asheville Art Museum site.

Ken Carder: "I think of my entire body of work as an ongoing theatre piece that runs 

parallel to the world I inhabit. The characters and sets sometimes reflect my world but need 

not adhere to any particular rules or fall victim to any constrictions of logic."

Maggie's interview and more

HOME SILLY-SWEET HOME
N & Dad coming home from the track meet while I unload the car of my gear for Wales and North Carolina, along with sundry rocks and gifts and plants from my mother's garden.

N, age 13: Squints eyes, looks at a license on the car ahead.
N: "A mind is like a parakeet."
Dad, age 50: "No, it says a mind is like a parachute."
N: "No, parakeet."
Dad: "No, parachute. They both work best when open."
N: "I'll prove it to you."
Dad: "How?"
N: "Does parachute have a Q in it?"
Dad: "No, but neither does parakeet."
N: "Oh, yeah."

FROM ABERYSTWYTH, WALES
TO CULLOWHEE, NORTH CAROLINA:
WITH THANKS (written May 14)

I'm nearing the end of my long trip from upstate New York to western North Carolina to Wales to North Carolina to New York. When I get home, I'll post some pictures and stories from the astonishing and grand parade of events in honor of the 60th birthday retrospective show for artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins, held at the the lovely (and large--what a grand collection of paintings!) Gregynog Gallery of The National Library of Wales.

As Carroll says, I had a perfectly frabjous time, callooh, callay! 60th birthday retrospectives only come around once and are a great honor. Likewise, invitations to be a part of such things only come once. I owe my husband many thanks for holding the family fort and letting me be free to wander the world, and I owe Peter Wakelin and Clive many thanks for inviting me to stay and play the country house visitor with a houseful of artists and writers. And thanks to you, the Dear Reader, for returning to me here!

MAGGIE TOBIAS INTERVIEW
Reprinted with permission of "The Sylva Herald"

The bright and lovely Maggie Tobias has written two articles about me in the past weeks, and I post something from them here, before they vanish into archives. She did endow me with more books than I have written (The Throne of Psyche is number eight, unless one counts editions, and five are forthcoming. However, I shall take the extras as a challenge!) I answered her interview questions at 2:00 a.m. at the kitchen table of Ty Isaf, in the Istwyth valley of Wales.

Youmans discusses writing, family, new poetry book
By Maggie Tobias  May 12, 2011


Tonight (Thursday) at City Lights Bookstore, author Marly Youmans will read from her new collection of poetry – “The Throne of Psyche” – at 7 p.m. Her new poems examine the boundaries between what is human and what is not, between the earthly world and the otherwordly.

The title poem “The Throne of Psyche” tells the story of the union of Eros, the Greek god of love, and Psyche, a mortal girl.

Stories of transformations and metamorphoses are a constant in the collection, and Youmans’ delicate language gives her poems a certain seriousness.

Youmans, who grew up in Cullowhee, is the daughter of Mary Youmans of Cullowhee and the late Hubert Youmans. She now lives in Cooperstown, N.Y., with her husband and three children.

She’s written several dozen other books, which include novellas and short stories, including “Claire,” “The Wolf Pit,” “Catherwood,” “Ingledove,” “Little Jordan,” and “Curse of the Raven Mocker.”

The Herald caught up with Youmans before tonight’s reading to get her views on poetry, writing and family – and how she balances all three.

Herald: Why did you choose the title poem? Is the story of Psyche special to you?

Youmans: The story of Psyche is wonderful to work with because it takes place in a highly colored, physical world, and yet it also is the story of the progress of a soul. The tale is dramatic and moves from Earth to hell to paradise. It is a great adventure that is always ready for transformation.

Herald: Are you looking forward to reading your work in Sylva?

Youmans: I’m always pleased to read in Sylva, though this time I have hardly had a chance to think about it because I am in Wales and for the next three days will be participating in some very big events. I’ll get to Cullowhee and have a day to get over being jet-lagged, so I may be a bit wired.

Herald: What’s your favorite part about visiting the mountains?

Youmans: My mother is a fascinating though overly modest woman who is always up to something interesting in her gardening or weaving. And my eldest son is at Mars Hill College, so I get to bring him to Cullowhee. I love eating Southern food and seeing shadbush or sourwood, pink shell or flame azalea in bloom. I always feel glad driving South when the land begins to rise.

Herald: Can you describe your style of poetry?

Youmans: My poems are formal – by that I mean that I take advantage of all the tools of poetry. I write metrical poetry, and I am not adverse to rhyme. I like a singing quality and “swing” in poetry. Since I also write short stories and novels, I am keen for my poetry to be as unlike fiction as possible; that’s one reason that I am drawn to form. Another reason is that I feel comfortable and happy pushing words around into formal, muscular shapes. I don’t ask other poets to do likewise, but it is my way.

