Read Our Annual Report
See through Poems: Ellicott City at 250
by Susan Thornton Hobby, Project consultant and editor
Before Ellicott City was a hip tourist magnet, before the coffee shops and antique stores, even before the flour mills, the spot was just a funnel of granite and trees leading down to the river. For centuries, the Patapsco River, which the Algonquins named pota-psk-ut, was the source of all life – transport, food, and power. Two hundred and fifty years ago, three Quaker brothers bought 700 acres along the Patapsco River and founded a mill town.
To celebrate Ellicott City’s anniversary, HoCoPoLitSo has pulled together a collection of 25 poems that speak to the town’s history, commerce, and people. The poems will be on display in Main Street merchants’ windows from April through June in a project called See through Poems, and will be collected into a book. This project is a partnership between HoCoPoLitSo and EC250, the group founded to organize activities around the sesquicentennial (that’s the fancy name for a 250th anniversary).
Former Baltimore Sun reporter and longtime publisher of the Little Patuxent Review, Mike Clark, wrote the foreword to the collection of poems.
“Celebrating 250 years of Ellicott City history in poetry is a gift HoCoPoLitSo has bequeathed us,” Clark wrote. “Two dozen poets give voice to the history of Ellicott City in this unique literary venture by the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society. A walk down Main Street to the B&O trestle and station and beyond to the churning waters of the Patapsco River reveals poems posted on storefront windows that speak to life in the old mill town.”
The collection includes poems by or about Ellicott City residents, poems about trains and wheat, lines about history and ghosts.
Through the eyes of poets, history will be on display in merchants’ windows up and down Main Street from April 1 through June.
Then in June, we’ll host two events to celebrate the project. To open and close the celebration of the Patapsco Female Institute’s historical garden, HoCoPoLitSo will offer poems read by actors on Saturday, June 4, 11 a.m. And join us Sunday, June 12, starting at 3 p.m. at the Museum of Howard County in Ellicott City for a reading showcasing poems that speak to the town’s history, commerce, and people. County Council member Liz Walsh will open the reading with her poetic remarks about the town.
Local poets, community members, and special guests will read selections from the collection. A reception will follow the reading.
For more information about the collection, visit these pages. Watch this space to register to attend the reading in June. And for more information about events in Ellicott City to celebrate the anniversary, visit www.ec250.com.
Meet Liz Holland – second place winner of the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize 2021
In 2021, Howard County Poetry and Literature Society launched the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize in honor of its founding member, Ellen Conroy Kennedy. The contest received more than 100 submissions in its inaugural year, and the selection committee chose Liz Holland’s poem “Lifeboy Swept Away” as the second place winner. The committee cited the poem’s “intensely memorable images, elegiac tone, and vivid language that lingers with you… especially the ending: ‘The small waves/ashamed of what they hold, fold at my feet./Wading deeper, I cup my hands and take one/salted sip, carrying you as far away as you’ll go.’”
HoCoPoLitSo: Tell us about your poem “Lifeboy Swept Away.” How did it come about? What sparked or inspired it?
LH: This poem was written on the tenth anniversary of losing my friend to suicide. We grew up on the same street, celebrated holidays together (our families still do), and had much in common. He had a zest for life that I have yet to find in anyone else, though struggled desperately with his mental health. I sat down to write about something completely different and this poem pushed its way out. Travis has a way of showing up like that. I see him when I’m driving on the highway, in the local convenience store, and especially in proximity to the Chesapeake Bay. I welcome his energy when it floats in and found this piece to be a lovely way to honor him after a decade of absence.
HoCoPoLitSo: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
LH: I must have been around five when my mom realized my need for communication. I had such a desire to understand and to be understood. I asked a ton of questions (much to the annoyance of my mom who had four other kids to care for!) and overanalyzed everything with her throughout my teenage years. Language served a languishing purpose as I couldn’t quite express my internal world with the words available to me. I realized a certain power in language when I took my first poetry class in undergrad. I can’t tell you who I read or what my professor’s name was, but something new became available to me through writing – it truly saved my life while I, too, struggled with mental health in my twenties.
