You Could Make This Place Beautiful

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

Nonfiction - Memoir

2023

Finished on November 10, 2024

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)

It's easy to see the beginning of things, and harder to see the ends. ~Joan Didion

Publisher's Blurb:

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.

I am out with lanterns, looking for myself. ~Emily Dickinson

I loved this book. However, it's brutally honest, and as Smith reveals the demise of her marriage, those who have faced similar scenarios may find it a difficult read. And yet, this new-to-me poet writes beautiful passages (and poems) centered on marriage, loss, motherhood, friendship and life without falling into a stereotypical navel-gazing rant. Some pages hold a single sentence or quote, others a brief paragraph, and a few need two to three pages to convey Smith's thoughts. It's this sort of layout that begs for "just one more page." It could have been twice as long, and it still wouldn't have been enough for this reader. 

I especially love her lyrical cadence in this passage:

There are so many windows, the house is lit naturally all day long, and you can follow the sunlight as it moves from the back of the house at sunrise to the front at sunset. There are so many windows, I couldn't bear to hang blinds or full curtain panels. With only cafe curtains covering the lower halves of the windows, my head can be seen floating from room to room at night from the street. There are so many windows, living in this house is like living in a glass display case, especially after dark. There are few places to hide.

She sounds like someone with whom I'd enjoy being friends:

I wonder what I would put in my own dating profile. Poet, writer, single mother of two, Gen Xer, lifelong Ohioan, city mouse, vegetarian. Loves books, live music, travel, dogs not cats, black coffee and black tattoos, dark beer and dark chocolate. Self-employed. Author of several books. Liberal, pro-choice, agnostic, monogamous. Aquarius. Gregarious introvert. Funny as hell. Occasionally melancholic. Good cook. Bed sleeper. Woman who, let's be real, probably won't trust you. Woman who will try.

About memoir:

"A memoir is about 'the art of memory,' and part of the art is in the curation. This isn't the story of a woman who fell in love again and therefore was healed and lived happily ever after. This is a story of a woman coming home to herself."

About poetry:

Poems and songs aren't the same, but they both rely on voice and form, rhythm and sound play, metaphor and image, repetition and surprise.

There were aspects of this book that resonated deeply with me, taking me back to a sad time in my life. But like Smith, I carry that young self inside me with the realization that I have grown from those difficult experiences.

How I picture it: We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves— all of our selves —wherever we go.

Inside forty-something me is the woman I was in my thirties, the woman I was in my twenties, the teenager I was, the child I was…

I still carry these versions of myself. It’s a kind of reincarnation without death: all these different lives we get to live in this one body, as ourselves.

I look forward to reading more by Maggie Smith. I've added Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change to my TBR list. I also subscribe to her Substack newsletters and follow her on Instagram. 

To read Maggie Smith is to embrace the achingly precious beauty of the present moment. ~TIME 

Suddenly 60 [and other shocks of later life]

Suddenly 60 [and other shocks of later life] by Judith Viorst

Nonfiction - poetry

2000 Simon & Schuster

Finished on November 21, 2022

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

The New Alphabet

A's for arthritis. 

B's for bad back. 

C is for chest pain. Corned beef? Cardiac?

D if for dental decay and decline. 

E is for eyesight--can’t read that top line....

Publisher's Blurb:

From the bestselling author of Forever Fifty comes a new collection of poems that tickle, console, and offer the pleasure of instant recognition -- the perfect book for any woman anywhere in the vicinity of sixty. Judith Viorst's "decade" books of verse -- including It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty, How Did I Get to Be Forty, and Forever Fifty -- have delighted millions of readers worldwide who relish her wit, warmth, and wisdom. Now here she is with Suddenly Sixty, a funny and touching book that speaks directly to the sixty-ish woman, inviting her to laugh about, sigh over, and come to hopeful terms with the complex issues of this decade of life.

Among the poems in this charmingly illustrated collection are those exploring the joys -- and strains -- of children and grandchildren, and the intimacy of old friends who've "known each other so long/We knew each other back when we were virgins." There are poems that tip their hat to mortality, wrestle with a husband's retirement -- "He's coming with me when I shop at the supermarket/So I won't have to shop alone. I like alone." -- and acknowledge the fact that at this stage of life we'd "give up a night of wild rapture with Denzel Washington for a nice report on my next bone density test." Offering plenty of laughs, a few tears, and cover-to-cover truths, these are poems for everyone who would "rather say never say die than enough is enough." Every woman who has reached this decade will -- rueful and smiling -- find herself in the pages of this book.