Herald: Was there ever a time when you wrote for recognition or fame?

Youmans: I’m afraid that “recognition and fame” are qualities that sit uneasily with English-language poetry in the 21st century. I never think about such things because humility toward the art and toward the written work of the past is the proper stance for a writer, as I see it.

My concern is never for what praise it may find, though I am always happy when people like my work and it receives the tribute of some honor. But real honor lies in being true to the work.

Herald: Does poetry satisfy something that fiction doesn’t? Do you have different audiences for your different types of writing?

Youmans: My feeling about fiction versus poetry is that all my writing comes from the same fount but flows into different shapes. That said, the lyric gush of short poetry is a lovely sensation.

Herald: What does poetry do for the reader?

Youmans: It is not useful; it is not a tool to better oneself. At its best, a poem is a portal to what Chaucer called “larger life” and is a means to joy. It is possible to become lost in a poem, to be transformed, if only momentarily. It is a kind of fruitful self-forgetfulness, good for the soul.

Herald: How early did you begin writing?

Youmans: My mother says that she knew I would be a writer when I was in second grade; that is, the year I turned 6.

Herald: Do you keep a tight work schedule?

Youmans: No, I do not keep a regular, rigid schedule. I doubt that any writer who is the mother of three can do so. I write whenever I can. I have several useful qualities that help me get work done: I have an ability to get back into a piece very quickly, and I have an unusually good capacity for concentration.

Herald: Where do you do your writing?

Youmans: I write wherever and whenever I can. Because my life is complicated, I cannot afford to be fussy about such things, or to insist on having special comforts around me when I write. Again, I can’t be a mother of three and be particular about my when and where.

Herald: Do you ever go back and reread your books and short stories?

Youmans: I do not reread my fiction once it is published unless I am revising for inclusion in an anthology. Occasionally I reread a poem, but one rereads so much while revising; when it is out in the world, it is gone – given away to the people who read it.

Herald: How about your husband. Is he supportive? What is the secret to the longevity of your relationship?

Youmans: My husband cooks dinner most nights, and that is a huge gift to a woman who is a writer. He is also a father who helps with children, who goes on Scout trips and teaches Sunday School. We have many common tastes and see the world in similar ways.

Herald: How are you able to write so much?

Youmans: Writing is a great joy to me. The act of bringing something new into the world brings pleasure.

Herald: Do you write for an ideal reader or a particular audience?

Youmans: I’ve never quite understood questions about the reader one writes for – when something new pours out, I am not considering my reader. I am caught up and lost in the stream of words. If I lose myself in them, what I write will find its proper readers.

MORE MAGGIERY

On May 5th, The Sylva Herald printed another of Maggie's articles about me, publicizing the upcoming reading. One remark she made reminded me of my mother-in-law, long ago asking why I didn't write a nice little bestseller! Luckily I am not roiled and tormented by such an idea...  

Here is a clip:

Youmans has written in every genre, and does it all with joy and lyricism. With her open approach to all writing styles and lack of concern for the politics of publishing and bestseller lists, Youmans may never run out of material.

Carolina, dreams and nightmares

Lately I have been e-prodded and nudged and generally bothered for the crime of blog hibernation: reprove no more; here is the post! For the past nine days I have been on the road or else in Cullowhee ("the valley of the lilies") with my mother and two younger children, making forays outward to visit my eldest and to frolic in the mountains, so this will be a high-elevation post. In between two driving bouts of 888 miles, I managed to visit with a few people, haul my children to the Mountain Heritage Center, see "Coraline," take in a number of shows at the Western Carolina art gallery, and go to a concert. So that is what I'm mulling because here in Cooperstown I find that I have 700+ pages to sign and manuscript proofs to read for Val/Orson, as well as many mundane things to do. And there is not a lot to say about signing one's name 700+ times except that I am not bigheaded enough to find such an act fascinating! And it is still (still! and at this very moment) snowing in Cooperstown, just as though the crocuses and primroses and daffodils (most not quite popped, but even a green swollen stem is a welcome sight) and one anemone bud of last week in Cullowhee had been just a dream.