HoCoPoLitSo: As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
LH: I write a lot about the natural world (thank you Mary Oliver) and at this moment would say my avatar could be a ranunculus or peony on fire. Fire is ever present in my work as well, perhaps as a nod to me being a Leo, or from the decades of Catholic ceremony.
HoCoPoLitSo: Tell us about a writer or a book that you return to over and over for inspiration.
LH: As I’ve already mentioned, Mary Oliver’s Devotions stays on my coffee table, along with the likes of Ada Limon, Toi Derricotte, Ross Gay, Li-Young Lee, Marie Howe, and Steven Leyva. It is wildly evident as I read these works and write simultaneously, my poems move in emulation of each poet. I stay inspired by these incredible poets and return often to their books.
HoCoPoLitSo: What are you working on next and where can we find you?
LH: I am currently finalizing my first chapbook as my thesis in the MFA program at University of Baltimore. Our program culminates in a final book that is due out in May of 2022. I will be making it available on my IG and Twitter @cottonswords (same handle). I hope to continue the momentum of this publication into a full book in late 2022/2023. Thank you for publishing my work and amplifying the creative arts.
Congratulations, Liz!
Liz Holland is an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore and 2021 nominee for ‘Best of the Net’. Her work can be found in Remington Review, Broadkill Review, Little Patuxent Review, and several other literary journals. She lives in Baltimore with her fur-son Brax.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741 to reach a trained counselor at the Crisis Text Line.
six questions with writer Meg Eden
Writer Meg Eden joined the Wilde Readings open mic event via Zoom on March 8, 2022.
Meg is a writer and creative writing instructor. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland College Park, and has taught at a range of places, including Anne Arundel Community College, Southern New Hampshire University online, University of Maryland College Park, Eckleburg Workshops, and The Writer’s Center in Bethesda since 2013. Meg is the author of five poetry chapbooks, the novel Post-High School Reality Quest (2017), the poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World (2020), and the forthcoming middle grade novel in verse Selah’s Guide to Normal (2023) with Scholastic.
HoCoPoLitSo: Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
ME: Oof, I’m not sure! Pieces of my parents and childhood friends definitely show up in my writing, but the most common I guess–for any writer really–is the self: my vulnerabilities, painful moments, things I wish I could do differently, etc.
HoCoPoLitSo: Where is your favorite place to write?
ME: This changes depending on the season. In winter I’ve really liked writing at home under my heated blanket, but in warmer months I love going to the trail or gym then writing in a Panera or Chick Fil A with a giant glass of tea.
HoCoPoLitSo: Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
ME: Some timed element of browsing or reading. I prefer writing when I have a reaction to something, a strong emotion I have to get out. But if I don’t have time for that, I always have soundtracks for my writing, so the first song conditions me to get into the world of the story.
HoCoPoLitSo: Who always gets a first read?
ME: This really depends. My critique group is usually the first emailed to see if anyone wants to read. But sometimes my husband gets an early read, other times friends that aren’t writers but have been with me a long time. It really depends on the project, how I feel about the project, and what I need. Sometimes I need positivity passes at first to gain confidence, while other times I feel confident and just need the feedback.
HoCoPoLitSo: What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
ME: I don’t tend to read books more than once, to be honest. I’m not sure I’ve ever read any more than twice besides the Bible–which I know is such a cop-out, Sunday school sounding answer but it’s true. It’s the most versatile book and always has something new to teach me. That said, I predict I’ll read Corey Ann Haydu’s One Jar of Magic (as well as her most recent Lawless Spaces) and Sarah Crossan’s Toffee more than twice in my life time. Now shows/movies are a different story. I have to annually watch Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, as well as BBC’s Bleak House. I find that I learn a lot narratively from other storytelling devices than books sometimes.
HoCoPoLitSo: What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
ME: Probably an Inner Loop reading. I love Inner Loop (a local DC series) because you really feel the fellowship and community. I always meet new people and connect with old friends.
Join Wilde Readings Open Mic in April (National Poetry Month!) and meet other writers! You can keep up with Wilde Readings events here.
