"The Wish for Roses," again--

This evening Paul Digby posted a link to his video for "The Wish for Roses," and though I've already shared his rendition elsewhere, I think it ought to be here as well. Thanks to those who have shared the poem on facebook, and to commenters on various pages... I've seen it on six pages already, so hope it is sailing out into the world.

The poem originally appeared at Sienna Latham's wonderful Hindsight, where it was joined with the original photograph and an account by Fredric Koeppel of his great-aunt Hazel Tuttle. I'm so glad that he wrote her story and posted!

An earlier reading of the poem appeared from librarykris of New Zealand at Audioboo at the beginning of the year--so lovely to hear different interpretations of a poem. Kris also recorded my poem "Sixteen Hundred Years."

Music while writing--and while not writing--

follower of Hieronymus Bosch, "Concert in the egg."
Wikipedia Commons, from Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Q: What sort of music do you listen to while writing, and how does it vary? (The question is from Sienna Latham of the fascinating Hindsight, located at the intersection of art and museum on the web. Have a question of your very own? Leave on in comments.)

A: Perhaps I am a bit strange in this regard. I'm always seeing online playlists for writers--what they listened to while writing such-and-such a novel. But I have a great capacity for blotting out background noise (very useful when one has been raising three children, though one needs to have internal radar set for the "wrong" sort of noise, and also possess the ability to move back and forth between children and the depths of a manuscript) and so I never trouble myself with playing music. In fact, it seems strange to me to think of doing so.

What would I do it for? To me, it seems like the attempt to find a distraction when I neither need or want distraction, and I would tune it out anyway. But what do other people who don't blot sounds out want it for? Is it that one doesn't quite like writing and wants to be distracted to some degree? I'm always bemused by the many writers who claim to dislike writing and to love having written. (I don't think I would write if I felt that way. Should one admire people who write despite that feeling, or be troubled that they force themselves to do what they don't like?) Two of my children like music when they do homework... So is it to be amused? Is it to set a mood? Is it to let words ride on sound that "fits" the subject? To be "inspired"? Aside from the fact that I would block out the music anyway, I don't need mood or inspiration to be created by something outside myself. There's something I am missing, it seems. Writers are alike in some ways, different in others. I suppose this is a way I am different. (But I never think the particulars of how people write are significant.)

That said, I do sometimes find myself writing a poem after listening to music. Because music is an awakening force... and in me, it tends to wake up words.

What other part does music have in my life, then?

Some time ago I was shanghaied into the soprano section of a choir at the little Episcopal church that James Fenimore Cooper turned into a Gothic bandbox on his return from Europe. I have two or three practices per week and sing in public at least once a week. So I probably sing more than most people my age. The choir sings Haydn, Humperdinck (the real one), Bach, etc. I'm continually surprised to find myself in a choir (me?) and singing in public, and I have threatened to write a comic novel called Choir. In the time I've been singing, we've had quite a few people in the arts in the choir--painters Deborah Guertze, Yolanda Sharpe (a wonderful mezzo-soprano), and Ashley Norwood Cooper.

As for my life at home and on the road, I hear a good deal of music but not in any systematic way. The last CDs I bought for my fall book travels were Mike Scott and the Waterboys, An Appointment with Mr. Yeats, and also an anthology of songs made from Yeats poems.  Obviously that's because I have a Yeats mania. (I sometimes pick up other intersections between books and music, like the Tiger Lilies version of Edward Gorey--or, for that matter, as when composer-videographer Paul Digby sets one of my poems. See five videos of poems at youtube.) I don't bother with being "up to date," but my daughter makes me CDs of her favorite new music for book trips, and I listen to a lot of classical music--medieval and Renaissance music, along with Mozart, Britten, Taverner, etc.

Notes on a Hindsight page--

Update: Here's another link, an interesting reading of "The Wish for Roses."

***

Just drove in from White River Junction and see that in my absence, something of mine has materialized on Sienna Latham's Hindsight, a new by-invitation site dedicated to historical museum collections around the world and the stories they tell. For Hindsight, I wrote a poem to go with a photograph (although this one is not in a public but in a private collection.)

The photograph captures a graceful moment in the life of a great-aunt of that interesting fellow, Fredric Koeppel. When he was books editor of The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), he once assigned a book of mine for review to writer and bookstore owner Corey Mesler; later, Mr. Koeppel reviewed several of my books. That's how he came to my attention. But long before that time, he was an English professor. Today he is probably best known for his wine website and blog, Bigger Than Your Head (although perhaps as much for his vast collection of mismatched socks and his wonderful homemade pizzas, both shared on facebook.)

Fredric Koeppel's photograph and account of what had happened to his pretty great-aunt broke my heart into tiny glittery pieces. As soon as I saw the picture and read the story, I knew that I would write about her. The poem is the result of a helpless wish to restore what cannot be restored--something like the flowers, stones, or tokens left on a grave. It's a reminder, too, of old times in the prairie, the ruggedness of a way of Western life that has passed away. As such, it is our story, the sometimes tragic tale of our ancestors, here or elsewhere, living a far harder life than our own.

There are places that are just as hard still, but they are few. My husband just returned from weeks spent wandering in the Kyrgyzstan Himalayas, sleeping in a flimsy tent with people who wore no gloves, dipped their frozen sardines or mutton fat in tea, and would sometimes just squat and turn their backs to the wind for hours if a snowstorm blew in. Most of us live a far cozier life, and though we may remember grandparents who lived in a shack, we are comfortable and warm and drowning in entertainment.

If you take a look at lovely Hazel, reaching toward the roses, and at the poem, you'll meet a doubly lost life. Imagine Hazel, one of us, deceived and broken, wandering at large on the planet.

Catherwood, again...

Photograph by Paul Digby: seedhead of a hearts a-bustin',
taken on my mother's mountaintop in Cullowhee, NC, August 2013.

So glad that Sienna Latham followed me on twitter today and left me a link to her lovely, long review of Catherwood.  One of the magic things about the internet is that a mid-list book once considered out of print and "done" keeps getting attention, almost twenty years after first publication (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996.)

Another thing is that authors can put books back into circulation through ebooks. But what I'm most pleased about is that Catherwood is coming back as a paperback from Mercer University Press. When a book comes back out of print because a publisher wants the reprint, it's always a good sign.

Currently in print are A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, Thaliad, The Foliate Head, and The Throne of Psyche (see tabs above.) Forthcoming are Glimmerglass and Maze of Blood. Perhaps I'll do an in-print post since it's that book-nabbing time of year . . .