Hope

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The Blessings of Complicated Grief

September 5, 2009

“No motion has she now, no force; / She neither hears nor sees; / Roll’d round in earth’s diurnal course, / With rocks, and stones, and trees.”

-William Wordsworth, “Lucy”

Knots Yesterday marked the anniversary of the birth and death of a poet-friend’s son. Today we finished packing baby items originally bought for our own son, James, to pass along to our nephew-to-be in Australia. No life is simple. But while most Americans are firing up their grills or caravanning to the beach to enjoy the easy pleasures of a three-day weekend, I find myself sifting through a tangle of thoughts and feelings that seem, well, complex.

The clinical term for a sometimes-debilitating sadness that persists long after the moment of loss is “complicated grief.” The Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide online says that “the disorder is more likely to occur after a death that is traumatic–premature, sudden, violent, or unexpected,” and the Mayo Clinic website cites “risk factors” such as “being unprepared for the death,” and “in the case of a child’s death, the number of remaining children.”

Loss is never simple. However, if I were to try to define a corollary to this condition, called “simple grief,” an illustrative example would be the death of a grandparent who had been sick for some time, and who had lived a long and happy life. Such a loss fits the framework of most cultural beliefs about the natural and acceptable cycles of life and death. The death of a child, or suicide of a loved one, however, do not.

And so, the complication, for me, became existential. Without the agreed-upon societal mythos about life and death to guide me toward resolution, I have had to come to terms with, and make meaning from, this experience anew. A lifetime of spiritual studies taught me that any situation, no matter how intense, could be used to learn and grow. Losing our son, and not being able to have another child, tested this belief intensely.
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By Robert Peake | Posted in Grief Recovery, Insights, Life, Poetry, Spirituality | Also tagged Complicated Grief, William Wordsworth | Comments (5)

Jekyll and Hyde and Publishing

August 27, 2009

“The self that writes may need to be a delicate and protected creature, but the self that submits to magazines ought to be as tough as a rhino’s butt.”

-Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry

Organization is one thing. Discipline is another. The discipline of getting up early before work to write poems has saved my life. However, if I want anyone other than my lovely wife to encounter these poems, I have to submit them to journals and contests. It is far more enticing to just write another poem. Or goof off on Facebook. Or stick needles in my eyes. In short, I’m still working on the sufficient thickness of rhino hide, strategically located and cultivated, to make this a dispassionate process.
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By Robert Peake | Posted in Grief Recovery, Insights, Poetry | Also tagged Christian Wiman, Facebook | Comments (8)

Generativity and Letting Go

August 11, 2009

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

-Joseph Campbell

Recently, we began the process of giving away baby items bought or given to us for our son, James. Since he never came home from the hospital, they remain unused. Several months ago, we moved them out of the shed, into a closet at my parents’ house. But the time has come for another step. We are beginning to pass these items on to friends and family who are becoming parents. We have been unable to have another child, and are not in a position to adopt. And so, in the same gesture of giving that celebrates the new parenthood of people we care about, we also acknowledge it is unlikely that we will raise a child of our own. Neither of us ever thought it would be this way.

Since our young neighbors moved in across the street with their infant and toddler, I have been unable bring myself to exchange more than a passing smile or wave on this otherwise friendly block in our quaint small town. More than two lanes of quiet asphalt stretch between us. As much as I realize, rationally, that I sometimes idealize the hard work of child-rearing, it is tempting still to wish for a different life. And yet, over the past three years, I have had the opportunity to face down some of the deepest questions about my life, and how I must make meaning in it anew.

Perhaps a branch of my family tree will end with my name on it. But I have not lost the chance to influence my world for the better. Sharing my love of poetry is one way. As I slowly wake from the long dream of grieving, I am sure I will find others. For now, we are taking small steps toward the next crossroads–one bag of diapers, one box of clothes, one bassinet at a time.

By Robert Peake | Posted in Fatherhood, Grief Recovery, Life | Also tagged Generativity, James Valentine Peake | Comments (20)

Mark Doty: Phoenix Aflame

March 18, 2009

“What did you think, that joy / was some slight thing?”

-Mark Doty, “Visitation”

It is now a matter of public record that my company recently laid off 40% of staff. But numbers do not do justice to the sense of loss. Today I rifled through comments written in our software source code management system by ex-members of my programming team. Sprinkled among the technical remarks were little witticisms and the occasional wry geek joke, artifacts of camaraderie among the ash.

I have been cauterizing the wounds of loss with poems–more reading than writing lately, and catch-as-catch-can. I could not have willed my way toward a better book in this challenging time than Mark Doty’s Fire to Fire. Doty captures the fierce and sometimes terrible beauty of life with musical phrasing, stanzaic integrity, and the courage to look and look, deeper and deeper, into the human world. It is from loss that these poems are written, but their trajectory is towards awe–the hope that springs from amazement, the amazement that springs from deep observation, the deep observation that settles in the ashes of loss.