Meet Arhm Choi Wild – the winner of Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize 2021
In 2021, Howard County Poetry and Literature Society launched the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize in honor of its founding member, Ellen Conroy Kennedy. The contest received more than 100 submissions in its inaugural year, and the selection committee chose Arhm Choi Wild’s poem “Rummage” as the first place winner. The committee cited the poem’s “strong, poignant narrative voice telling a powerful story of a parent/child relationship that reveals what we often miss or misunderstand.” Arhm’s poem is published in the 2022 Winter issue of The Little Patuxent Review.
Here is Arhm reading “Rummage” for HoCoPoLitSo:
We wanted to learn more about Arhm, so we asked them a few of our favorite questions.
HoCoPoLitSo: Tell us about your poem “Rummage.” How did it come about? What sparked or inspired it?
ACW: I’ve been trying to write this poem for a long time but kept running into the irony of trying to magnify the limits of language while depending on it to convey the insatiable desire I have for connection with my mother tongue and those who reside in its geography. Over the years, I have collected the mis-translations between my mother and I, some hilarious, others devastating. It wasn’t until I tried bringing in synesthesia and my decades of not having a sense of smell that something clicked about how to convey the heartbreak of knowing my mother is simplifying her thoughts so I can understand them in Korean, and that I was doing the same in English. What is the sum total of loss when you put all of these almost translations, vague translations, ghost translations together? It is so revealing what words you turn to when you are angry or lonely, and I hoped this poem to speak to what it feels like to not share the same compass points of language with someone I have tried my whole life to understand more deeply.
HoCoPoLitSo: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
ACW: Though I was born in the States, we moved to Korea shortly afterwards, making Korean my first language. When we returned 5 years later, I remember very clearly practicing my introduction speech with my dad before the first day of school. We practiced over and over how to say where I was from, what my hobbies were, the members of my family. I remember it feeling like a suit I was sliding into while not recognizing the fabric, the way the cuffs folded, the shade of blue. I think the speech convinced my classmates and teachers that I was more fluent in English than I actually was, and I spent much of the following year choosing between replies of “yes” and “no,” fervently hoping the 50/50 chance wouldn’t reveal my inadequacies. I share this memory to talk about how it felt to finally speak English, the immense relief of being able to answer the teacher’s questions, of making an argument in English, of being a self who had more depth than “yes” and “no”. It both terrifies and exhilarates me that language can be both an ironclad door and also an amorphous key, opening to experiences I didn’t even know I was missing.
HoCoPoLitSo: As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
ACW: I have always loved elephants and collected tiny figurines of them over the years. As a writer, I would love to borrow some of their long term memory and their ability to remember a vast variety of experiences. For me, traumatic experiences hold the most weight in my memory orbits, and sometimes I wish I had just as clear memories of ecstatic moments, of perfect moments. I also love how fiercely family-based elephants are, both biological fam and chosen fam. Being part of writing communities, especially in these last two years of the pandemic, has been life-saving on so many levels. Investing in and building community feels like an integral part of my writing practice, and I am extremely grateful for Kundiman, for Emotional Historians, and the various classes and workshops I’ve had a chance to work with.
HoCoPoLitSo: Tell us about a writer or a book that you return to over and over for inspiration.
ACW: An impossible question to just pick one! My younger, closeted self would have been overwhelmed and overjoyed to know that in my future I would have the immense fortune to know and read so many queer poets of color. People who have been particularly influential in the ways that they’ve liberated my sense of possibility and what it looks like to engage in work that is by and for our communities are Ocean Vuong, Natalie Diaz, Nikky Finney, and Marwa Halal.
HoCoPoLitSo: What are you working on next and where can we find you?
ACW: I’m working on a 2nd poetry manuscript that has been orbiting around my father’s death in 2020, my divorce, and finally coming out as transgender and beginning to transition. Sometimes I wonder what will be the thread that ties all of these subjects together. Today that thread is a look at what it means to start over and again, how grief brings out truth even if its unbearable, how much life can change in unexpected ways when one claims themself. I can be found at arhmchoiwild.com and @arhmcwild on Instagram, and am sending out signed copies of my first book, “Cut to Bloom,” for anyone who is interested!
Congratulations, Arhm! Thank you for sharing your poetry with HoCoPoLitSo and the world!