I received Suddenly 60 last year for my birthday (when I turned 60), and I read it over the course of the year, finishing it a few weeks ahead of my 61st birthday. I identified with some of the poems, but others are dated and their humor lost on me.

Poem du Jour - Such Silence

Such Silence

As deep as I ever went into the forest

I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,

and around it a clearing, and beyond that

trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!

It really wasn't so far from a town, but it seemed

all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.

So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there's only a hint, a possibility.

What's magical, sometimes, has deeper roots

     than reason.

I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.

An angel, perhaps.

Or dancers with the legs of goats.

No, I didn't see either. But only, I think, because

     I didn't stay long enough.

~Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - Tides

Tides

Every day the sea

     blue gray green lavender

pulls away leaving the harbor's

dark-cobbled undercoat

slick and rutted and worm-riddled, the gulls

walk there among old whalebones, the white

     spines of fish blink from the strandy stew

as the hours tick over; and then

far out the faint, sheer

     line turns, rustling over the slack,

the outer bars, over the green-furred flats, over

the clam beds, slippery logs,

barnacle-studded stones, dragging

the shining sheets forward, deepening,

     pushing, wreathing together

wave and seaweed, their piled curvatures

spilling over themselves, lapping

     blue gray green lavender, never

resting, not ever but fashioning shore,

continent, everything.

And here you may find me

on almost any morning

walking along the shore so

     light-footed so casual.

~Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - Today

Today

Today I'm flying low and I'm

not saying a word.

I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

But I'm taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather.

I hardly move though really I'm traveling

a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors

into the temple.

~Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - If I Were

If I Were

There are lots of ways to dance and

to spin, sometimes it just starts my

feet first then my entire body, I am 

spinning no one can see it but it is

happening. I am so glad to be alive,

I am so glad to be loving and loved.

Even if I were close to the finish,

even if I were at my final breath, I

would be here to take a stand, bereft

of such astonishments, but for them.

If I were a Sufi for sure I would be

one of the spinning kind.

~Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - A Thousand Mornings

A Thousand Mornings

All night my heart makes its way

however it can over the rough ground

of uncertainties, but only until night

meets and then is overwhelmed by

morning, the light deepening, the

wind easing and just waiting, as I 

too wait (and when have I ever been 

disappointed?) for redbird to sing.

~Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - And Bob Dylan Too

And Bob Dylan Too

"Anything worth thinking about is worth

     singing about."

Which is why we have 

songs of praise, songs of love, songs

     of sorrow.

Songs to the gods, who have

     so many names.

Songs the shepherds sing, on the

     lonely mountains, while the sheep

          are honoring the grass, by eating it.

The dance-songs of the bees, to tell

     where the flowers, suddenly, in the

          morning light, have opened.

A chorus of many, shouting to heaven,

     or at it, or pleading.

Or that greatest of love affairs, a violin

     and a human body.

And a composer, maybe hundreds of years dead.

I think of Schubert, scribbling on a cafe

     napkin.

          Thank you, thank you.

~Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - Poem of the One World

 

Poem of the One World

This morning

the beautiful white heron

was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this 

the one world

we all belong to

where everything

sooner or later

is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel

for a little while

quite beautiful myself.

~Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - The Gardener

 

The Gardener

Have I lived enough?

Have I loved enough?

Have I considered Right Action enough, have I

     come to any conclusions?

Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?

Have I endured loneliness with grace?

I say this, or perhaps I'm just thinking it.

     Actually, I probably think too much.

Then I step out into the garden,

where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,

     is tending his children, the roses.

~ Mary Oliver

Poem du Jour - I Go Down to the Shore

I Go Down to the Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall--

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

Excuse me, I have work to do.

~ Mary Oliver

Dog Songs

 

Dog Songs by Mary Oliver

Poetry

2015 Penguin Books (first published in 2013)

Finished on April 28, 2021

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

Mary Oliver's Dog Songs is a celebration of the special bond between human and dog, as understood through the poet's relationships to the canines that have accompanied her daily walks, warmed her home, and inspired her work. Oliver's poems begin in the small everyday moments familiar to all dog lovers, but through her extraordinary vision, these observations become higher meditations on the world and our place in it.

Dog Songs includes visits with old friends, like Oliver's beloved Percy, and introduces still others in poems of love and laughter, heartbreak and grief. Throughout, the many dogs of Oliver's life merge as fellow travelers and as guides, uniquely able to open our eyes to the lessons of the moment and the joys of nature and connection.

