Poets on Prozac

This book gripped me: Poets on Prozac, edited by Richard M. Berlin, a set of essays by various poets on Mental Illness, Treatment and the Creative Process. I checked it out of the library because it's what came up when I searched for work by Denise Duhamel, who judged the 2019 Patricia Dobler Award. She's a poet I have admired for many years when I encountered her work in journals, and now I have also acquired some of her recent books of poetry, all as "homework" for when I get to meet her in April at a reading, as this year I actually won the contest! I have entered in previous years and also recommended this contest to other eligible writers--women over forty who have not yet published a full-length book of poems. Chapbooks are OK. If you qualify, consider this another recommendation!

I learned a lot about many things and was delighted to find in this book two of our Escape Into Life poets, Ren Powell and Martha Silano, as well as Chase Twichell, whose book The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, co-edited with Robin Behn, sits on a shelf above my computer, ready to grab when I need a creative push. I used it when I was teaching, and I use it now.

I always love to read about a poet's process, and Poets on Prozac*, has the added interest of how mental illness, whether temporary or permanent, chronic or intermittent, and the treatment or medication for it affects the writing. Excerpts and whole poems are provided in this context, and the authors include mental health professionals who write poems.

*Not everyone was on Prozac, but it was so interesting to see the lists of what people had tried, looking for the right dosage, combination, relief from pain and anxiety. It was hard to put this book down, so I read it with intense concentration, and now, as in Andy and the Lion,  by James Daugherty, it will have to go back to the library!

Paczki

I can neither spell it nor pronounce it without help, but I can eat it! With help. I got a box of 4 paczki in time for the real Fat Tuesday, yesterday, to comfort my sick husband, whose appetite was returning (!), and today I learned about Fat Thursday (last week), a Polish/Polish Chicago tradition. Sadly, I missed timing this post to either of the correct days, even though "Fat Tuesday" is one of the "Eight Days a Week" of this actual blog! We got Bavarian cream paczki, but now I want to try all the flavors mentioned in the WTTW article. Recently, I learned of the many flavors of Kit Kat bars & confections in Japan in an essay in this book, so I want to try those, too. I also heard a nice NPR story on paczki yesterday, and read all the pronunciations on our box from the local grocery-store bakery. Attempting to spell paczki just now, I got Ed Paschke, the Chicago artist of Polish descent, who may well be named, somehow, for the sweet, yes? As Paschke seems like one of the pronunciations on the box, along with Pooch-key. Sigh... It's Wednesday, the Hump of the Week.

Venus Flytrap

Between volleyball matches, at last weekend's intercity tournament and this weekend's invitational tournament, I continued to read Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver, and finished it this morning. I was sensing that one of the characters, Mary Treat, who wrote letters to Charles Darwin and Asa Gray, must be a real person, and she was! A naturalist who has plants and ants named after her! I liked her a lot. In the novel, she lets a Venus flytrap gnaw on her finger.

It was a lovely, busy, birthday week for me. The Poetry is Normal open mic at the library resumed for 2020. Our overall theme this year is life itself, its major events, starting with Birth, and, delightfully, our first date coincided with my actual birthday. People read poems on and mostly-on theme, by themselves or others. I gave away candy and books. Our next theme is Childhood, in April, National Poetry Month.

A lovely child named Dusty is born into grief in Unsheltered and is almost ready to walk right into joy at the end.

And look at this beautiful photo, by Noah Elhardt, of the kind of plant, a sundew, that Mary Treat observed and drew. Watch out. It's eating some damselflies.

Love & Volleyball

Sadly, Russia is the main reader of my blog this weekend. I'm pretty sure that means bots, trolls, attempted election tampering coming up. Because why else would Russia be interested in my poetry/what I am reading blog? I am now reading Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver. So I'm feeling a little unsheltered, thanks to empathy (and Russia). On p. 12 I found this: "Marriages tend to harden like arteries, and she and Iano were more than thirty years into this one. This evening he would come in the door like a blast of warm weather, give her a kiss in the kitchen before changing out of his office clothes, and they'd have no chance to talk before dinner."

It's Valentine's weekend. My husband and I have been married "more than thirty years" (although we tend to forget our anniversary). Yesterday, actual Valentine's Day, he came through the garage-to-kitchen door with a blast of cold weather, gave me a kiss and a volleyball summary, and went to change out of his coach clothes before our lack of dinner, as he had eaten in the coaches' hospitality room, and I had eaten a late lunch after visiting the endodontist, who took a picture of my successful root canal of a year ago. This is our life.

Today, I went to see part of the intercity volleyball tournament--a fantastic setter, both excellent and lackluster playing, a loss by my husband's team. Before his girls played, we watched a couple matches side by side--his team asking, "Coach, who's this?" "Wife," we both replied. (They don't know I'm in the stands for their home games.) When it was time to get ready he reached into his bag for his roster and pulled out my chapbook Spiritual Midwifery. (The cover is based on one of his paintings.)

"Your second poem always makes me cry," he said. The title poem, it's about a baby who died before it's about a baby who lived. "The last time, I couldn't make it past that poem."

"You carry my book in your volleyball bag?"

"Something to read," he said. We both teared up a little in the stands, the ref blowing her whistle. This is our life.

Just Mercy

Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, is such a good book. My sister told me about this book a few years ago, when everyone on her campus read it and brought the author there to speak. It's heartbreaking and makes me want to be an activist for prison reform and against capital punishment, but I imagine there are lawyers and activists like Stevenson and his organization, the Equal Justice Initiative, who are way more qualified and already well into it. So I'll just keep working in smaller ways at the local level toward the kind of community awareness that is needed.

I have not yet seen the movie based on this book, but I have seen the preview! And am eager to see the film and how they've adapted the material, which spans many years and many cases. Such patience! So many complications in the legal and criminal justice system, all clogged up further by racism. And yet the book itself is so clear, moves swiftly, breaks the heart, mends it with compassion.

Our columnist Basel Al-Aswad, whose birthday is today (!), wrote about this book at Escape Into Life. And my book group is reading it and will discuss it later this month.

And we have many valentines for you over at EIL--love poems and bug poems! Happy Valentine's Day.