via (vii of swords)
Infertility
I have the same
emotional response to it as a
hundred million other women.
Nothing so dramatic as a
miscarriage, my infertility is subtle,
masks itself in bodily quirks like my
urine never having enough LH to
mark the pee stick in
double pink lines; quirks like
pains at the wrong times, or my
body’s refusal to make an
egg on time, or at all. Quirks like
my already compromised thyroid under
attack again. Every
invasive procedure, they
stick things up your vagina in some
sick, consensual form of rape where
you desperately need this
child, and so you endure it.
Every
period like a thousand deaths of every child I imagined from
infancy to adulthood, a hundred thousand potential
people I might have gestated–
all killed in a whirlwind of cramps and a sea of blood.
(thoughts on memorial day, 2018)
read a lot
When I was about 11 or 12 I think I must have said something about how I wanted to be a writer; I don’t remember having any such aspiration until much, much later. But I must have said something, because Lucy [my governess] wrote to Somerset Maugham and said that she was governess to a little girl who wanted to be a writer and what would Mr Maugham suggest? Heaven knows how she managed to write to him – I suppose care of the publishers. He wrote a very nice letter back saying absolutely the right thing: “If your little girl is interested in writing then the best thing she can do is read a lot.” Perfect answer; exactly what I’d say myself.
Penelope Lively
On writing: authors reveal the secrets of their craft
The Guardian, 26th March 2011
One Last Kiss
If that one last kiss is still
The thing you’d long to give someone
Then give it now before they’re gone.
Give it daily; never be caught out
For never passing on
The one last kiss you’d give
Just because you didn’t know
That’s what it was.
Frieda Hughes
Reading out loud
Keep writing, and read every poem you write, out loud each time you work on it, and through every draft. Reading out loud exposes the weaknesses in poetry – and prose – that our eyes and minds gloss over when we skim through it otherwise. Letters and emails should also be read out loud!
Frieda Hughes
An Interview with Frieda Hughes
The London Magazine 3rd July 2017
our yesterdays
this makes me think of a poem i might have written when i was passionately in love with someone years ago … oh, lost youth
Every time our yesterdays cross paths, tomorrow seems so much better.
The smile that graces my face always manages to catch me off guard,
As though I’m still surprised by my body’s reaction to you.
Though I should know better by now because no other has made me feel like you do.
Always need to have your way when it comes to me
Why can’t I seem to say no to you?
Heaven help me, but this love seems too much to handle,
Because ever kiss pulls me deeper, every touch intoxicates me,
Making my mind hazy and ready,
I’ve lost myself in you, and I’m not sure I want to be found,
Fallin’ in and out our your yesterdays…our forever and always tomorrows,
Some nights, I can’t believe I call you mine,
And this 3AM love keeps me up well into the night,
Unexpected and still so unsure in…
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I love this poem
write regularly
You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly…Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.
Jennifer Egan
Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do edited by Meredith Maran
(vi of swords)
via (vi of swords)