Dog Songs is my final selection of Mary Oliver's poetry, which I chose to read for National Poetry Month. While this collection includes 36 poems and essays, only two spoke to me.

How It Is With Us, And How It Is With Them

If You Are Holding This Book

I had hoped for more meaningful (and relatable) poems, but this was a disappointment.

Blue Horses

 

Blue Horses by Mary Oliver

Poetry

2014 Penguin Books

Finished on April 18, 2021

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

In this stunning collection of new poems, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has defined her life’s work, describing with wonder both the everyday and the unaffected beauty of nature.

Herons, sparrows, owls, and kingfishers flit across the page in meditations on love, artistry, and impermanence. Whether considering a bird’s nest, the seeming patience of oak trees, or the artworks of Franz Marc, Oliver reminds us of the transformative power of attention and how much can be contained within the smallest moments.

At its heart, Blue Horses asks what it means to truly belong to this world, to live in it attuned to all its changes. Humorous, gentle, and always honest, Oliver is a visionary of the natural world.

Blue Horses is the third collection of Mary Oliver's poems that I chose to read for National Poetry Month. This volume contains 38 poems, five of which I enjoyed and plan to share at a later date on this blog. Those titles are:

Such Silence

Watering the Stones

Franz Marc's Blue Horses

The Oak Tree Loves Patience

What Gorgeous Thing

It's a joy to simply flip through this book and read one of the poems to see if it sparks inspiration or brings me a sense of peace. I have read and reread many of Oliver's poems and I'm sure others will speak to me when I read this book next year.

Felicity

 

Felicity by Mary Oliver

Poetry

2015 Penguin Books

Finished on April 14, 2021

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

“If I have any secret stash of poems, anywhere, it might be about love, not anger,” Mary Oliver once said in an interview. Finally, in her stunning new collection, Felicity, we can immerse ourselves in Oliver’s love poems. Here, great happiness abounds.

Our most delicate chronicler of physical landscape, Oliver has described her work as loving the world. With Felicity she examines what it means to love another person. She opens our eyes again to the territory within our own hearts; to the wild and to the quiet. In these poems, she describes—with joy—the strangeness and wonder of human connection.

I had forgotten that I already read Felicity a couple of years ago! I borrowed a copy from the library for National Poetry Month and wrote about it here. I now have my own copy and added it to my stack of books by Mary Oliver for this year's National Poetry Month reading. There are 38 poems in this collection and I marked five favorites. It doesn't surprise me that all but one were among my favorites in 2019. These are the titles:

Don't Worry

Storage

That Tall Distance

Not Anyone Who Says

Late Spring

Three of the poems that I noted as favorites in 2019 did not stand out this time around, which goes to show that writing, whether it's fiction, nonfiction or poetry speaks to us more powerfully depending on our current state of mind and life situations. It will be interesting to see which of these poems resonate with me in the coming years.

A Thousand Mornings

 

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Poetry

2012 Penguin Books

Finished on April 14, 2021

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

In A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has come to define her life’s work, transporting us to the marshland and coastline of her beloved home, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Whether studying the leaves of a tree or mourning her treasured dog Percy, Oliver is open to the teachings contained in the smallest of moments and explores with startling clarity, humor, and kindness the mysteries of our daily experience.

I rarely ever receive books for my birthday or Christmas, but this past year my husband gave me not one, but four of Mary Oliver's books! I decided to wait until National Poetry Month before starting in on this lovely collection of poetry and I began with A Thousand Mornings, which I read every morning over the course of two weeks. I love the simplicity of Oliver's words and her focus on nature and the environment, as well as on life and death. Of the 36 poems in this slim edition, I marked 8 that spoke to me. Those favorites are as follows:

I Go Down To The Shore

The Gardener

If I Were

Poem Of The One World

And Bob Dylan Too

Today

A Thousand Mornings

Tides

There are too many to quote here, but I plan to share each one individually in the coming months.

Time for Serenity, Anyone?

Time for Serenity, Anyone?

by William Stafford

I like to live in the sound of water,
in the feel of mountain air. A sharp
reminder hits me: this world still is alive;
it stretches out there shivering toward its own
creation, and I'm part of it. Even my breathing
enters into the elaborate give-and-take,
this bowing to sun and moon, day or night,
winter, summer, storm, still—this tranquil
chaos that seems to be going somewhere.
This wilderness with a great peacefulness in it.
This motionless turmoil, this everything dance.