Arhm Choi Wild is the author of CUT TO BLOOM, the winner of the 2019 Write Bloody Prize. Arhm received a MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and their work appears or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, The Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, Split this Rock, Blackbird, and others. They were shortlisted for the Poetry International Prize and have received fellowships from Kundiman, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. They work as the Director of the Progressive Teaching Institute and Diversity Coordinator at a school in New York City. For more information, visit arhmchoiwild.com.
On Reading: What’s In A Name?
There’s quite a stack of things that I have set aside ‘to read next’, whenever that comes along. More and more gets added to the stack and each book slowly waits its turn, probably too patiently. Every once in a while something comes along that moves right up to Next and becomes Now already. Never did I imagine a document on the naming of public spaces commissioned by our County Executive Dr. Calvin Ball to slip into the queue, much less become next and now as soon as I heard about it. It is an absolute must read, and a riveting page turner at that. I can’t look away, and I shouldn’t.
The document is the 262 page Public Spaces Commission Report, released on November 5, 2021. It lists out all public owned buildings in Howard County, Maryland, where I live, their names, and the relation of the person behind that name to any history of slave ownership and/or oppression. It documents participation in slavery, involvement in systemic racism, support for oppression, involvement in a supremacist agenda, violation of Howard County human rights laws, and even if the namesake includes racist and offensive terminology. It is pretty weighty; here is an example:
Wow. Page after page of analysis and detail like this, building after building. For a number of buildings, no direct relation to slavery was discovered, for many, though, there is a past to reconcile.
These buildings have an everyday presence in our lives: government administration buildings, schools, parks, libraries and such (the report put off addressing the 3,000+ street names in the county for another day). Building name elements are familiar and roll off our tongues like nothing matters: Warfield Building, Miller Branch, Atholton Park, River Hill, and so on. For many of us today, any association with history, benign or otherwise, is not really part of our everyday interaction. Places become more associated with what we do there, like attend a meeting, pay a ticket, check out a book, swing on a swing set. Knowing only so much, those that stop and think about it may take a moment and realize, “Oh, so that’s who the George Howard Building was named after, the first governor of the state from our county… interesting.” Up till now, that might have been the depth of curiosity, recognizing a bit of historic trivia.
Less trivial, and what this document lays out page after suffocating page, is a deeper understanding of our county’s past and its people of power or note now memorialized through building names: that they enslaved and profited so off of others. For locals who know these buildings and so casually say their names, it is jaw dropping. We Howard Countians must deepen our understanding of the past in our present, and begin a discussion about how to reconcile with it. This is a start.
This report really is vital knowledge. You can find and read or browse the Public Spaces Commission Report here. Seriously, take a look… you won’t be able to look away. Sincere thanks to this administration for commissioning it and bringing forward this part of Howard County history, and special thanks to the researchers behind the project (all are listed within the report). What a document you have made, what an important resource. As one would expect, the work does not stop here.
My Own Name. I have another reading project in the works, one that is going to come sooner after reading this report. I want to understand my own name, and its relationship to slavery. The Singletons originally came into this country in the 1700s and established a cotton plantation up river from Charleston, South Carolina. I hear they were also later successful in North Carolina. That they were successful means they relied on the work of slaves, the lives of slaves. I want to know more about that, to understand and document what is in the name I wear, the one that has been carried superficially into the present, a little too willfully unaware. As you know me, the project will start with reading, with books like Edward Ball’s Slaves in the Family, a model for the research, and Theodore Rosengarten’s Tombee, A Portrait of a Cotton Planter already in the queue, move through google search results of my own name, and eventually a trip south to visit places in person. It is a monumental task, but it will be a task that builds a more real monument to those that came before us and how they lived prior to our becoming. We owe it to them.
I usually end these with ‘Happy Reading’, but this is a different kind of reading.
Sincerely,
Tim Singleton
Board Co-chair, HoCoPoLitSo
Further reading for Howard County history buffs: History of Blacks in Howard County Maryland, Oral History, Schooling, and Contemporary Issues, by Alice Cornelison, Silas E. Craft, Sr., and Lille Price, published under the auspices of the Howard County Branch of the NAACP in 1986.
six questions with Mary Brandenburg and Hananah Zaheer
Mary Brandenburg and Hananah Zaheer are the feature writers at February Wilde Readings, a monthly community open mic supported by HoCoPoLitSo. Join Mary and Hananah as well as other open mic readers for a free reading on Zoom (and Facebook Live) on Tuesday, February 8 at 7 p.m. Click HERE to register for the free event. Click here for more details about the event.
