Thank you, Josh. I loved your latest collection of haiku. Japanese poetry is something I aspire to, but I know it is a very long patient craft to learn. I find it very hard to get out of my own way.
Yeah, I think I don’t quite have it right tbh. I think the art of the Japanese script really helps somehow. The contrast in Basho’s lines, even in English, just feel so delicately perfectly placed.
But, if we don’t try, we won’t make any progress!
Have you tried a “burning haibun?” It’s the same with one extra step. You take your paragraph, make an erasure poem, then make a haiku from that.
I really like what you did here, but if you write a longer one-shot piece, consider the burning haibun!
Your hunkering has given you time and space for resting and dreaming. I think that's so important. I hope spring will bring a wave of creative goodness and new energy for you.
Thank you so much for the “circular timeline”detailing your process! It’s been enjoyable and inspiring to tag along on your journeys….and hard to believe we’ve spiraled around that many seasons since the beginning!
Thank you, Cathy. I appreciate your reading. It's always a thousand tiny things that work together to wake up a new idea for us, isn't it? It was a key moment when I started thinking about times as circular and spiraling rather than a straight line.
I think one of the tricks to intentional living within seasons is that there's no TED talk that provides fulfilling bullet points; it can only come out of personal introspection, growing our knowledge of the local and forging better connections to the living things that still adhere to those cycles. It's hard business!
Well done for following your intuition! (I wish I could say I spent my pandemic time more wisely; all I can say for myself is that I effectively prevented myself from going entirely crazy.) I'm continually working on my own kind of liturgical calendar and I'm just now having enough to compare to previous years. I'm very glad I started but wish I had done so far sooner.
I love hearing this! But honestly, James, I think you're doing deeper work than you realize with your storytelling. And it's exciting to see you really leaning into that. It's so good to listen to where your energy naturally pulls you. If you can nerd-out endlessly in a certain direction...if it keeps you up at night...that's probably your calling.
I think you're right about how to listen to where our efforts should go. Self-doubt can sure make things noisy, so I have to thank you, too, for the encouragement.
Ann, I really like this post. You are so discerning of things hidden. Your thoughts in early covid and the daffodil on snow felt like the season coming, and were beautiful and sad.
I am drawn toward rhythms as your microseason calendar but my impulsivity tends to siderail me. Thanks for this gentle reminder to fall into those small seasons with wonder.
Ron, you always read with so much true care and attention. I'm so grateful for you. Yes, looking back now on those early pandemic months, we could have never imagined what we were all going to have to do. It's quite humbling to still be here together.
Yes, this feels like a masterclass in composition, creativity, attention, and love. There is so much packed into these images and words. True icons, windows into other worlds. I am humbled by your work, Ann. 💙
Thank you for telling me, Kortney. I'm grateful that you found something here to spark your own work. In fact, earlier today, I was looking through some files from the past 2 years, and I came upon your abecedarian poem of the microseasons. I found myself rereading and loving it all over again. Did you take the prose poem class yet? I'm very interested to hear your opinion of the experience and the writing that resulted. Oh, and if the time is getting close for your new poetry collection to be published, I would *love* to order it. Please keep me posted.
Oh the prose poetry class was surprisingly fruitful! New poems and a way through revision of some older pieces that I didn't know what to do with. Prose poems, and their close haibun cousins, feel like a good tool to have in the tool box.
The new book is running behind schedule. Two members of the small press team went on maternity leave in the past 6 months. So there's a bit of backlog before my book. So, I'm in a holding pattern for now, without a new publication date. Thank you for remembering and for reading.
Sorry to hear of the delay, but on the flip side, that's the beauty of working with a craft publisher, who works very personally and in small batches. When it's time publish your book, it will be so lovely. 💛
Glad you found the class useful. I feel like I have so much to learn--what a joy, though. I was just listening to the editor of a poetry journal discussing how the haiku is the most important part of a haibun. And the prose poem can be such an interesting block of text. Seems like a divisive topic for poets, sometimes--those for and those against :-)
This is such a joy to read Ann, thank you. I am letting myself be surprised and uplifted by the “glass rectangles in our pockets” this year.
Noticing the smallest things, rooting deeper into place, feels more important than ever as new winds circle and pull at us.
