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Radio Spotlight: The Writers at Harwood Place on
A Space for Poetry

A few months ago, James Roberts made an early morning drive from Madison, Wisconsin to spend an hour with the writers at Harwood Place. He had been there before as a visiting poet but returned this time as interviewer and Radio Host of A Space for Poetry. His radio show airs every other Friday on WWMV (95.5) in Madison, and you can listen to the archives on Soundcloud.com (just search “A Space for Poetry”).

Many thanks to James, who shined a light via the airwaves on the poets and writers at Harwood Place. You’ve read me go on and on about their good work. Now, you can listen to them read a few of their pieces out loud by clicking the play button below.

Some of my favorites: “Thoughts After Hearing a Poet Speak” (Betty Sydow), “An Experience with Color” (Richard Borchers), and Chuck Mortiz’s “An Ode to Christi Craig”…. (Hey, that’s me!)

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#CaringForCommunity: Waiting

#CaringForCommunity is a blog series that spotlights the work of writers, artists, or your next-door neighbors who, without being asked and without pay, carry the light in simple but meaningful ways. These are people giving back in order to lift others up. Real life examples of compassion, concern, and inspiration. In today’s post, the story is personal.

Post-book launch with authors Carolou and Val.

A lot can happen in a day, like you wake up still beaming from an excellent book launch; you move into your last few hours of work before summer break; and you scribble a to-do/to-take list for your upcoming writing retreat out of town. You’ve been going going going and doing and worrying (which is what you do best, unfortunately). And you ignore that thing pressing at your back–literally, a pressing of pain–until it moves to the front and your sister-in-law lovingly reminds you that “at your age” you ought to check that out. Especially before you leave town. So you do. That day. And you come to find out you’ve got shingles.

A lot can happen from there, like the sleepless nights and the tell-tale rash and the unfathomable pain until (finally) relief, and by some miracle (meds, the bed, the nurturing from family–all of the above), you do make it to your writing retreat, which turns out to be respite in more ways than one.

You meet a roomful of women (a few men, too, whom you appreciate as well, but it’s the women) who pull you back into balance. Gentle voices and knowing eyes and honest, light-hearted conversation about the process of writing and living and living with writing. Throughout the whole week, you are surrounded by these women, flooded with quiet moments, and nudged with reminders To Just Be.

One woman in particular speaks to you from across the lunch table–the one place where it’s never quiet. You strain to hear her, leaning across your bowl of beef broth soup and plate of noodles dressed in bright, red tomato sauce. Never mind if you get some on your shirt, what she’s saying is important.

She’s talking about waiting.

Waiting for the story.
Listening for the characters.
Being still.

Later, she gives you an article on just that, “When Writing is Actually About Waiting.” The margins of her copy are filled with her handwritten thoughts about waiting and her own personal journey into story. But she doesn’t hesitate to share, to pass on the wisdom gained: it’s in sharing where we fully understand, connect, grow.

And it’s in this article where you read the words you most need to hear:

You can find peace within that. In the waiting.

In the listening. In being still.

. . .

Just what your body has been trying to tell you.

So you take to her message. You take walks, you take naps, you take your pen and paper into town and you sit.

And wait.

And listen.

And gather the story.

Waiting, with sustenance.

 

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#FamilyStories Meet the Author: Margaret Krell

This post is part of an interview series featuring the authors of Family Stories from the Attic, an anthology of essays, creative nonfiction, and poetry inspired by family letters, objects, and archives. Monday posts are featured on the Hidden Timber Books website, and Wednesday posts are featured here. Learn more about Family Stories from the Attic at the bottom of this post. Without further ado, let’s meet Margaret Krell, author of “Tracing My Father’s Admonition.”

Margaret Krell

Q: How has the publication of your piece influenced the work you are writing today or your writing in general?

Margaret: I like this question, because its optimism assumes the author will write. After I graduated from the Solstice program at the age of 70, I hardly wrote, probably closer to the truth, I didn’t write at all. When I started working on my piece for Family Stories from the Attic, I welcomed Christi’s thoughtful editing, but even more valuable to me was the ensuing dialogue. The dialogue with Christi nurtured and gave me confidence in what I knew and what I could do. In fact so much so that post publication, I set a writing goal for myself for the year: to complete two additional personal essays, both about my mother, whose reluctance to engage the past kept her walking a tight rope of guardedness, keeping her distant from me. One of these essays revolves around silence and obedience, and the unexpressed need to speak and to engage, which, then as a child and still as an adult, I seek in order to be and to write.

Q: What is a fun, interesting, or unusual fact to share with your readers?

Margaret: Strange as it may seem with what I have written in Family Stories from the Attic, a writer friend of mine once described me as a “woman with a hearty laugh full of mirth.” I must admit I do love whimsy, irony, turning a topic on its head and of course, punning, attributes learned from my father, too.

Related to this, I enjoy chewing the fat, especially over a hearty meal. However, my housekeeping, as my mother once described it, is ‘creative,’ a euphemism I fear, for things tossed “artfully” (?) about. So to reconcile my need to entertain with my less than adequate housekeeping, I host a potluck once a month at the UU parish house just down the street. For a full hour before the evening program, 10-14 of us fit, just right, around one substantial oak table prettied up with fresh flowers. There are no rules about cell-phones, but in that time of breaking bread, none rings. We have come to know each other so well, we have begun to tease each other and often have one conversation among the dozen or so of us there as if we were family.

All in all, I experience the world the old fashioned way: I prefer listening to a story on radio to watching it on TV. I prefer telephone to Twitter, though in my book, in person is best. I admire crafts and artistic endeavors, things made by hand, though I wish my hands would flex more to give some a try — but I must admit, even when they could, my nature is to become impatient with dropped and tiny stitches. I love theatre and chamber music, and at one time I was a pretty decent pianist. I still have my piano, and on days I receive good news, I play.

In the photo on the right, that’s my 13 year old Maltese, Toby, or as he would be apt to put it, I’m his 73 year old human.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Family Stories from the Attic features nearly two dozen works of prose and poetry inspired by letters, diaries, photographs, and other family papers and artifacts. Editors Christi Craig and Lisa Rivero bring together both experienced and new writers who share their stories in ways that reflect universal themes of time, history, family, love, and change.

Available now from Boswell Book Company, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.