The bad news: I am no longer in France. I know you’re weeping for poor privileged me—try to keep that under control. The other bit of tough luck, about which you may feel genuinely sympathetic: my one-year stint as acting Department Head of English has officially begun. My last term, from 2007-2010, was deeply demoralizing, but this time I have a supportive dean and a briefer sentence, so I’m not too worried. I hope I will not be punished for this blitheness. (“Blitheness” in me translates, by the way, to “slight apprehension only.”)
So we staggered home Tuesday night after only the mildest travel mishaps. With typical Gavalerian efficiency, the mail was sorted and the luggage emptied before we hit those cushy, much-missed mattresses. I had too much jetlag and administrative email to get much done on Wednesday besides hitting the farmer’s market and arranging Bretagne seashells on my office windowsill, but I did look over three poems I had drafted in France. By Thursday, I began working hard on the sixth chapter of Taking Poetry Personally (they’re short chapters, so this means I’m around the halfway mark). On Friday I read over the first five to get my bearings again and you know, it’s good stuff. I’m still on the fence about when, how, and where to query, but I believe in the project and feel a lot of energy about it.
I’m a regular reader of Jeannine Hall Gailey’s blog about writing, health, and the po-biz, and she had just posted about how those inevitable rejections can hit you hard. Yep. I returned to a few disappointing messages, although the mail also contained contributor copies of two beautiful print magazines: Salamander and Sou’wester, both journals that deserve to be on your reading list. I particularly like the Michelle Boisseau poems that follow mine in Sou’wester. The magazines’ arrival helped cancel out the rejections, even though the Standard Post-Vacation Caloric Austerity Program was aggravating my tired irritability. Plus I’m catching up with friends, and looking forward to a Charlottesville reading next Sunday—there’s plenty of good stuff going down.
I think what lifted me most, though, was writing itself. I forget this all the time, but whenever I’m low I should hit the damn keyboard, and not for social media updates. I was feeling out of sorts this morning, even as I performed Sunday morning rituals I generally treasure: walking downtown for a copy of the Times, drinking pots of chai. Then I read this little piece on motivation. The authors describe how, in their study of West Point cadets, those “with internal motives did better in the military (as evidenced by early promotion recommendations) than did those without internal motives and were also more likely to stay in the military after their five years of mandatory service — unless (and this is the surprising part) they also had strong instrumental motives.” Translated into poetry terms, this would mean that writing from love of the art will bring more success than writing for fame. Further, pure-hearted poets will ALSO be more successful than poets with mixed motivation, meaning those who love the art AND want to achieve attention for it.
I sort of knew this, but it was still helpful to hear. I just need to focus on the pleasure of putting lines and sentences together. When you’re grumpy about the mixed rewards writing brings, shrug it off and get back to the page.
My mood this morning seemed particularly ridiculous because I received an awesome piece of news yesterday. I can’t give specifics until the contracts are sorted, which will take at least a month, and there’s work ahead. But I’ve been on tenterhooks for six months while a publisher I admire was taking a hard look—multiple reader reports, the whole shebang—at my poetry ms, Radioland. On Saturday afternoon I finally received a yes. They’d like me to make some revisions, details pending, but if I’m game to work with them, they intend to publish it, likely in fall 2015.
My spouse teased me for skipping over the basking-in-joy part and going straight to solemnity. Maybe I’ll feel more pleased with myself when I can make the announcement fully. I could be experiencing caution because of editorial negotiations ahead, but I don’t think so—these are very smart editors, and when you don’t receive editorial advice on a long project, that’s a bigger problem, really. I wish they had proposed a slightly earlier date, and I wish I had editorial recommendations in hand immediately, but there’s no real urgency here. And while I don’t know any poets who love the book-promotion process, I’m up for it: I know what it is and why it matters. So why does a book acceptance rattle me?
As I write, I realize my unbounciness is probably due to that paradox described in the Times piece. Whether or not internally-motivated poets are more successfully than the ambitious ones (I’m not convinced military advancement is an exact analogue), I feel sure they’re happier. I’m a lot happier on writing days than on non-writing days. And apparently I’m more cheerful after a good weekday session of paragraph-drafting than I am on a holiday weekend during which I’m offered a book contract. The latter just shifts my attention too much towards instrumental thinking, measuring my achievements rather than immersing myself in the work.
With this revelation in mind, I include a picture of my kids above, taken over my shoulder by my spouse a couple of weeks ago. This was my favorite day of the whole trip. After a morning touring Lascaux II, we emerged into gorgeous weather and headed to a rental shack in Montignac. My daughter chose to kayak solo, the rest of us piled into a canoe, and we headed down la Vézère, past limestone cliffs and Château de Losse and lots of those tall narrow Van Gogh trees, whatever they’re called. I was initially so anxious about tipping over or running into some weird problem but you know, everything was fine. The process of floating along that river was utterly lovely. Who cares where you’re going, or whether you get there on time?