Brown Girl Dreaming

 

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Memoir/Poetry

2014 Puffin Books

Finished on August 19, 2020

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

I wound up reading Brown Girl Dreaming at the same time I listened to the audio edition of Woodson's novel, Red at the Bone. I'm not sure anything I say about either book will do them justice, so bear with me.

Brown Girl Dreaming is both a beautiful memoir and an engaging history lesson, expressed entirely in free verse. I have only read one other book written in this literary style (The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus) and while it may initially feel awkward, it isn't long before the story begins to flow and the reader becomes enveloped in the lush prose.

south carolina at war

Because we have a right, my grandfather tells us--

we are sitting at his feet and the story tonight is

why people are marching all over the South--

to walk and sit and dream wherever we want.

First they brought us here.

Then we worked for free. Then it was 1863,

and we were supposed to be free but we weren't.

And that's why people are so mad.

And it's true, we can't turn on the radio

without hearing about the marching.

We can't go to downtown Greenville without

seeing the teenagers walking into stores, sitting

where brown people still aren't allowed to sit

and getting carried out, their bodies limp,

their faces calm.

This is the way brown people have to fight,

my grandfather says.

You can't just put your fist up. You have to insist

on something

gently. Walk toward a thing

slowly.

But be ready to die,

my grandfather say,

for what is right.

Be ready to die, my grandfather says,

for everything you believe in.

And none of us can imagine death

but we try to imagine it anyway.

Even my mother joins the fight.

When she thinks our grandmother

isn't watching she sneaks out

to meet the cousins downtown, but just as

she's stepping through the door,

her good dress and gloves on, my grandmother says,

Now don't go getting arrested.

And Mama sounds like a little girl when she says,

I won't.

More than a hundred years, my grandfather says,

and we're still fighting for the free life

we're supposed to be living.

So there's a war going on in South Carolina

and even as we play

and plant and preach and sleep, we are a part of it.

Because you're colored, my grandfather says.

And just as good and bright and beautiful and free

as anybody.

And nobody colored in the South is stopping,

my grandfather says,

until everybody knows what's true.

Woodson's memoir is categorized for young readers (ages 10 and up) and yet it is just as astute and perceptive as most of the adult memoirs I've read over the years. A little over 300 pages, Brown Girl Dreaming can easily be read in a single day, but I chose to read a little at a time, going back to reread a page or two, savoring the story of Woodson's childhood.

what i believe

I believe in God and evolution.

I believe in the Bible and the Qur'an.

I believe in Christmas and the New World.

I believe that there is good in each of us

no matter who we are or what we believe in.

I believe in the words of my grandfather.

I believe in the city and the South

the past and the present.

I believe in Black people and White people coming

 together. 

I believe in nonviolence and "Power to the People."

I believe in my little brother's pale skin and my own

 dark brown.

I believe in my sister's brilliance and the too-easy

 books I love to read.

I believe in my mother on a bus and Black people

 refusing to ride.

I believe in good friends and good food.

I believe in johnny pumps and jump ropes,

Malcolm and Martin, Buckeyes and Birmingham,

writing and listening, bad words and good words -

I believe in Brooklyn!

I believe in one day and someday and this

 perfect moment called Now.

Highly recommend! The timely memoir is worthy of the numerous awards and accolades received and is one that I will read again and again. I'm especially eager to listen to the audiobook, which is narrated by the author. 

The triumph of Brown Girl Dreaming is not just in how well Woodson tells us the story of her life, but in how elegantly she writes words that make us want to hold those carefully crafted poems close, apply them to our lives, reach into the mirror she holds up and makes the words and the worlds she explores our own. This is a book full of poems that cry out to be learned by heart. These are poems that will, for years to come, be stored in our bloodstream. ~ The New York Times Book Review

Gratitude

Messenger

~by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

The Peace of Wild Things

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~Wendell Berry

New Year Resolve

New Year Resolve
by May Sarton

The time has come
To stop allowing the clutter
To clutter my mind
Like dirty snow,
Shove it off and find
Clear time, clear water.

Time for a change,
Let silence in like a cat
Who has sat at my door
Neither wild nor strange
Hoping for food from my store
And shivering on the mat.

Let silence in.
She will rarely speak or mew,
She will sleep on my bed
And all I have ever been
Either false or true
Will live again in my head.

For it is now or not
As old age silts the stream,
To shove away the clutter,
To untie every knot,
To take the time to dream,
To come back to still water.

"New Year Resolve" by May Sarton, from Collected Poems 1930-1993.