Daily Nourishment for July 8, 2024: Haunting and Wonder with Guidance from Poet Gabrielle Bates
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 55 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
“Poetry, for me, is a space of haunting and wonder…” - Gabrielle Bates
Pause.
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale. Then read this poem by Gabrielle Bates,
Prompt.
Here’s an excerpt from a single-question interview Gabrielle Bates did for Northwest Review:
“No matter what I’m writing, I always seem to be writing about death, which of course is an ultimate looming threat over any experience in our lives. I can remember being very newly, youngly in love and already grieving the fact that we die—that bodily separation is inevitable for lovers, even in the best-case scenarios. I think many people go to poetry to access a heightened, embodied understanding of difficult truths or questions about living. It’s not a kind of awareness or intensity of felt-thought that I think we can, or even should, be in all the time, but I also think we suffer, most of us, for not being there enough.”
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Here are some words Bates included with the poem “Salmon” linked to in Pause section:
“I wrote “Salmon” when I was thinking a lot about clarity, trying to push myself & my words in that terrifying direction…
With love to daughters raised by fathers & the form of the pre-elegy, which draws me back again & again.”
Practice.
Set a timer for 10 minutes and journal or take notes in response to the poem and quote above and/or the questions below:
What do you know about clarity? What do you want to know about clarity? How do you try to move towards clarity in your writing or other creative practices?
Bates writes this in a piece for Poetry Society of America: “Several of the poems in my book Judas Goat are “pre-elegies,” or elegies for people who are, in the world of the poem, still alive. Like exposure therapy, the pre-elegy wades into fear: in this case, a loss that has not occurred.”
Take notes for a “pre-elegy” for someone you love. What clear memories do you have of a specific meal you shared with them? What do you want others to know about this person and your time with them?
Which poems meet you as you grapple with difficult truths or questions about living? Which poems do you return to again and again?
How might we suffer for not thinking about death enough?
Want More?
Read Judas Goat by Gabrielle Bates
Read the poem and short essay by Bates: “In the Dream in Which I Am a Widow”
Gabrielle Bates will lead a generative poetry workshop at this year’s Glen Workshop. During the month of July, Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment will feature Glen Workshop facilitators and other Glen-ish people, places, and things. Enjoy!
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Here’s more about Gabrielle Bates from her website:
“Bates's work has appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, the Best of the Net anthology, and BAX: Best American Experimental Writing, among other journals and anthologies, and her poetry comics have been featured internationally in a variety of exhibitions and conferences. Her debut collection, Judas Goat, was named Electric Lit's best poetry collection of 2023 and one of NPR's Best Books of 2023, and it has received praise from the New York Times, Chicago Review of Books, Vulture, Autostraddle, The Millions, Garden & Gun, Poetry Foundation, and elsewhere.
Formerly the managing editor of the Seattle Review and a contributing editor for Poetry Northwest, Gabrielle currently serves as the Social Media Manager of Open Books: A Poem Emporium, visiting faculty for the Tin House Writers' Workshops, and a University of Washington teaching fellow. With Luther Hughes and Dujie Tahat, she co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon, where poets talk over drinks.”
Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings
—The July Co-Writing Schedule is live.
—TONIGHT July 8: Thoughtful Readers Gathering with Anna Gazmarian 7-8 p.m. CT
—July 21-27: Charlotte Donlon will provide a few spiritual direction offerings at the Glen Workshop in Seattle
—July 27: Online Revision Stations Designed by Lauren F. Winner
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
*Please help us protect our intellectual property, our creative process, and the integrity of our work. Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment is covered under the Spiritual Direction for Writers® trademark. You are welcome to share this link with others, but any other use (written or spoken) is prohibited without written permission from Charlotte Donlon.