Spooky season has just begun, but I’ve already been a ghost.
I’ve started a few new projects this year, the year of Moon-Manor-is-finally-out-in-the-world, and Substack is meant to be the crown jewel. But I also started an MFA program, and underestimated how much work it would be. I also produced and performed in my first Edinburgh Fringe show, and underestimated how much work it would be. Do we see a pattern here?
I was so tickled by all of you subscribing to my first newsletter, truly it meant so much to me, that I vowed to only share quality, well-conceived writing. I spend half my life unsubscribing to newsletters, so this really had to be My Very Best Writing.
Does that sound like a pressure cooker bound to fail?
No! Said me of May 11th, of my birthday, of the inaugural Planet Granat post.
I’ll be perfect and it will be perfect!
(Which inspired a future post I’ve been writing “Dear Perfect — Fuck off.”)
Also — I haven’t blasted my Substack to a lot of people, haven’t invited many to subscribe. If you’re getting this, you’re truly my nearest and dearest. Which also means — yikes! My peers are reading this, the most nerve wracking of audiences.
“To have great poets, there must be great audiences.” ~ Walt Whitman
Anyway. Those are my reasons for being a Substack ghost. But no longer. I’ll be sliding into your email more often, and now that I’ve published another post, you should be able to read my About page. Which explains more of the “why” behind Planet Granat, and details how you’re contributing to the betterment of our world by becoming a paid subscriber (I’m donating a portion of all subscriber income to non-profits). Good job!
So the writing I want to share today combines two big events of this past summer. It’s called “White Clouds Her Skin,” and it’s about a woman I can’t get out of my head.
I submitted this piece as one of my first submissions for my MFA in Creative Writing (a low-residency program through Queens College of North Carolina, the Latin America track, which means my first residency was in Buenos Aires, and each summer I’ll go to a different country. Brazil and Chile up next. Swoon.). I’m curious if you agree with the notes I got back (see below).
And this is also one of the pieces I read for my Edinburgh Fringe show “Two Truths And A Lie,” with my love Gáti accompanying on piano. Much more to come on that experience.
I wrote the piece as a prose poem, a form I really love. You can probably ascertain that means it’s a poem told in prose form. A few more examples I adore (in addition to the prose poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Patti Smith):
“Untitled”
by Rosmarie Waldrop
I was not sure I had understood. I was naked enough to disappear in the shop windows. Your weight on me sank through my bones, and I didn’t know where I had lost my body--as if it had no vowels, as if the construction were faulty, the mesh too coarse--when you felt a sneeze coming on and fumbled your handkerchief. I traced the law of sufficient reason down your spine. Your skin was delicate, like a retracted confession.
“Personalia”
by Mary Ruefle
When I was young, a fortune-teller told me that an old woman who wanted to die had accidentally become lodged in my body. Slowly, over time, and taking great care in following esoteric instructions, including lavender baths and the ritual burial of keys in the backyard, I rid myself of her presence. Now I am an old woman who wants to die and lodged inside me is a young woman dying to live; I work on her.
My prose poem is much longer than these examples, and I wrote it on the page in verse form. The note from my MFA professor was to put it in narrative / prose form, and to not add or change any of the lines. An excellent note to receive, obvi, but I feel like it needs more context, more of my experience with the woman, more reflection on her after the main event (you’ll see what I mean below).
What do you think? Should I edit / add to the piece, or simply change the form? Or, do nothing? Comment or email or DM or whisper your answer in my ear.
Looking forward to your thoughts, and to our new dialogue here on Substack.
Smooches,
Erin