Artwise, my favorite things turned out to be--as usually happens when I go home to the mountains--crafts taken to a point of mastery. I especially liked a massive blackware pot by Joel Queen (one of the Bigmeat family of potters, Eastern Band of Cherokee). As his website declares, "They are tradition, true traditional Cherokee pots. They were created with hand-dug clay the same as thousands of years ago, sifted by hand, kneaded by hand, hand-coiled, stamped with hand carved wooden paddles, and fired in a traditional pit fire. They are created at the same sophisticated level of quality as the ancient Mississippian pots. They are created with a consistency of thickness, depth in the incisions, and fired at a precise temperature vitrifying the clay body, rendering the pots waterproof. These are skills learned only from a knowledge and mastery of the clay." I also admired a recent Norm Schulman vessel and a 2008 Mark Hewitt salt glaze vase donated by Joel Queen. I used to see Hewitt's work often when I lived in Chapel Hill and liked it, and his translation from Stoke-on-Trent and Spode, the traditional family business, to a role as independent art potter not far from the pottery center at Seagrove is a good Carolina pottery tale.

A woman-dominated show of jacquard and entrepreneurial textiles at Western Carolina University was interesting, though I'm afraid that "smart textiles" with electronic components woven into the fabric and "performance and interactive textiles" strike me as something of an abomination, rather like using plastic in a blooming garden. I imagine that I reacted to them in about the same way as William James on reading the complex, late Henry James: impressive, marvelously accomplished work, but why do it at all?

Some of my favorite pieces were white weavings by Pauline Verbeek-Cowart, although when I look at the description of her work at her home academic institution, I think she maligns herself and her fine achievements: "Most of her weavings span several feet in both directions and comment on the nature of woven surfaces. Through structure, material, image and/or surface treatments, she demonstrates that weaving is unique in building an image." Several feet in both directions: no doubt they got that right, although the ones I saw happened to be more than several. "Comment on the nature of woven surfaces": this is the sort of thing I dislike in arts and handicrafts commentary. The thing is itself. It is satisfying as a thing, a beautiful thing that is a special kind of experience. It does not comment. It does not write monographs. It does not need footnotes. It does not strain to understand its nature. To be so beautiful as to appear effortless is quite rare enough all on its own. "Unique in building an image": why say it? It's just academic justification for beauty, and that's not needed. Academic justification for beauty is, in fact, an offense against beauty.

I also admired the clothing of Leslie Armstrong and Anke Fox (Armstrong Fox Textiles, Canada), whose designs had lovely rich colors and weaving and draped beautifully. Most pilfer-worthy for the light-handed gallery-goer, so I hope the guard chihuahuas are out! The real thing is infinitely softer and more subtle in shade, but some pictures are here.

Last, I attended a recital by composer and percussionist Mario Gaetano, particularly Ney Rosauro's "Brasiliana" for wooden idiophones ("Eldorado" for metal idiophones being slightly less magical but also good) and Gareth Farr's "Bali," "Japan," and "South India" from "Kembung Suling." And I liked Gaetano's "Music for Two Doumbeks," played with his daughter. In fact, I liked it all, even the marimba with tape piece that now seemed so dated. Perhaps my in-house percussionist, age 11, saw some reason for that annoying activity, practice...

I had a grand time in Cullowhee and the mountains, although my heart was riven for the nth time by the utter dearth of zoning and thoughtfulness about development in western North Carolina, particularly the area around Sylva (so un-sylvan these days) but extending on to Asheville. The descendants of the so-called "Ulster Irish" (many of them northern English and Scots Protestant borderers transplanted to Ireland for "planting" in the 1600's) are still just as stubborn and independent as ever, but what they never seem to grasp is that their birthright is being sold for a mess of cold porridge. Strangers (wake up! the Yankees are here!) have come in and seized the inheritance. Natives have valued the greeny pile of dollars over the mountains that their ancestors felt were God's blue walkways to the sky. Now it's lift up thine eyes to the hills and find a dratted chain hotel or chain fast-food joint, or else lift them up and find the mountain missing entirely. To bulldoze a mountain is a crime against nature and against the future, whose children will blame those who failed to zone with hard words. It is also a stupid thing to do in a region of landslides and mudslides--one sees butchered half-mountains everywhere, held up by braces of stone and wood so that a big box store or some other pernicious piece of real estate can be erected. (Walmart, of course, removed "their" mountain quite completely, and threw up a massive store and even more massive parking lot.) Moreover, those lucky souls who live in the mountains completely lack foresight even about their money interest--destroy the glory of the mountains, and what tourist will come to spend their dratted dollars? The blight of what was the most beautiful land on the east coast of North America for the sake of human greed is an ongoing tragedy. As William James nailed it in a letter to H. G. Wells a century ago, "The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease."

Photograph credit: Image of Crabtree Falls, courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/ and photographer Greg Pinkston of Oklahoma, U.S. Crabtree is a pretty waterfall, about a .25 mile walk from Crabtree Recreation Area, Blue Ridge Parkway (milepoint 339.5).