I like your description too of how creative ideas form - as a flocculation of thoughts. They rarely settle complete, but are stirred up and reformed in the shadows of each thing we try.
Michela, I wholeheartedly agree on the benefits of rooting deeper. Our phones can be a wonder-tool if we use them in that way. I was truly curious to try and recall, as closely as I could, the "moment" when the ideas started to form a confluence in my heart. I would never have remembered the snow, the quiet house, and myself struggling to piece an idea together without the photos and the timestamps to show me. I actually took a slow-motion video of the snow falling the evening before and I swear it looks to me, now, like beautiful ideas falling from the sky. 🤍
This is so inspiring…and quieting. Your microseasons are a necessary slowing down in this frantic world. As I read this, I found myself fantasizing about you creating a calendar “workbook” that I could buy from you, a template to deepen into my own micro seasons, both the ones here in the PNW but also my inner landscape. It would be beautiful to see how they overlap and speak to one another.
"There is a freshness that comes when two things exist together in an unexpected way. That moment felt like a new season for which I had no name." 🩵❄️💚🌿💛
I loved reading about how it all began for you, Ann. Your steady and calm presence here is such a beacon for those of us with a more scattered approach!
Your approach has made way for so much poetry to speak, Conny. Your way is perfect. And you should see my kitchen when I cook. I’m not sure if chaos is part of the joy of cooking for me—or do I just like to clean up afterward...there is something good about that, too. Much love to you 💛
The game, for me, is observation and inference: how much can you read from gestures, rhythms, habits, and how much of that reading is projection. It ends up saying as much about the observer as the observed. And then there’s the final loop, wondering what, if anything, the other person is inferring about you. Being inside your own head while that machinery is running, hearing the whirring and clicking of assumptions in real time, is half the experience. - Jaap Stijl
Lovely to get a view into your creative process like this, Ann. I think the microseasons work as a way to honor the here and now. (I also happen to love that painting of John the Baptist, by Da Vinci, btw.)
My Substack, in a way, is cartoonishly formulaic, and it may seem like a counterintuitive approach from the poetic perspective. But, to me, it is paradoxically also what I find unexpected about it -- the commitment to one thing. And, within that one thing, I get to do so many things -- and evolve my relationship with it along the way.
Hasse, I see in your work a devotion to others. Every poem you write is crafted as a container to hold that person’s greatest love & fear. Your willingness to do this is a great generosity. And to do it simply is a great discipline. I love that you are awake to the gift of it in your own life.
(And yea that painting—the expression on John’s face. I love it too.)
As always Ann, I have drifted contentedly through your essay with a smile and much nodding agreement; those “glass rectangles in our pockets” have become hugely important—perhaps more so than they should have - a whole different topic—in transporting us, reminding us... in many ways I feel fortunate to live in an age where such magic is possible, imagine carrying that many journals or photo albums in our pockets!
"I want to have a comforting expectation of what’s going to happen in my life, and yet I still want to be awed by what unfolds" Yes Yes Yes! And yet, I feel guilt in even knowing such comforts, so many live with the reverse .
Thank you for sharing your collages, I read your link to the butterfly too - so tender, so beautiful xoxo
Oh these little screens… we’re always trying to find a balance, aren’t we? To be able to save the tiniest moments—precious fragments of our lives—it is a miracle. I especially love the way you do this with so much wonder, joy and humility. In our age of false divisions of every sort, your work has a way of bringing everyone together in the tenderest way. Small portraits of the animals, the land, a single day. Thank you for staying true to it, Susie 💛 xoxo
Thank you for noticing small details and for your encouragement when recent events in the world have lain so heavily on my conscience I have been reluctant to to look, never mind write of them dear Ann 💞
I really like the haibun form and this was such a nice journal of them!
Thank you, Josh. I loved your latest collection of haiku. Japanese poetry is something I aspire to, but I know it is a very long patient craft to learn. I find it very hard to get out of my own way.
Yeah, I think I don’t quite have it right tbh. I think the art of the Japanese script really helps somehow. The contrast in Basho’s lines, even in English, just feel so delicately perfectly placed.
But, if we don’t try, we won’t make any progress!
Have you tried a “burning haibun?” It’s the same with one extra step. You take your paragraph, make an erasure poem, then make a haiku from that.
I really like what you did here, but if you write a longer one-shot piece, consider the burning haibun!