We asked Mary and Hananah our favorite six questions about their reading and writing, and here’s what they had to say.
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Mary: Honestly, I don’t have an answer for this question! I don’t tend to write about people, rather I focus on nature, my relationship to the numinous, the divine.
Hananah: A compilation mother, not mine exactly, but mother figures based on so many.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Mary: I don’t have a ‘favorite’ place to write, that is, a place where I settle down. I have a space in my home, my study, where most of my current poems are written. However, I have had the opportunity to spend several vacations on the coast of Maine, and that is always a place where I can write, once I have arrived, my mind has settled, and I have shaken of the echoes of ‘home’. That can take a few days!
Hananah: In bed, or wherever I can find complete isolation.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Mary: No, I really don’t! I find I have to sit quietly and empty myself so my muse(s) can find me. Yet sometimes lines will come to me while walking or driving, especially if I am alone and driving a long way and my mind is empty.
Hananah: Usually a combination of worry, coffee, social media, coffee, pep talk.
Who always gets a first read?
Mary: Sometimes it’s my husband, who sees the world very differently than I do! And often a close friend will listen to something I want to share.
Hananah: Mostly my friend writer K.K. Fox, but I have a couple of other writer friends who are my first readers, too. These days my younger son, Yezen, is honing his editing skills and likes to give me feedback on beginnings.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Mary: I love Mark Nepo’s The Way Under the Way, Rilke’s Book of Hours, Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems, as well as David Whyte’s House of Belonging.
Hananah: To name a few–Revenge-Yoko Ogawa; We, the animals–Justin Torres; Department of Speculation–Jenny Offil; I hold a wolf by the ears–Laura van den Berg; This is how you lose her–Juno Diaz; A house on Mango Street–Sandra Cisneros; A lesson Before Dying–Ernest Gaines
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Mary: I’ve not attended very many poetry readings. However, in early 2019 I visited a poet friend, whom I had never met face to face, who lives in Tallahassee, Florida. She took me to a local poetry reading and there I discovered how many, many forms a poem can take! Each reader was entirely different! Each poem was so unique! That gave me a sense of freedom and license – permission to just be me and have my own voice. And it’s ok!
Hananah: Grace Paley at the F. Scott Fitzgerald conference in 2005. I was new to teaching, a fresh MFA and she was all grace and magic.
REGISTER FOR WILDE READINGS HERE to hear more from Mary and Hananah!
Mary Brandenburg began keeping a journal at age 13. She discovered that writing, whether in journal form or in poems, holds the power to heal. She has self-published two books of poetry: The Intelligence of Leaves and Limitless Belonging. In the early 1980’s Mary became a practitioner of acupuncture, for her the discovery of the intersection of spirituality and wellness. Her poems are a reflection of her time in the treatment room, as well as time spent roaming around the natural world, hanging out with animals, trees, moonlight…and each other. She lives with her husband, John, and their amazing miniature Australian Shepherd ‘Tooey’.
Hananah Zaheer is the author of Lovebirds (Bull City Press, 2021). Other work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Best Small Fictions 2021, Waxwing, AGNI, Smokelong, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Alaska Quarterly Review (with a Notable Story mention in Best American Short Stories 2019) and Michigan Quarterly Review, where she won the Lawrence Foundation Prize for Fiction. She is a fiction editor for Los Angeles Review.
Poetry Slam Workshops with Lady Brion
Starting in February, the Howard County Library System is producing a series of four Poetry Slam workshops with social justice poet Lady Brion. HoCoPoLitSo is a supporting partner of this event.
Brion uses her poetry—focused on the black struggle, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and religious themes—to merge the space between art and activism.
Each session will focus on social justice, celebration in the midst of oppression, history, and then on March 23, the library will host an open mic. Register for each session separately.
The Anthem – February 16. Participants will explore writing celebratory unapologetic anthems about themselves, especially in the midst of an oppressive society that rarely gives space for anyone to express their fullest and truest identity. REGISTER.
