During the month of October in 2023, a traditional Meskwaki word-song and two contemporary English poems were submitted to several literary publications for consideration. After half a century of composing new poems diligently and sending them off to people and places unknown, the creative writing regimen is still a complicated, rigorous task. While I once thought age and experience would one day increase my output, realistically that may never happen. At this stage, with the last three manuscripts in-progress, there’s only anticipation for serious editing ahead. And yes, as I’ve dutifully advised myself, it’ll be enough to melt an ice pack placed over the abdomen due to the discomfort of prolonged sitting at this desk. Just like the last time.
So, as I pause to take a deep breath at the capacious but imposing landscape ahead, a familiar question surfaces: why even write anything at all?
My answer might seem unbelievably simple, but it’s the exhilaration experienced upon seeing my second language words printed with dark ink on paper as a font. That seemingly insignificant aspect served as motivation for six books published from 1980 to 2015. While other writers have collections twice that amount or more, I’m grateful for what’s been published thus far.
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My interest in creative writing began the moment I saw my words featured in an Upward Bound mimeo-printed newsletter. It was July 1967 when my first poem was chosen as a feature by the Luther College staff in Decorah, Iowa. As high school students we were summoned to a dining hall to write a one-page personal narrative. The staff explained that sharing our backgrounds was a way to get to know us better. A moment of collective nervousness floated to the ceiling before the sounds of pencils tapping steadily over the long tables began. Whereas everyone was engaged to the task, I was in a veritable quandary.
So, with a hundred students writing nearby, I sat for several minutes, mulling over which words would best describe my life. Primed with the standard 5-Ws as composition guides, I suddenly felt alone. Then, while gazing through the large picture windows, a distant valley of rocky hills and cliffs provided inspiration. A dramatic wintry scene, with characters, was formed with words in a flowing manner. Here, uncertain as to whether I could even complete one page, a story was submitted instead. While some sentences stopped in mid-thought halfway across the page, like poetry, it was unintentional. All I kept thinking was, please let’s just get this done.
Later, when the college staff gave this 16-year-old a newsletter that included his “poem,” the semi-glossy paper and the sharp fragrance of mimeograph ink left a formidable impression. Moreover, it didn’t matter how I got there. That singular event, with sight and smell as sensory vehicles, bolstered my interest with poetry. A year later, when a poem was published in Idea Exchange, an educational newsletter, it was displayed at South Tama Community High School. In 1969, the year I graduated, the Iowa Poetry Association published another poem. That fall, in California, when the third publication in The Phoenix arrived as a paperback, the decision to write poetry was affirmed regardless of how far it took me. By then, perhaps as a buffer against west coast culture shock, I was inextricably hooked. In retrospect, while my dining hall composition was done as a short-cut, it was used as encouragement. And it was pedagogically effective.
Two Times (1970)
two times i’ve seen
the great water and where
the land comes to an end,
where the standing spot
bends to the sky,
where the bird’s wings
shaped the last cliff.
two times i remember
seeing and touching stones
on the sand beside the lifeless
flesh of seals.
two times i stood apart
from the shell gatherer
and unwrapped from the green cloth,
from its tiny leather knots,
my offering to the water door
of the deity who rode
the spiderweb.
two times, my grandmother’s
white hair. two times,
the grey waves of the ocean
brought the muskrat
and the newly found earth
together.
At this writing, a half century has passed and the challenge to create literature continues. From the moment inspiration hits to the first draft and then publication, a poem receives the best second language editing possible. And since different poetry-writing styles and phases are adopted and adapted, from Haikus to experimental and dream-based poetry to long narratives, the learning process is virtually never-ending.
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After a near-lifelong endeavor, is there still “exhilaration” at first sight of my newly published work? Yes, in cascading amounts, all of which leads to artistic contentment. Arguably, there’s nothing more gratifying than opening a box of your own books. In an era where people are reading less but consider themselves well-versed about the world, few know the catharsis of holding a 441-page paperback of your collected work. It’s enough to make me forget, if only for a few precious moments, the dark foreboding alleys of Hinterland, Iowa, in America.
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Long ago, while sitting on a hillside under the stars, I’d wish for a miracle that’d somehow make creative writing more tolerant of my second language pursuits, making the process less conflicting and therefore amenable. Of course, no help ever materialized, but the meticulous attention given to work revealed those aspirations were realized. Essentially, since final manuscript revisions were often done to near-obsessive levels, the physical and emotional toil blurred the fact that improvements had transpired. In a belated state of awareness, I learned that time and patience had been artistically generous.
Some of us write simply because we must. I love the exhilaration at finding that perfect word that will finish a sentence exactly as I imagined it. I love finding the ending of a piece after struggling over it for such a long time. Recently I was so excited just to find the right title of my book. So many reasons to write.
Thank you for sharing these memories, and I am looking forward to reading your current work. I must also face the “imposing landscape” and melt my own ice pack! Thanks for the chuckle about how hard this is! Good winter work, I think....