It’s not that I like rejection. I vacillate between responding well to it or ignoring it or putting it in the appropriate context and then sometimes taking it personally and deciding it’s a sign I’m the biggest loser. Or not even the biggest loser, just a pitiful loser, too pitiful to be the biggest loser.
But I keep putting myself and my writing out there, and that involves A LOT of rejection.
This Sunday, I’m presenting the amalgamation/transformation of rejection from a couple of places–a poetry book competition and a playwriting competition. Both were encouraging, but the answer was no.
I have this idea I’ve been working on since 2021. I write plays and poetry and want my plays to get produced and my poetry to get published. Somehow, in the month before I was set to have a hysterectomy (which coincided with a book competition deadline), I decided I should combine narrative poems written in the voices of particular characters into a play.
Wouldn’t that be cool? I thought and still think, to have a play that works well onstage and a book you could just open up and read the poems in order or randomly or whatever.
I got the manuscript done in time for the deadline, had the surgery, started attending a food behavior class from UW Eating Disorders Clinic, and went back to work, etc. etc. etc.
Since then, I’ve started and finished a lot of other projects (started way more than I’ve finished, if I’m honest). But the play-made-of-poems stayed in my head. It’s called Impelled. Here’s the news release I wrote & the poster I’ve been sharing on social media & putting up various places:
NEWS RELEASE:
There’s a lot of drama—and poetry—in an ordinary day.
Impelled, a new play by Marnie Bullock Dresser, premieres onstage in Spring Green on Sunday, April 27 at the Gard Theater from 2-4, with a staged reading and a talkback. Terry Kerr is the director for the one-act play set on the campus of a formerly-Baptist college. An administrator tries to help a student and a professor is sort of helpful, but under the surface of the everyday, these three characters express a huge range of thoughts and feelings and questions.
The actors for the staged reading are Melinda Van Slyke, Douglas Swenson, and Hannah Jo Anderson, all familiar to audiences in the River Valley and Madison theater scenes.
Marnie has published poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and journalism, and taught English at UW-Richland for more than 30 years.
Impelled is made up entirely of poems. But also jokes, sex, food, and God. By the end of the day, our characters are not just indulging in really good barbecue from a food truck on campus; it’s almost as if they have gathered together for communion.
A grant from River Valley Arts provided the opportunity for table reads, revision, editorial feedback, and the staged reading itself.
Note: due to adult themes and spicy language, the play is not recommended for those under 17.
I’ve been sucking it up and ignoring the awkwardness I always feel when I’m self-promoting. Yesterday I recorded a segment which I think will appear tomorrow morning on WRCO’s “Morning Show,” which you can listen to live or later.
All this is made possible by two things:
retirement means I can spend time not just on writing, but also on follow-through (the thing I struggle with the most, and the thing I found most impossible when I was working full-time).
I got an Artistic Development grant from River Valley Arts, a wonderful organization you should consider supporting.
It’s like growing carrots: on the surface it’s an ordinary day but below you may have giant carrots.
I’m hoping Sunday’s staged reading will lead to more good stuff for Impelled, but even if that’s somehow the end of the line, it’s been an amazing ride to get to work with the poet Rita Mae Reese on editorial feedback, and with Terry Kerr as my director, and three fabulous actors: Melinda Van Slyke, Douglas Swenson, and Hannah Jo Anderson. I asked my cast in an email if they had a word or a sentence they thought of when they thought of Impelled. Hannah said “rhapsody,” which honestly makes me feel rhapsodic, and Doug said “It’s like growing carrots: on the surface it’s an ordinary day but below you may have giant carrots.” And he included a picture, which I think is a good way to end this particular post:
We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of when I wrote a poem every day in April to help raise money for Tupelo Press. I wrote about it here.
I’ve been slow about finishing the odes for some of the local businesses who were nice enough to host my poetry pop-up shop. It’s very much connected to how much interaction I got–on the days when people just kind of smiled nicely and didn’t stop to talk or donate or buy some coasters, I was able to write the ode while I was on site.
But several places people were super interested and talkative, and it was harder to get anything much written. That was good though!
But as always, it’s hard for me to avoid procrastinating. And then when I did sit down to write, I put all kinds of pressure on myself to write A REALLY GOOD ODE.
In any case, I’m getting them done. Here’s one I wrote for The Slowpoke Lounge in Spring Green.
Since it took me so long to finish it, I decided I should make a fabric collage/poetry frame (which was one of my giveaways for people who donated at a certain level last spring). I’d recently organized my fabric stash, so was very glad to find these pieces to use.
More of last spring’s odes and new ones coming soon.
Should I do it again this April? Have pop-up shops & write local odes as thanks for my hosts?
Well, I did it in terms of writing a poem every day in April. I actually wrote 45. You can see them here.
But I haven’t yet met my fundraising goal. I’ve gotten lots of positive comments, so I’m hoping just a few more of those turn into donations. Click here to make a donation. There are thank-you gifts (from me!) for online donations of $25 or more, but even $5 or $10 will help me meet my goal. Tupelo really is a fantastic press, and like William Hurt says in The Big Chill, let’s go out with a bang, not a whimper!