Picketed – March 9. Participants will discuss the history of social movements and the way that radical demonstrations and protests can lead to change. This context will be used to have students create their own picket signs and craft a poem from it. REGISTER.
If these streets could talk – March 16. Participants will explore a social justice issue that is important to them by personifying a space, place, or object connected to their chosen social ill. REGISTER.
Open Mic – March 23. Participants will be encouraged to share poems created in one of the previous workshops or any other work that they have created. Host Lady Brion will feature sharing some of her social justice related works. REGISTER.
Lady Brion is an international spoken word artist, poetry coach, activist, organizer, and educator. Brion uses her poetry—focused on the black struggle, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and religious themes—to merge the space between art and activism. She has performed across the world including London, Ghana, Zanzibar and many of the American states. Her educational career includes teaching creative writing at the middle and elementary school level, coaching poetry teams in more than 10 institutions for the Louder Than a Bomb poetry program and residencies in more than 15 K-12 institutions. Brion is a board member for Dew More Baltimore, an art-centered nonprofit using spoken word as a tool to foster community and civic engagement.
On Reading: Reading Through a Pandemic
You would think one might plow through books during a pandemic, making the most out of quarantine and isolation. Truth be told, that’s not what this reader found to be the case. I stalled. I plodded. Mostly, I couldn’t.
While I didn’t stop reading all together, I find I have read far less books than I might have in more normal years. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t consider that, wondering what it will take to get back up to a speed to take on all the beloved unreads on my bookshelves. There’s lots of learning to do and make useful.
The way I described it early on was that I had ‘lost my metaphysics’. I couldn’t, out of habit and reflex, rely on things the way I had before. I was in a mindfog. Others described ‘languishing‘. The reliable patterns of how life was lived and days were made was gone, and something of identity and well-being along with it. Forced into the very present moment, words seem to lose their heritage, meaning and purpose. They ceased to connect. The dependable way things were failed as normal gave way to the behavior change the lethal spread of Covid demanded (and, alas, still warrants).
The very moment of quarantine shutdown, I was writing an article about an artist whose work is often commissioned for public spaces, the cover story on Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann for an issue of Little Patuxent Review. I had just finished interviewing the artist, and had the piece settled in my head. It only wanting typing out. It should have been an easy thing to do as lockdown started and I would have some time, but I started to realize that I had to write a completely different piece than what was in my mind — how does one visit and view public art when one can’t, what does that say about art and experience, what of public art and place in particular? I began to realize that the underlying foundation to what I wanted to say no longer held sway. The piece became an altogether different consideration. I was stifled and it took me a while to ‘come to terms’ and write it.
Words have definitions that come from long development and understanding (agreed upon, or not). In a sense, they are The Past, and our reliance on the past in the way we now live. They connect us in this way. Along comes the pandemic and the every day way things used to be is no longer the way things are. For me that was particularly unsettling. Pushed into the present moment, the present room, disconnected from a reliable, collective understanding/participation, I lost a structure to the way things were. I lost my metaphysics, the way I understood the world.
I balked at reading. If you know me, you know that reading has a large part to do with who I am, how I become, how I give back. That sort of stopped at the pandemic’s beginning.
Wonder-fully, it was a book on gardening that started me up again. That first summer of the pandemic, when the numbers had settled, we took a road trip to an AirBnB on the side of a Fingerlake in New York, a way to get out of our own house and the dull rigor quarantine had imposed. We picked a place we were familiar with, knew enough about to know we could keep our pandemic-safe practices, and headed out. I packed a stack of books, of course, though I probably wondered why at the time. I wasn’t reading. One of those books was Katherine White’s Onward and Upward in the Garden.
Clifftop overlooking Seneca Lake, the rustic house we stayed in had a garden, and in that a metal table surrounded by chairs. It was there I cracked open this book. I fell into its pages, its way of seeing and saying. It is a marvel. A New Yorker editor writes reviews of seed catalogues in their heyday. How could that be interesting, and why is it three hundred some pages? Every season as the catalogues came to her, Ms. White would read and review the writing, which had a literary pedigree back then. Gardeners of the world delighted; readers of the New Yorker were charmed. It is charming, bewitching, settling, especially if you look up from its pages into a garden surrounding you as you read, realizing you are in the midst of a season and its beauty and being: things are doing what they are supposed to do. Count on them. The repeating cycles of Nature. Reassuring.
