Some Things I Wanted to Say to You

Well, it’s the end of August, which means I'm battling fruit flies, black flies, back-to-school logistics, and incoherent thoughts. The slack of summer suddenly feels suffocating and I’m simultaneously craving and resisting a return to structure. As a friend of mine said, this transition makes me feel like I’m being held together by Scotch tape. So, please bear with my meandering thoughts, which I hope will lead us somewhere...

Last weekend I wrapped up a four-week poetry workshop called The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, inspired by Marie Howe's collection of the same title. The class focused on crafting poems from ordinary life and it was the first pure poetry class I’d taught since before the pandemic. After years of writing mostly memoir, re-immersing myself in a genre that’s generally disinterested in narrative structure felt like soaking in a warm bath of serotonin. You can just feel the constriction melting away.

One of the first poems we read together was “Some Things I Wanted to Say to You” by Stephen Dunn, who’s one of my top five desert-island poets. The last stanza of the poem goes—

Tell your lovers the world
robs us in so many ways
that a caress is your way
of taking something back.
Tell the dogs and the horses
you love them more than cars.
Speak to everything
would be my advice.

Ah. A caress is your way of taking something back. I love the paradox housed within that line. Vengeance and punishment can’t recover human losses, but a caress can. A caress as reclamation. A caress as antidote.

I’ve been reading Trauma and Recovery by Dr. Judith Herman, which details the history of PTSD, the ways it has presented in different populations over time, and the path to healing. Herman states that recovery generally involves three basic steps: safety first, then remembering and mourning the pain, followed by a reconnection with ordinary life. I realized that this last part is exactly what our class focused on: paying attention to present-tense, daily life. What a wonderful convergence!

This same truth emerged and converged in a powerhouse memoir I just finished reading: What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo. Foo is a journalist who documents her own trauma journey with masterful storytelling, humor, and research. Toward the arc of the book, she comes to a similar conclusion as Dunn:

I could not believe it had taken me this long to realize that punishment is not love. In fact, it is the opposite of love. Forgiveness is love. Spaciousness is love...Over and over, the answer is the same, isn't it? Love, love, love. The salve and the cure.

I’ve been thinking about the overlaps between Dunn’s caress and Herman’s reconnection with the ordinary and Foo’s salve and cure. They all seem to have a circular, reciprocal relationship. Love heals. A caress reclaims. And a natural extension of this process is a deeper relationship with the dailiness of human life—also known as the art of poetry. You could say that poetry is the fruit of healing...but it can also be a seed that prompts it.

For instance, check out this Ted Kooser poem. I mean, God, if this isn’t a caress...a salve and a cure...an invitation to experience daily awe...then I don’t know what is...

After reading this poem together in class, one of my students remarked that if we could all hold one another (including our own flawed selves) with the same exquisite presence as Kooser holds this stranger in the rain, then the world would be a much different place.

I concur.

And yes, Kooser captures this moment with a poetic precision most of us can only dream of, but the power here is in the attempt, not the flawless execution. So, here’s a writing prompt for the end of August, when life feels BLAH and your psyche is dangling by a few shreds of Scotch tape and your frazzled self needs a little salve:

Write a poem for someone or something in your ordinary life. It could be a stranger you noticed at Starbucks last Monday, or the old drooling dog that sleeps at your feet, or the younger-you that had crippling social anxiety, or the soft sleepy moment that your spouse brings you morning coffee. What has resonance? Write about that. Pay attention to the sensory images and details you might have otherwise missed. What did you see, taste, hear, smell, feel, or desire? Be specific. Be tangible. Write it unfiltered. Let your language be a caress...a way of taking something back. Don't worry about execution, just the attempt. Then share your work with that someone or something. Speak to everything would be my advice.

 Updates and Recommended Reading

My summer teaching semester is wrapping up. This fall I’m only teaching one memoir workshop so I have time to finish the second draft of my own! I’ll also be teaching a one-day trauma writing seminar at Langley Air Force Base. If you’re interested in taking a class, check out The Muse Writing Center’s fall semester offerings.

Also, my friend Bill Glose just published All The Ruined Men, a collection of stories about the lingering cost of war, which was nominated for a Pulitzer! Bill is a poet, a combat veteran, former paratrooper, and gifted storyteller. I met Bill about five years ago at a poetry reading and he’s been a consistent source of encouragement and connection for so many writers in our area. His words are a haunting caress to the war-torn world. If you’re drawn to war stories or just impeccable writing, read this book! Also, here's an essay he wrote for Literary Hub: After Combat, Writing the Horrific Stories of War

I hope you all enjoy the last drops of summer! See you on the other side of the cicadas.