Two Poems by Anwegwe

Sunset #734

the fire dies down, and the colors rise up
rivers flow amber, gold, and blood-rose
cascading one upon the other
wave upon wave around the sky
pushing back the eastern dark
holding the light for one last hour
giving us time, time to remember
all of the days we have had together
the glorious days beneath the sun

The main character in my recent book, All That Was Asked, is a poet. It’s a first-person narrative, and he keeps mentioning how people reacted to a poem, or how much he enjoyed writing a poem, or that he likes to watch sunsets because they inspire poetry. But . . . there aren’t any poems in the book itself. It seemed to me I couldn’t quite measure up to the standard implied in the text . . . one gets the impression, although Ansegwe is self-effacing about it, that he’s actually rather good.

Still . . . it’s nagged at me, that I didn’t have any poems by Varayla Ansegwe. After spending hours and days and weeks and months with him, I’m sort of a fan, if you will. If I were a real fan, I’d have his work, wouldn’t I?

So I gave it a try. It’s interesting, to try to write personal-style poetry from someone else’s perspective. The one above results from all those mentions of poetry related to watching sunsets. Imagine our hero trotting down the hill after enjoying a really nice day’s-ending light show, muttering to himself, wriggling his fingers, anxious to scribble down this latest idea. We can leave it to your imagination how he improved this “draft”.

For a second poem, I tried to combine two things from his background. First, it seems Ansegwe had a fairly decent collegiate-level ranking in, well, whatever ball game is popular in Korlo. I envision it as sort of like baseball, maybe like an upsized version of kickball, with a larger, rugby-sized ball. Lots of running, jumping, catching, throwing–very energetic. Second, it’s evident that he was quite the one for romantic entanglements.

If I can gather enough of these, I’ll put together a little “collection” that I can share at events and such. Oh, and as a reminder . . . consider these as translated from Korlovian.

(Photos are mine. All from our own universe, alas.)

Intercept

In this moment,
there is only the ball, gliding on its parabolic arc.
It requires all of your mind to calculate the leap
the extension of your arm, the stretch of your fingers
the breath you draw at its approach
the strength you need to hurl it to your comrades.
 
For this moment, you do not know that she is gone.
For this moment, your heart is no more than a muscle.
Whether the ball glides into your hand
whether it skims your fingertips and caroms off under the lights
either way, you will crash to earth again
the world's gravity will bear you down
the moment will end
and you will know.
 
But in this moment, you leap
and time stretches to meet you.

You might also like to read:

PassagePassage

Moon & Spica

Eclipsed Moon With Spica

 

 

A few weeks ago, we had a beautiful lunar eclipse visible in North America.Ā  It was well worth sitting out to watch the Earth’s shadow advance until the Moon was completely covered and glowing with a warm red hue, then retreat until the Moon shone bright once again.Ā  Here is a combination of a poem written for a workshop many years back, inspired by another lunar eclipse, with a few photos from this year’s event.Ā  Multitudes of astrophotographers caught fine images of that eclipse.Ā  This time, my equipment on hand was my hardy little point-and-shoot Lumix, which yielded many images suitable for artistic manipulation, especially with effects added by the drifting fog that interrupted our clear view.Ā  Mars was in view as well, so I’ll include one image with Mars.Ā  Can you spot it?

I watch the Mother walk my night,

spreading her darkness through my shadows.

She turns to me as the night turns, and I watch, I gaze,

rapt in the music of her light.

 

2014 April 14-15 Total Lunar Eclipse
Wrapped round and full in the stillness of this, my night,

she draws in light and darkness from the sky,

and sets them in my hands and at my feet,

until the whole land is an image of sky,

until I am full, full round and whole,

wholly wrapped in the music within my darkness.

 

Fog Rainbows
She waxes as the night wanes, and I gaze, gaze,

until I dream I am a fish which has never before known water,

and now, for the first time, breathes ā€¦

until I dream I am a child who has never known her name,

and now, for the first time, dreams ā€¦

 

Artist's Impression
dreams she stands with a woman, a stranger,

in a land which bears an image of sky.

The other, the stranger, is silent beside her,

while she speaks to the mother as a favored daughter.

As she speaks, I give back through my hands

the light and darkness which is the sky

until the land rests again beneath my shadows,

until the child knows me for herself.

 

Floating in the Ether
Even as we greet and join each other,

the Mother steps over the edge of the world.