Reading through the book, the years of seed catalogues, the pattern of one season after another, I shifted into a kind of Taoist appreciation of what was going on in my moment. Life from one year to the next no matter what is going on, the cliched ‘going with the flow’. Life energy moving through time, maybe not unconcerned with its particular season, but carrying on and through it, doing what life does: being and becoming. Rising to the occasion. This really was reassuring. The dread at being in the beginning of a pandemic, illness and death sweeping through, a steeped uncertainty with everything on hold, abated, and I looked to the larger patterns of Nature, the persistent force that moves through time.
It was the right book at the right time, and it helped me settle back into words, into reading, and rely on patterns of understanding that we carry along even through strife. I look to books in a know-that-you-know-nothing kind of way, hoping to learn something about being, place, and existence. This book helped me regain a sense of possible again. Odd, but there you go.
While I won’t say I am reading again at pace, I am reading more each month. I am a few books into the year already. At the moment, I am in the midst of the appropriately named Begin Again (Eddie S. Glaude Jr., 2020), what James Baldwin has to tell us about our particular time (what a book it is! but that is a different post — hoping to find the words soon to write it, but it is sending me off to read more and all of the Baldwin, and it may be a awhile).
We are still in the midst of the pandemic’s waves — they do drag on, and enough already — but we do seem to be adapting to the situation, carrying on like gardens do and remind us to do, relying on that kind of structural knowing and persistence. What a privilege reading is. While it is a frustration not to be in a mind to read for me, it is also a bit selfish and a whine to go on about it — apologies for that. Know that I am grateful for your attention. Dear reader, what books have helped you settle through these unsettling years and why?
Happy reading,
Tim Singleton
Board Co-chair, HoCoPoLitSo
I’ll point out that Onward and Upward in the Garden deserves another kind of look, one less sentimental, the privilege of property and place offering a different, more critical regard. A post for another day. I talk of words and language as connective above, but Begin Again looks at how they do quite the opposite, as well. It is one of the reasons I put these two together here — there is so much more to reading than just the book you are in, than the perspective you bring to it, all things considered.
HoCoPoLitSo Celebrates its 44th Annual Irish Evening with Former & Future Guests
Here is the program for this evening’s Irish Evening.
HoCoPoLitSo’s 44th annual Irish Evening of Music and Poetry on Friday, February 11, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. features an amazing roster of Irish writers sharing their memories of past visits. Colm Tóibín, Alice McDermott, Colum McCann, Mike McCormack, Vona Groarke, Theo Dorgan and Paula Meehan will virtually grace our stage, along with music by O’Malley’s March and step dancers from the Teelin Irish Dance Company. General admission is $20 and available at the Howard Community Box Office, https://ci.ovationtix.com/32275/production/1095249 or by calling 443.518.1500.
The evening program, co-chaired by Anne Reis and Ed Young and hosted on Zoom this year, begins with a pre-show at 7:20 p.m. and will pay tribute to Irish evenings of the past and introduce poet Mary Madec. The evening includes an introduction by Daniel Mulhall, Ireland’s Ambassador to the U.S, music by O’Malley’s March fronted by former MD. Governor Martin O’Malley, and award-winning dancers from the Teelin Irish Dance Company.
Six writers to have previously visited HoCoPoLitSo will share tributes to departing Irish chairperson, Catherine McLoughlin Hayes, and the founder of Irish eve, Padraic Kennedy, and read from their award-winning works. Vona Groarke, who visited in 2019, is the author of ten books of poetry and winner of numerous awards. Colum McCann, who visited both 1999 and 2013, received both the National Book Award and the Dublin Literary Award. His most recent book, Apeirogon, was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Poet and playwright Paula Meehan also visited twice, in 2000 and 2014. Theo Dorgan, who visited in 2014, is a poet, writer, lecturer, translator, and documentary screenwriter. Alice McDermott, who visited in 2020, was nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize and was a recipient of the National Book Award. Colm Tóibín visited in 1999 and again in 2011. A winner of the Dublin Literary Prize, Tóibín received the 2021 David Cohen Prize for Literature, a lifetime achievement award. Mike McCormack visited us in 2018 and his newest novel, Solar Bones, won the Dublin Literary Award. Newcomer Mary Madec’s third poetry collection is The Egret Lands with News From Other Parts (2019).
