The Voices I Take With Me
On curating inspiration for a 3-day writing retreat
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
When you read this, I will just be finishing a three-day writing retreat. A writer friend (like me, a writer-mom-professional) suggested this sprint as a gift to ourselves for surviving another turbulent holiday season.
These opportunities don’t come often, so I know I’ve got to conjure a productive mindset fast. To that end, I’ll do my usual—pack a small library’s worth of inspiration. (During college, I used to travel between coasts with one suitcase for clothes and another stuffed with books. I’ll never stop overpacking books.)
Still, how to choose? As I shuffle through my teetering book piles, I’m asking:
Does this move me lyrically? Spark associative thinking? Make me feel “physically as if the top of my head were taken off”?
Will it fortify my resolve to hold on to what’s essential in my current work?
Right now, I’m revising poems for a manuscript that meditates on ecological change and ambiguous loss, the physics of light, and mothering. I’m also considering:
Does it relate, topic-wise, to the manuscript?
What made it into the duffel bag …
For lyric inspiration:
Selected poems of Tomas Tranströmer
Alfred Corn’s new translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies
Recent collections: Douglas Kearney Sho, Diane Suess Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, Forrest Gander Twice Alive, Carol Moldaw Beauty Refracted, and James Richardson For Now
Audio book: Carolyn Forché, In the Lateness of the World
For excellence and artistic resolve:
Between the Covers (podcast). I’ve saved interviews with Jorie Graham, Arthur Sze, Forrest Gander, and Douglas Kearney for re-listening
The Danish poet/writer Tove Ditlevsen’s memoirs
Related to manuscript themes:
Audio book: Frank Wilczek A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design (physics)
It would take weeks to actually read or listen to everything here, and I won’t try. But I want them with me now—and throughout the revision process—for what their presences might spark, even subconsciously.