Doty’s carefully-measured stanzas seem to propel his poems like an engine–which is, after all, a series of well-timed explosions. Each little engine links together to drive us into the depths of the poem–be it the shell of a turtle, the smoky glitz of a cross-dressing bar, or the heart of a man care-taking his dying love. Doty is not afraid to hold with the poem until it opens up, frequently busting the page barrier in little epics that never feel watery, or strain to make a point. It is an inner fire he seeks in each poem, heating up line by line and phrase by phrase–his technique a poetic kiln. Thank you, Mark Doty, for firing your ovens, and plying your craft–producing stunning reminders of the beauty that can rise from flame.

By Robert Peake | Posted in Books, Poetry | Also tagged Mark Doty, The Economy, The Phoenix | Comments (8)

Submit! Submit!

November 30, 2008

“Publication–is the Auction / Of the Mind of Man–”

-Emily Dickinson

I must admit I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with sending out poems to awards and periodicals. Actually, that’s not true. It’s more of a hate-hate relationship. The difficulty lies on two fronts: practical and psychological. So, this weekend, determined to let a few more poems from my manuscript finally have a chance at seeing the light of day, I enlisted my wife’s help. She, after all, sees nothing unusual about sending poems she likes to journals with a similar sensibility, and waiting patiently for the reply. After all, they are not her poems.

For me, it’s been a morass of spreadsheets and angst. Though otherwise detail-oriented, I found rounding up the information necessary to send off poems akin to a multivariable calculus exam. You see, the mind-games and doubt have somehow transformed a mildly laborious process into something Kafkaesque. So, making the process simple and methodical has been a key for me to stick with it. Poems, after all, don’t publish themselves.

My process involves maintaining spreadsheets: of poems I have already sent out, when, to whom; and of journals that might like my work. I have recently taken to rating them by the degree to which I think the sensibilities of the periodical might match my own, and by my perception of their reputability. So, then I sort the list (sensibility first, reputability second), and ratchet down one by one, checking submission periods, guidelines, and the number and format of poems to send.

For choosing the poems, I pick from a folder on my computer of poems I both think are done, and are worth publishing. I have a a single, huge document full of continuous writing, and a separate folder with individual files of single poems from that document with which I would like to tinker before declaring them done. Once done, if they’re good, they make it either to a place I call “fossils” (i.e. stuff I might mine later, but not worth publishing) or the to-publish folder I mentioned above. Once the to-publish folder starts looking really full, a combined sense of guilt and duty prompts me to submit a few poems.

This is my method. I have tried to make it as simple as possible so that, like the tasks assigned to astronauts waddling through the vacuum of space, the procedures are so methodical and well-rehearsed that I can execute them even when gazing into the yawning black void. I’d love to know what other people do, what works–both practically and psychologically–to keep putting work out there for consideration. Do you view it as a necessary evil? A pleasant delight? Do you have some other system that really works?

Like it or not, in the end, sending out poems is a part of the process. Making that process bonehead-simple, and doing it even (sometimes especially) when I would rather, instead, be writing a new poem or, better yet, wasting time on Facebook, is an exercise in detachment, perseverance, and yes, you guessed it, continuing to hope.

By Robert Peake | Posted in Insights, Poetry | Also tagged Facebook, Writing Techniques | Comments (12)

Poetry and the Economy

November 19, 2008

The Economy I had the poignant duty of sending out the email newsletter announcement last night that the 2009 Ojai Poetry Festival has been cancelled. The current financial situation has affected our founders, our prospective donors, and our hopes for ticket sales considerably. So, the committee is conserving its resources in hopes of reviving the festival in 2011. Having already sent hundreds of emails and made numerous updates to the website in anticipation of such a great lineup, I am, needless to say, disappointed.

And yet, I am heartened by the absolute flurry of poetry events passing through in recent weeks. A small but formidable group of women poets are hosting a reading in a beautiful backyard just around the corner from me. The names of two fellow students from long ago found their way to me in announcements of their separate readings. Others seem to be driving up and down the California coast reading poems associated with their recent prize, or book, or just because there seems to be a hungry market for poetry right now.

In some cases, the marketplace of poetry does intersect with the financial marketplace. Those poets who have managed to in some way cobble together a lifestyle of writing and teaching poetry are likely influenced by the recent economic downturn. Yet there exists a separate marketplace for poetry wherein supply can be measured in willing voices, and demand in eager ears. This marketplace seems to work almost inversely to the financial marketplace, in that difficult times bring us back to the necessity of art.

Writing poems is, in many senses of the word, “free.” And during times when it can be difficult to be generous materially, opportunities to be generous with one’s time and creativity seem to represent an outlet for hope. Attending readings, buying and borrowing books of poems, is generally inexpensive. Yet the payoff is significant. From a small investment of time, an enrichment of perception. Therefore, as the stock markets, and other markets, continue to rattle and roll, I say let us all invest our human currency–in reading, writing, and listening to great poems.