WRITING GRANTS WRITING POEMS

For the last two weeks, a big chunk of my time has been spent writing: writing poems and writing grant proposals.  There are some similarities: for both, a lot of the writing is in the revision; you seek for a unity and flow in a poem and in a proposal; and for both, years of practice may not make perfect, but they do matter a lot in developing the craft.

On the other hand, they are really different, particularly when it comes to the mind and heart (and even the body) process of creating.  Especially when it relates to outcomes.

When you write a grant proposal, you have to tell what you expect your outcomes to be, the steps you will take to get there, how you will evaluate whether you’ve been successful, not to mention who’s going to do it, when it’s going to get done, how much will it cost, how will you promote it, what data will you collect, et cetera.

When I write a poem—or at least, when I’m at my best and least distracted—I may start with an image, a story, an idea, and I may have an idea of where I want the poem to go.  But woe to me if I insist on the ending or even the path I have in my mind!  When I was just starting to write poems (40 years ago!), I usually had an idea what I wanted the poem to be, to promote, to say.  Thank God, most of the time now, I am more interested in exploring where the poem will go, not deciding where it will go.  There are still a lot of decisions I make in the creative process: word choice, line and stanza breaks, and so on.  But there is more surprise, more gift in my writing when I let go and let things happen as I write. 

Sometimes, that means letting go of some pretty cherished words and lines.  And every now and then—rare, but deliciously rare like a steak—what I cut out or kill in one poem becomes the seed for another.

Much of the first lines of this poem came from a poem I was writing about my father, how the Depression came early to farm country with drought and the despair of the land to provide what families depended on.  I was riffing on the process of nitrogen fixation in the soil, and was enjoying it.  But it really didn’t belong in that poem.  So I took them out, cleaned them up a lit, and started to explore where the poem was leading me.  It wasn’t until I had written almost all of the poem that I saw what it was “about”—or rather who it was “to”: a 6^th grade science class at Hans Christian Andersen United School in Minneapolis, where I taught community gardening two springs ago.  Here’s the risen poem:

TO MY 6^TH GRADE SCIENCE CLASS

At the root, in the dark, in

tandem with rhizome and wish,

bacteria beg nitrogen

from the soil. It is lifted

up the xylem like a psalm:

some days lament, some

days praise.  Seeds die

and stems are born.  Leaflets

appear as wings out of

a chrysalis.  Sun kisses

chloroplasts into sugar,

and the stamen and pistil

bathe in the nectar that

sirens in the bees.  It’s

all done without an eye,

without a brain, and yet

deep in the deep, roots

burrow like moles: ancient

rock has bedded down there,

ancient ice is flowing.  Taste

and see: this tomato, this corn

has been waiting for you.

Be beauty. Be justice. Taste and see.

Patrick

WHOSE TERRORISM DO WE SEE?

After the obligatory gasping stories about how much snow and cold there is (Shocking! During winter, no less!), the first few stories on the CBS Evening News tonight were about terrorism and violence afflicting the world:

- President Obama’s plan to confront ISIS.

- Jeb Bush “breaking” with the two former Bush Presidents about Iraq.

- An inside look at ISIS’s ability to recruit young, disaffected men in many countries, from a reporter and the former number two man at the CIA.

- A report on the “American Sniper” trial, and then another “inside look” at real American snipers.

There is no doubt that the world is a pretty dangerous place these days: Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, and Palestine, just to name a few.  Plots and foiled plots in Canada, Denmark, France, the U.S. It does seem at times that violence and cruelty are winning.

What was interesting in all the news stories was what wasn’t being said.  No mention of our drone strikes in various countries.  The CIA spook turned terrorism expert—who has resolutely defended our torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo as justified—did not mention that ISIS grew out of the US invasion of Iraq, and the sectarian war that invasion ignited.  Jeb Bush was quoted on Iraq that saying he would have done a better job of providing security in Iraq after Hussein was overthrown.  What he didn’t say was that he would not have invaded a predominately Muslim country under false pretences. 

All of the stories put violence and terrorism as something others do, and that we have to confront.  Nothing about our role in all this.  To me, the most chilling was the report on “our” snipers, who can hit a “target” (that is, human being) from miles away, without being seen.  This may not be the exact quote about the effect on those being sniped, but it’s pretty close:

“When you have no idea where the shot just came from, and you see someone around your drop, that sends a very strong message.”

That message, of course, is terror: we can do to you what we just did to the person next to you. We killed him, and we can do that to you whenever we want.

The problem of terror and violence is real, and we need to confront it.  But as long as we see it only as something other nations and other groups do, and not see how our actions and those of our allies (including horrible regimes like Saudi Arabia) are part of it, we’re not likely to see it diminishing.   I don’t have an easy, or even a complicated solution to offer. I do know that seeing the truth, and telling it have to be at the foundation.

I just placed ashes on beloved parishioners’ foreheads, and reminded them of our mortality and the promise of resurrection beyond that.  Then my wife placed the same ashes on me.  I know the violence that lives in my heart, and I know how easy that is to come out in words, and in judgment of other people.  Confessing that in the presence of others is not the end of it, but I pray that it can be a beginning.

Be justice. Be beauty.  Be honest.

Patrick