Making Art out of Shelter in Place
How Amy Irvine co-created a book--and a new friendship--since March
Ever lose track of where you are in your creative project? Sometimes getting lost is just what your project needs you to do … so that the form can emerge.
Preview: Episode 27 with Amy Irvine
Sometimes, the worst of times brings out the best in us. For non-fiction writer and teacher Amy Irvine, the confines of COVID-19 resulted in a new book, Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Place, which she co-wrote with our previous guest, Pam Houston. We talk about how the two met during an epistolary exchange originally inspired in March 2020 by Orion magazine, and also talk about her book Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, in which Irvine both honors Ed Abbey and takes him to task. Both books are examples of how the form insisted on itself and she paid attention—not just in the writing but also in birthing the books. Amazing stories of how to show up with intention and hang on for the ride.
The Joy of Lists
So many of my favorite essays and poems are, at their most basic structural level, just lists. To inspire a listing poem or essay of your own, here’s a list, half an alphabet long, of ideas to get you started:
a) Names that would be better suited to you than your own
b) Things you can’t take with you
c) Apologies I don’t want to make
d) Things that shine
e) Worlds I don’t want to step into
f) Weathers that I wish on my friends or enemies
g) Objects that my parents carried that inspired me
h) Things I am afraid to tell you
i) Things that end
j) Things that shine
k) The things I would plant in a garden for you
l) Foods I will miss when I’m dead
m) Ways to spend a stolen hour
Proxy
The woman who knows what to write
did not show up today. Perhaps she’s gone
hiking amongst the blue larkspur, or
maybe she’s pulling weeds in the garden.
Perhaps she got a job as a counselor or a priest,
or decided to run for political office.
I wish she’d show up again. Sometimes
it’s not easy to face the blank, to believe
there are any words worth writing. Like today,
when I read about how the abandoned fracking wells
are leaking pollutants. How today will be
the first federal execution in seventeen years.
How there are still children at the border
still crying, “¡Mami!” and “¡Papá!”
Perhaps she was simply so sad
that she went to sit in a corner, quietly,
not to forget, but to find the strength to meet it.
Perhaps she is, even now, trying to conjure
the words that might actually make a difference.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
How has COVID-19 sparked your creativity?
How does where you live inspire your creative practice?