"To stay creatively alive, I think we have to keep surprising ourselves. We have to resist the urge to be too nailed down and formulaic."
I've hunkered down this winter and feel I need to change my routine. Thank you for sharing this post, Ann. And thank you for sharing the collages.
Your hunkering has given you time and space for resting and dreaming. I think that's so important. I hope spring will bring a wave of creative goodness and new energy for you.
Thank you so much for the “circular timeline”detailing your process! It’s been enjoyable and inspiring to tag along on your journeys….and hard to believe we’ve spiraled around that many seasons since the beginning!
I’m grateful for your patient observations.
Thank you, Cathy. I appreciate your reading. It's always a thousand tiny things that work together to wake up a new idea for us, isn't it? It was a key moment when I started thinking about times as circular and spiraling rather than a straight line.
I really enjoy the image of you sitting in your brown chair, reading as the snow falls.
The last image of the book (?) takes my breath away.
Please continue to notice the micro Ann.
Thank you for your eye for beauty, Teyani! That matters very much to me. 💛
I think one of the tricks to intentional living within seasons is that there's no TED talk that provides fulfilling bullet points; it can only come out of personal introspection, growing our knowledge of the local and forging better connections to the living things that still adhere to those cycles. It's hard business!
Well done for following your intuition! (I wish I could say I spent my pandemic time more wisely; all I can say for myself is that I effectively prevented myself from going entirely crazy.) I'm continually working on my own kind of liturgical calendar and I'm just now having enough to compare to previous years. I'm very glad I started but wish I had done so far sooner.
I love hearing this! But honestly, James, I think you're doing deeper work than you realize with your storytelling. And it's exciting to see you really leaning into that. It's so good to listen to where your energy naturally pulls you. If you can nerd-out endlessly in a certain direction...if it keeps you up at night...that's probably your calling.
I think you're right about how to listen to where our efforts should go. Self-doubt can sure make things noisy, so I have to thank you, too, for the encouragement.
Ann, I really like this post. You are so discerning of things hidden. Your thoughts in early covid and the daffodil on snow felt like the season coming, and were beautiful and sad.
I am drawn toward rhythms as your microseason calendar but my impulsivity tends to siderail me. Thanks for this gentle reminder to fall into those small seasons with wonder.
Ron, you always read with so much true care and attention. I'm so grateful for you. Yes, looking back now on those early pandemic months, we could have never imagined what we were all going to have to do. It's quite humbling to still be here together.
Beautifully thought out and shared with us Ann. Love this post💛
Thank you, Shital. I feel like you and I share a similar sense of awe. I love that we both see the wonder and beauty of every "ordinary" day. 💛
Yes, this feels like a masterclass in composition, creativity, attention, and love. There is so much packed into these images and words. True icons, windows into other worlds. I am humbled by your work, Ann. 💙
Thank you for telling me, Kortney. I'm grateful that you found something here to spark your own work. In fact, earlier today, I was looking through some files from the past 2 years, and I came upon your abecedarian poem of the microseasons. I found myself rereading and loving it all over again. Did you take the prose poem class yet? I'm very interested to hear your opinion of the experience and the writing that resulted. Oh, and if the time is getting close for your new poetry collection to be published, I would *love* to order it. Please keep me posted.
Oh the prose poetry class was surprisingly fruitful! New poems and a way through revision of some older pieces that I didn't know what to do with. Prose poems, and their close haibun cousins, feel like a good tool to have in the tool box.
The new book is running behind schedule. Two members of the small press team went on maternity leave in the past 6 months. So there's a bit of backlog before my book. So, I'm in a holding pattern for now, without a new publication date. Thank you for remembering and for reading.
Sorry to hear of the delay, but on the flip side, that's the beauty of working with a craft publisher, who works very personally and in small batches. When it's time publish your book, it will be so lovely. 💛
Glad you found the class useful. I feel like I have so much to learn--what a joy, though. I was just listening to the editor of a poetry journal discussing how the haiku is the most important part of a haibun. And the prose poem can be such an interesting block of text. Seems like a divisive topic for poets, sometimes--those for and those against :-)
Thank you for helping me to see the delay more charitably. It really is a wonderful gift to work with a publisher that makes space for life.
This is such a joy to read Ann, thank you. I am letting myself be surprised and uplifted by the “glass rectangles in our pockets” this year.
