Writing and Work

People often ask me two questions that I have difficulty knowing how to answer. The first-- which I (and every Medicare recipient) gets asked before every medical appointment-- is Are you employed, retired, or self-employed? (You'd think that the computer could remember the answer to these and the other tiresome Medicare questions, but apparently it can't.)

I have trouble with that question because yes, I'm retired from my job at Wisconsin Public Radio, but am I really retired? I still file a Schedule C with the IRS, because I still have a tiny bit of self-employment income each year. But am I really self-employed, when my most of my days are consumed with tasks that have nothing to do with earning a living? (Not that I could ever have lived on my self-employment income!) So sometimes I tell the receptionist I'm retired; sometimes I say I'm self-employed. Depends on my mood.

But really, the question is, am I (still) a writer? No one's asked me that question--I think everyone (except me) assumes that I am. A lot of people--friends and acquaintances--do ask me, Have you been writing poems? And that's the other tough question. The short answer is actually quite simple. No, I haven't written a poem since last May, when Robin Chapman and I taught our annual Poetry Camp workshop at The Clearing in Door County. We always do the exercises along with the other workshop participants, so I wrote some poem drafts then. But most, maybe all, of those drafts still need to be revised. So it's been more than half a year since I wrote a poem. I dutifully show up at our Lake Effect bi-weekly poetry critique sessions, but it's been months since I brought a poem to present for the group's reaction. The truth is, I don't have very much interest in writing poems now.

There are a lot of reasons for this. I wrote an entire manuscript of poems, Limited Warranty, between August 2006, when I learned the cancer had spread, and the spring of 2007. These poems, which reflect my experience and emotions about having cancer, came very quickly and felt necessary to write. My poet friends tell me that they are very good--in fact, my best work. It's quite clear to me, though, from the reaction of editors at the many literary journals to which I've sent these poems, that the subject matter doesn't have much appeal. Only three have been accepted. One, "Immune Response," just appeared in Poetry East. Two will be published in January (I think) in a brand-new journal published by a medical school that features work with a medical theme. I've stopped sending individual poems out to journals because I don't want to leave my poet friends/literary executors with the time-consuming, mind-numbing bookkeeping required when the rejections arrive in the mailbox. I have been sending the whole manuscript to various contests/publishers in the hopes that maybe someone will like it enough to bring it out as a book. So far, the response has been deafening silence.

The (non) responses don't make me eager to write more poems on this topic; but more to the point, I feel as though I've said what I have to say in poetry about cancer. To the extent that in the past I've used poetry as a means to access my feelings-- well, I'm pretty clear about how I feel about my situation. I don't need to write more poems to tell me I'm sad about the prospects of a shortened life, or grateful for the years I've had, or delighted by the challenge to live each moment as consciously as I can. And frankly, at the moment I'd rather write work that has more hope of an audience than poems do. This blog, for instance. Or the newsletter articles and the proposal I've written for the Coalition for Wisconsin Health, which is working for universal single-payer health care. So no, I'm not writing poems these days.

But that doesn't mean I've stopped writing. And sometimes, other people do things that remind me that I am a writer, if not at the moment a poet. A few days ago, for example, the southwestern writer Susan Albert posted a really thoughtful review of my memoir, Black Eye, on her website: http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/blackeye.shtml and on Amazon. And I just signed the Letter of Intent to donate my papers to the Historical Society. Their interest in archiving the papers (including all those unpublished poems) is definitely affirming. One of my tasks for the months ahead is to organize the papers. I suppose you could call that "writing work."

So yes, I'm retired. Sometimes I'm self-employed. No, I'm not writing poems. Yes, even I have to admit I'm still a writer. Stay tuned.... and thanks for asking!