First book advice #2: no apologies, please

My dearest ones. Yesterday I cautioned against trying to produce a perfect poetry collection. Today's variation on the maelstrom of worry which accompanies a first book is: Don't apologize.

Initially and characteristically I poo-poo-ed my work as soon as it was accepted. (Such a negative pose is ransferrable to fiction, nonfiction, music, photography - pretty much any project in which the sleeve reveals an at least faint outline of the heart's presence.) All of a sudden, I was "over it." So over it, as if every poem I'd written up to that point was no more than a warm-up exercise for the poet I was meant to be.

Knowing me as I do (and don't), my attitude was a device of my little devils of self-doubt, a way to keep me small and disallow great feelings of pride and joy which are warranted by the publication of a book. God forbid I be happy. Ya know?

A friend, not the same friend who warned against publishing a "precious" book, came to the rescue. She wrote, "There was a point when I was embarrassed by my first book because the later work was so obviously better to me."

She urged me to forego the questionable pleasure of feeling superior to oneself, a kinky way of thinking indeed. I stopped myself from telling excited friends I was feeling disconnected from the manuscript. That feeling sure hasn't lasted. I am connected to my book. Very. I like it. I am proud it. Hello, world? Read my damn book!

I could have done a fair amount of damage to myself and my book by putting it out there that I was really better than that! Whew! The silly and true fact is that I love the poems (The Future Is Happy). Whatever self-doubt I felt in October 2008, I am not feeling it now and am so happy I quickly learned to exhibit restraint.

My friend also emailed, "Let yourself enjoy its strengths. Most important of all--don't deprecate the work in any way--even if you feel that way yourself, others won't, and if you suggest to them that it's not your best work, that's how they'll look at it, and that's hurtful."

The impulse is universal. A compliment to your outfit is met with, "This old thing?" and so on.

I love my book and everything in it. I didn't italicize some (about three) words in the final draft which I meant to. I see a mistake on the previously-published-in page. I wouldn't mind flawless, but I have a strong and, as I wrote in yesterday's blog, all-of-one-piece book.

Feedback has been fabulous. Let me tell you; my sweet mother, wherever she is, well, hanging out in the cloud over there, is so proud, as is Pop, rattling ice cubes in his heavenly Scotch.

I hope some of you will take the time to read my book and appreciate its heart, quality, spirit, tenderness, humor and wild imperfection.

And as you assemble your work of art, be thoughtful. And when your work of art is out there, be proud.

first review:

http://www.alvahsbooks.com/book-reviews/review-future-happy-sarah-sarai

buy from publisher:
http://www.blazevox.org/bk-ss2.htm

booksellers buy here:
http://www.spdbooks.org/pages/about/default.aspx

buy from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Happy-Sarah-Sarai/dp/1935402358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251821725&sr=1-1

Mary Martin, Peter Pan, "I Gotta Crow"

Ray Carver: short stories follow the heart

I loved Ray Carver's work but I had to be won over.

In L.A., in the eighties, I heard an editor from Black Sparrow Books praise his spare, lean prose and remember—quite distinctly—thinking: Yeah, right—spare, lean—load-a-crap. Not long after, I bought Where I'm Calling From—the cover art was so cool—at Chatterton's on Los Feliz, was home by 11 p.m. and didn't go to bed until I finished reading, which, given its slim volume-ness didn't take all that long, I suppose.

But still. I sat in bed turning page after page, marveling at the stories as works of art. I had begun writing short stories and aimed for each to be the equivalent of an Indian miniature or emerald or string quartet. Given that it is now 2009 and I've not had a collection published (though about a dozen have been in review), I don't know if anyone cares about my efforts. If they don't they don't. I have some faith in the market (no faith in the crooks who manipulate it).

A fairly recent New Yorker article set right or claimed to set right Gordon Lish's intrusive editing of Carver, thus making Lish the kingpin of the spare, lean rep. Maybe, maybe not. But Lish wasn't the kingpin of Carver's uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist and he was not the one to make palpable American hope and American despair.

Carver did that. His characters are not memorable as individuals. They are a series of husbands and wives who drink and smoke and cheat. Sometimes they encounter the miraculous as in "Cathedral" where a blind man reveals his understanding of gestures of visual art. Or opposite of the miraculous, the chilling, as in“So Much Water So Close to Home,” in which the the body of a young woman is left like a case of beer in a cold river while a group of men have their weekend in the wilderness.

Between the two stories, God is present or God is present in Her absence.

A slew and then another slew of Carver fans have published affective appreciations. So why me, now? Because of Beethoven's late quartets. I heard mention of his late sonatas and remembered something I read in an interview with Carver. He said the late quartets were for the young and the early quartets to be savored in old (relative, of course) age.

And I recalled I was a little embarrassed when I mentioned my trendy affection for Carver to a brilliant journal editor I happened to meet when I was at a summer seminar for secondary educators. This editors discovered new voices and he made great choices. He seemed surprised I was of the masses, with Carver and also with my then affection for The Color Purple, which he perceived not as bad but as mass market and not sophisticated.

Sad truth: Back then more than now but I still struggle to like who and what I like and not think of anyone else, not try to please.

I will have more to say about Raymond Carver. After all, I ruined a great pair of truly sophisticated dark glasses because of him. But that will come on another day. Today I am remembering what is is like to be a fan. I am in the stands and cheering out my heart.

My heart is strong and my cheers are loud.