Noticing the smallest things, rooting deeper into place, feels more important than ever as new winds circle and pull at us.
I like your description too of how creative ideas form - as a flocculation of thoughts. They rarely settle complete, but are stirred up and reformed in the shadows of each thing we try.
Michela, I wholeheartedly agree on the benefits of rooting deeper. Our phones can be a wonder-tool if we use them in that way. I was truly curious to try and recall, as closely as I could, the "moment" when the ideas started to form a confluence in my heart. I would never have remembered the snow, the quiet house, and myself struggling to piece an idea together without the photos and the timestamps to show me. I actually took a slow-motion video of the snow falling the evening before and I swear it looks to me, now, like beautiful ideas falling from the sky. 🤍
Love this origin story.
Thank you, MK. The way ideas arrive...on snowflakes...is a beautiful mystery.
Thank you, Ann. Just beautiful.
Thank you for reading dear one 🕊️💛
This is so inspiring…and quieting. Your microseasons are a necessary slowing down in this frantic world. As I read this, I found myself fantasizing about you creating a calendar “workbook” that I could buy from you, a template to deepen into my own micro seasons, both the ones here in the PNW but also my inner landscape. It would be beautiful to see how they overlap and speak to one another.
Kimberly, that's a very cool idea! It makes all kinds of things bubble-up in my imagination. Thank you!
"There is a freshness that comes when two things exist together in an unexpected way. That moment felt like a new season for which I had no name." 🩵❄️💚🌿💛
Elizabeth, don't you love those moments? Little eggs just ready to hatch into poems 🐣
I loved reading about how it all began for you, Ann. Your steady and calm presence here is such a beacon for those of us with a more scattered approach!
Your approach has made way for so much poetry to speak, Conny. Your way is perfect. And you should see my kitchen when I cook. I’m not sure if chaos is part of the joy of cooking for me—or do I just like to clean up afterward...there is something good about that, too. Much love to you 💛
The game, for me, is observation and inference: how much can you read from gestures, rhythms, habits, and how much of that reading is projection. It ends up saying as much about the observer as the observed. And then there’s the final loop, wondering what, if anything, the other person is inferring about you. Being inside your own head while that machinery is running, hearing the whirring and clicking of assumptions in real time, is half the experience. - Jaap Stijl
Lovely to get a view into your creative process like this, Ann. I think the microseasons work as a way to honor the here and now. (I also happen to love that painting of John the Baptist, by Da Vinci, btw.)
My Substack, in a way, is cartoonishly formulaic, and it may seem like a counterintuitive approach from the poetic perspective. But, to me, it is paradoxically also what I find unexpected about it -- the commitment to one thing. And, within that one thing, I get to do so many things -- and evolve my relationship with it along the way.
Hasse, I see in your work a devotion to others. Every poem you write is crafted as a container to hold that person’s greatest love & fear. Your willingness to do this is a great generosity. And to do it simply is a great discipline. I love that you are awake to the gift of it in your own life.
(And yea that painting—the expression on John’s face. I love it too.)
What lovely words to receive on such a Saturday! I appreciate it, Ann.
💛💛💛
As always Ann, I have drifted contentedly through your essay with a smile and much nodding agreement; those “glass rectangles in our pockets” have become hugely important—perhaps more so than they should have - a whole different topic—in transporting us, reminding us... in many ways I feel fortunate to live in an age where such magic is possible, imagine carrying that many journals or photo albums in our pockets!
"I want to have a comforting expectation of what’s going to happen in my life, and yet I still want to be awed by what unfolds" Yes Yes Yes! And yet, I feel guilt in even knowing such comforts, so many live with the reverse .
Thank you for sharing your collages, I read your link to the butterfly too - so tender, so beautiful xoxo
Oh these little screens… we’re always trying to find a balance, aren’t we? To be able to save the tiniest moments—precious fragments of our lives—it is a miracle. I especially love the way you do this with so much wonder, joy and humility. In our age of false divisions of every sort, your work has a way of bringing everyone together in the tenderest way. Small portraits of the animals, the land, a single day. Thank you for staying true to it, Susie 💛 xoxo
Thank you for noticing small details and for your encouragement when recent events in the world have lain so heavily on my conscience I have been reluctant to to look, never mind write of them dear Ann 💞