Click here to watch a brief video on how to purchase Irish Evening tickets online.
six questions with Emily Rich and Leona Sevick
Emily Rich and Leona Sevick are the feature writers at January Wilde Readings, a monthly community open mic supported by HoCoPoLitSo. Join Emily and Leona as well as other open mic readers for a free reading on Zoom (and Facebook Live) on Tuesday, January 11 at 7 p.m. Click here to register for the free event. Click here for more details about the event.
We asked Emily and Leona our favorite six questions about their reading and writing, and here’s what they had to say.
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Emily: My parents.
Leona: While I have written about all of my family members, I suppose my mother shows up most often in my work. She was a South Korean immigrant and a complex person, and I write about her challenges with language and with the small town American culture she raised my brother and me in. I’ve also written about her struggle with illness, though I seldom name her in those poems. My mother died suddenly in late summer, and I have had some difficulty writing since then. I am working through my grief, and I’m confident the writing will come again.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Emily: I think I’m sort of antsy when I write. I have a desk that I’ll sit at for awhile, then move to a comfy chair and use a lap desk. The most important thing is to have quiet. I’m not someone who can write in a coffee shop, for instance.
Leona: My busy kitchen—at a rustic wooden island on a backless stool that keeps me alert.
Who always gets the first read?
Emily: Ideally other writers whose opinions I trust. I was most productive when I met with a regular writing group, but that’s not been possible recently. Sharing critiques with writers on line (the Writers Center in Bethesda has several on-line groups) is a pretty good substitute.
Leona: I have a close friend who is a novelist, and he is an excellent first reader. He is highly attentive to language and helps me make my words more surprising, more active. He is also painfully honest in his observations.
Do you have any consistent re-writing rituals?
Emily: The best thing I can do to get in the mindset to write is to read. I write nonfiction, so I have several essay collections, as well as lit mag subscriptions that I turn to.
Leona: Before I write I like to read a poem or two that I admire. I generally identify them days before and then revisit them for inspiration.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Emily: William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury; Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.
Leona: As a teacher, I’m always rereading works in preparation for classes. One book that I choose to teach again and again and enjoy rereading is Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of stories, Unaccustomed Earth. Her ability to sensitively describe the lives of first generation immigrants and the struggles of their children is deeply moving to me.
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Emily: Several years ago I attended the Tin House Writers Workshop where I got to listen to fabulous readings by the likes of Maggie Nelson, Cheryl Strayed, and Anthony Doerr. What struck me was the honest way each of these very accomplished authors talked about self doubt and about how difficult the writing process can be sometimes. Beyond that, I hosted a reading for the Bay to Ocean Journal, the lit mag I manage, just a month ago. I was thrilled to have a community of writers come together, share their words, and get to know each other. We’d all come out of a long period of quarantine (which it looks like we’ll be reentering, unfortunately), and the event was joyful and full of hope.
Leona: When I was at Bread Loaf years ago, I had the honor of hearing Philip Levine read. As someone who writes also about the working class, I found his words and reading style—filled with humility and good sense—inspiring.
About Our Guests:
Emily Rich is managing editor of the Bay to Ocean Journal, published by the Eastern Shore Writers Association. She has taught memoir writing at the Bethesda Writer’s Center and through the Lighthouse Guild at Salisbury University. Her work has been published in The Pinch, Cutbank, Hippocampus, Delmarva Review, and Little Patuxent Review, among others. She’s twice been listed as a notable in Best American Essays. She lives in Trappe, MD with her husband and three hyper Labradors.
Leona Sevick is the 2017 Press 53 Poetry Award Winner for her first full-length book of poems, Lion Brothers. Her recent work appears in Orion, Birmingham Poetry Review, Water~Stone Review, The Pinch, and Blackbird. Sevick was named a 2019 Walter E. Dakin Fellow for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and she serves as advisory board member of the Furious Flower Black Poetry Center. She is professor of English at Bridgewater College in Virginia, where she teaches Asian American literature.
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