(o.k. so that’s not the scene in the jeep where he says the line, but still.)
Today was my second Poetry Pop-Up Shop & they’re so fun, I may keep doing them even when I’m done raising money for Tupelo Press.
I was at the Spring Green General Store today & wrote an ode. It really has been a special place over the years, and it’s one of the main places people know about if they know about Spring Green:
AN ODE TO THE SPRING GREEN GENERAL STORE
Early spring, the flower boxes have funky tulip whirligigs, birch branches and metal insects on sticks, but soon enough the plantings will stretch up, spill over, glow in the afternoon sun. When people ask directions I tell them it’s the only giant blue building on Albany Street, “You can’t miss it.” And really, you shouldn’t.
There’s a chocolate therapy bar that fulfills its promise but also a chocolate chip cookie bar I love even more.
My favorite pants I ever had I bought there: linen crepe, black, palazzo. Too many amazing shirts to list.
They made a set of directions for the burrito that was safe for my son to eat (so many food allergies!) and posted it several places and this gets at the best reason to go— not just food and clothes and jewelry and toys and honestly the best dish towels you ever saw in your life,
it’s a place you can go for company, for community, for care.
I’d love it if you wanted to make a donation to Tupelo as a way to support a good press, to celebrate National Poetry Month, to pat me on the back, to just say, “hey, I really liked this one.” AND there are thank-you gifts! Click here to donate.
I’m continuing to write at least one poem a day in April, for three reasons: to challenge myself, to network, and to raise money for a truly fabulous publisher, Tupelo Press.
Big thanks to everyone who’s donated so far! I’m up to $255, and I want to raise at least $350 (ideally even more). Click here to make a donation.
Here’s today’s poem, “The Force That Thought The Green Good Night.” (I’m second alphabetically so you do have to scroll down a bit.) I feel like I’ll lose that title when I revise, but I don’t mind being obvious that it’s heavily influenced by Dylan Thomas.
One of the ways I’m drumming up more donations is to do what I’m calling Pop-Up Poetry Shop. Starting tomorrow (W 4/24), I’m going to one local business a day from 11-1. I’ll be writing, answering questions, collecting donations (if people would rather give me cash than donate online) and exchanging SWAG for donations. For these local events, a $5 donation gives you a chance to tell me what should be in the ode I’ll be working on for whatever business I’m at (even if that means you want me to include you as a customer!) The other bits of cool stuff you can get is described in my previous Tupelo 30/30 post.
congratulate me for writing 25 poems in 15 days (I’ve been writing two when I can so I’m picking the one I most want to share, not just the only one I have to share),
wish me luck in writing at least 15 more,
support a truly good press
In recent blog posts, I’ve mentioned books from Tupelo that were important to me, and I’ll do more of that, but I wanted to emphasize they really are a press that works to publish women, LGBTQ folks, poets of color, and many nationalities–all kinds of under-heard voices.
And if all that’s not enough, THERE ARE GIVEAWAYS for making a donation:
For any donation $10 or more, you can send me a writing prompt/request. I’ll put all the requests in a hat and draw one for one poem the last week of April [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $25 donation, I will send you one of four (my choice) COASTER POEMS. One is featured in the SWAG picture. They are printed on 56 pt matte paper and are ACTUAL COASTERS. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $50 donation, you can be the first person I show a 30/30 #2 poem to. 9/10 days so far, I’ve written 2 poems each day so I can choose the one I want to share. I plan to keep that up. If you donate $50, you can send me a couple of dates and I’ll send you one poem from one of those dates. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $75 donation, I will send you a set of four COASTER POEMS. There’s the sweet one about the good side of drinking wine, a kind of melancholy one about the medicinal beauty of coffee, one in the voice of a coaster/lover who’s happy to be used. NOTE: Those three are available for viewing on the 30/30 daily page. THE FOURTH ONE doesn’t appear anywhere other than a coaster yet, and I promise, it’s the best one, in the voice of a coaster/lover who is NOT happy to be used. Just don’t, you know, get clever and get your own coasters printed with my poems. That’s tacky and copyright infringement, and you know–just support a good press! [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $100 donation, I will craft for you a custom/one-of-a-kind quilted, beribboned poem frame for whichever of my 30/30 poems you want to hang up somewhere (or burn like effigy–whatever. For $100 I don’t care).[LIMITED to 5 donations]
For a $300 donation, I will craft a custom sonnet for you. We’ll chat via phone or email and I’ll interview you about what you want, and come up with a sonnet. [LIMITED to 2 donations]
For a $500 donation, you may pick three of the above, regardless of stated limits. [LIMITED to 1 donation]
PROVISOS for all the above–any poem mentioned above is still mine to publish and share as I see fit, and I still have the copyright, including the custom sonnets. When you make a donation, you can write me a note to tell me what prize you want, and how best to reach (mailing address for the physical stuff, etc.) In the event of weirdness or harassment, etc., I reserve the right to cancel a giveaway. But mostly, the stipulation is, I hope you enjoy this as much as I’m enjoying this! Also: a lot of these will get sent along in May because of logistics (especially the ones that require sewing or writing a personalized sonnet!), but my goal is to make sure they’re all sent by the end of May.
