Talking to myself with other people’s words
I talked to myself a lot in 2020, but I was mostly using other people’s words. At the start of the year—back when 2020 was just another year—I resolved to memorize a poem each month. And so, each month I’d gradually pen a published piece onto a sheet of yellow legal pad paper, adding one new line per day. And each day I’d carry that emerging poem in my pocket, reviewing it as I walked the dog, or bathed my daughter, or waited for leftovers to heat up in the microwave …
My 2020 yearlong poetry project ended up looking like this:
January: Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Eagle”
February: Sir Walter Raleigh’s “What Is Our Life”
March: Langston Hughes’ “American Heartbreak”
April: Emily Dickinson’s “She sights a Bird—she chuckles—“
May: Russell Hoban’s “Old Man Ocean”
June: Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”
July: Georgia Roberts Durston’s “The Wolf”
August: Conrad Aiken’s “Haunted Chambers”
September: Karina Borowicz’s “September Tomatoes”
October: Bruce Weigl’s “My Autumn Leaves”
November: Louise Glück’s “Dawn”
December: Katie Condon’s “Getting Through Monday”
And let me tell you—if you’re getting a crown put on your back right molar, or if you’re driving around alone after a heated argument with your wife, or you’re standing in your two-year-old daughter’s room trying to sway her to sleep after an intense toddler meltdown—these poems are wonderful companions to have.
Furthermore, there was something reassuring about carrying around these unfamiliar words until they became something familiar, especially as the year dragged on and morphed into the horror show it became.
Of course, now I can’t imagine not memorizing poetry as part of my daily life. But if 2020 has taught us anything it’s that it’s always more meaningful and fun to do things with family and friends. So for 2021, I’m teaming up (virtually) with poet Katie Condon, whose poem, “Getting Through Monday” concluded my 2020 list. Each month Katie will select a poem for me to memorize and, God willing, I’ll memorize it. But in the process, Katie and I will also discuss the work and post our conversations right here on this blog.
For those unfamiliar with Katie’s poetry—which has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House and elsewhere—there is something very punk rock about much of her work. So many of her poems are defiant, irreverent and full of energy and aggression. But unlike punk rock, she never plays the same three-chord progression twice. Katie lures readers in with her humor and wit before taking them to unexpected, introspective and often dark places. Religion, sex, death, guilt, beauty, shame, desire, hope and loneliness line the pages of her 2020 debut collection, Praying Naked.
As a fiction writer, I’m pretty excited in knowing Katie will expose me to poets I’ve likely never read before and—AND!—discuss the works in ways I probably never would have gotten to on my own. (No pressure, Katie.)
If this sounds like your idea of fun, please join us on this 2021 journey. And feel free to grab a legal pad too. Who knows?—perhaps you’ll discover the delights that come with carrying around and reciting other people’s words.
Learn more about Katie Condon and her debut collection, Praying Naked, here.