The kitten I’m holding watches
the pen move across the page,
nose tracking the same pace as my writing.
She would rather my right hand
spend its time some other way,
petting her, for example.
She’s so small, a runt
(not a kitten any more) and I can
hold her with one arm, steady,
and feel her purring over my heart.
But she keeps wiggling, wanting
all my attention, both of my arms.
Tuuli, the little kitten.
(I was thinking of this Phil Levine poem, “A Theory of Prosody,” as I wrote, as I stopped writing.)
NOTE: she got down by choice after the selfie. I’d have waited to post it online otherwise. NOTE: she’s back. So it’s time to hit publish.
Riding the line between abundance and chaos,
My stupid focus is on lack, lack, lack.
I try gratitude, but follow the switchback
Back toward loud whiny-assedness:
Too much. Too much! There really ought to be less
Except of course when there needs to be much more.
_____
12/8/12
Decisions, decisions. Today we reach the end of a sestet–a little six-line cluster. If we’re going traditional Petrarchan, we’ll push on for a couple more lines to complete the octave (8 lines, if you didn’t know) and THEN shift gears. The rhymes seem to indicate I’m in an octave, not a sestet. I was kind of mis-remembering, forgetting I’d set up “whiny-assedness” to rhyme with “abundance and chaos,” only remembering that “less” rhymed with “ness.” I thought briefly about trying to rhyme with “less” so this could decide to be a sestet.
I’m a little worried that the two less/more lines are too obvious, but I like having them as end words there in the early-middle of the poem.
Well, really, it’s tomorrow’s decision, where to go from here. Just feeling the impendingness of it today.
p.s. I told my husband last night what I was up to with this and he totally got it, how hard it is for me to do this just one line a day, since I often write a sonnet, or most of a sonnet, in the car on the way to work.
Fortunately, this isn’t the only writing I’m doing.
_____
12/7/12
So, no Babe the Blue Ox in the Slough of Despond yet. But there’s time. We’re only five lines in. A whole universe of crap can happen in 9 lines in a sonnet. Right now I’m thinking the next line will begin
Except for when
but I could totally change my mind by tomorrow.
_____
12/6/12
I decided I’d try to write a sonnet over a two-week period (14 days–seemed liked fate), one line a day. Curious if I’ll do it–I’m trying not to anticipate what I might write the next day or later, though it occurred to me this is kind of a version of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which made me think of Paul Bunyan, so they might show up, with Babe in the slough of despond or something. Or not.
Riding the line between abundance and chaos,
My stupid focus is on lack, lack, lack.
I try gratitude, but follow the switchback
Back toward loud whiny-assedness:
Too much. Too much! There really ought to be less
_____
12/7/12
So, no Babe the Blue Ox in the Slough of Despond yet. But there’s time. We’re only five lines in. A whole universe of crap can happen in 9 lines in a sonnet. Right now I’m thinking the next line will begin
Except for when
but I could totally change my mind by tomorrow.
_____
12/6/12
I decided I’d try to write a sonnet over a two-week period (14 days–seemed liked fate), one line a day. Curious if I’ll do it–I’m trying not to anticipate what I might write the next day or later, though it occurred to me this is kind of a version of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which made me think of Paul Bunyan, so they might show up, with Babe in the slough of despond or something. Or not.
I’m happy for and jealous of friends and colleagues who plunge annually into National Novel Writing Month. They post their daily word counts and I pout a little to myself. I tried, two years ago, and felt swamped by the semester toward the end of the month, and gave up.
Now I have friends who are posting about DigiWriMo, and I was tempted, since I’m blogging, to sign up for this, but I resisted.
I’ve had to be brave and sing to myself, “no can do.”
See, my problem has never been finding time to write. My problem has never been lack of output. I’m prolific as all get out.
Profligate, in fact. All those hours, all those drafts, all those poems, warehouses full really. Going to waste in isolation.
What I need is NaFiOnGoProBeYoMoOnMo: National Finish One Goddam Project Before You Move On Month.
So that’s my November–continue working on “Guided Trespass,” a draft of a scholarly chapter for a book on creativity.
But I don’t want to feel utterly deprived, and I won’t. I’m still blogging, and writing poems in the car on the way to work, and here’s my big treat: for every hour I spend researching and writing on “Guided Trespass,” I get to spend an hour working on expanding one of my approximately six billion ten-minute plays into a full-length play.
Because what I need is long-term success, not a good month. Kerry Rockquemore has not only a terrifically cool name, she has terrific advice. In her 2010 piece, “30 Days Until Finals,” she has the following as items on a list–
“Prioritizing your research and writing,” “Developing a consistent daily writing habit,” “Creating support and accountability for your writing.”
It’s that third one that I most need to work on. Later in the list, we also get “understand what is holding you back,” which will maybe make December into UndWhaIsHoYoBacMo.
She finishes with “Releasing yourselves from the need to be Super Professor” and “Developing a spirit of compassion towards yourself as a writer.”
I don’t want to spend a month on either of those goals. I want to spend the rest of my career on the first, and the rest of my life on the latter.
marniere 