Even as the stars first claim the sky,

I breathe the mist of my first morning.

 

Bloodshed Moon

 

Success as an author?Success as an author?

Depends what you mean by “success”

One of my writing groups (the one that isnā€™t a critique circle) has set a blog-post prompt of ā€œHow do you measure success as an author?ā€
Weā€™re supposed to introspect, come up with wise words to inspire and console others. I donā€™t know about yā€™all, but the past two years have been a low-rising roller coaster, beginning with a brief burst of elation that my first book (my ā€œdebutā€ if you want to get precious about it) was coming out.

WIte, red, and blue award ribbons from a fair

Only then we had a little bit of a pandemic to deal with.

And now itā€™s two years later.

All That Was Asked has never had a book-launch party (it slightly predates online launch parties), a signing session, a reading at a conventionā€”none of those things. Not uncoincidentally, it hasnā€™t made much dough for me or for my publisher. At least the print copies are mostly print-on-demand, so no oneā€™s staring at a warehouse full of unsold copies and calling a shredding company.

But is selling a ton of books a success? To stay sane in this business, I think you have to measure success more on the basis of what you are doing than what you have done. If youā€™re making oodles of money in the publishing industry, thatā€™s mostly a matter of luck, so is that success? Iā€™d call it good fortune. Itā€™s very much a lottery. Iā€™ve read absolutely stunning work in critique circles, listened to mind-blowing readings by little-known writers, and Iā€™ve even had people tell me after a reading ā€œwow, that was awesome!ā€

What makes sense is to measure how this workā€”writingā€”impacts your life. Is this what you live for? Not in a rosy-eyed, dreamy way, not ā€œI luv writing <3ā€ but ā€œwriting is what drags me out of everything elseā€ and ā€œwriting is my food, drink, and sleepā€ and ā€œwriting is how I exist in this universe.ā€

What Iā€™m doing right now is working on projects that Iā€™ve wanted to tackle for yearsā€”no, decadesā€”but never could due to the vicissitudes of child-rearing, day-job workload, personal upheavals, and disability.Ā  Iā€™m not whining. These are just facts. I chose to raise kids, and it was satisfying work (and, yes, frustrating, too, but in all the right ways). However, doing the best job possible involved more than dropping them off at our barely-adequate schools. It meant advocating for them, fighting an uncaring administrative system, volunteering, fundraising, and, as a last-resort, homeschooling. At least in the pandemic age, there are more parents out there who understand that homeschoolingā€”at least not ideallyā€”isnā€™t a romp in the garden, itā€™s serious work. And, like most of us, for me that was work that had to take place in parallel with earning a living.

So right now, Iā€™m successful. Every morning (afternoon?) I wake up, and thereā€™s writing to do.

  • This kind of writing, which is off-the-cuff, barely edited, and hurled into the interweb’s event horizon, never to be seen by human eyes.
  • Critical writing, where Iā€™m critiquing work by fellow writers, trying to help them make their stories the best they can be.Ā 
  • Social-media writingā€”mostly Twitterā€”where I practice being concise, kind, and thoughtful.
  • And, finally, yes, writing my own stories, the ones Iā€™ve been wanting to read.

What I’ve been looking forā€”and yes, I’ve found some, but far too fewā€”are stories led by characters who have trouble communicating, who donā€™t fit in, who think differently than others but find a way through life anyhow. I’m tired of hero’s-journey stories and chosen-one tales that take themselves too seriously. I don’t mind playing with the tropes. For instance, one of my WIPs has a seeming “chosen one” in it, but the whole thing is a crock, a scheme worked up by a person who’s trying to change society and is using an old myth to get buy-in. Not that the “chosen” person isn’t worthy, but there’s no magic in the processā€”they’re carefully selected for capability and then trained for the job.

Iā€™m not writing to market. I admit that. So I canā€™t complain about sales, not too much. It may take time for people like me to find the stories Iā€™m writing for them. Thatā€™s OK. I waited a long time. A little longerā€”I can deal.

Well, I’m trying to, anyhow.

In the meantime, Iā€™m keeping on. For me, that writers learned to use remote meetings to connect for critiques, discuss craft, conduct conventions, and more has been a compensatory gain during the pandemic. Itā€™s not a benefit of this horrible time; itā€™s a thing we could should have been doing all along, and only just now learned to value. When the pandemicā€™s over, weā€™ll keep connected this way. Thatā€™s a good thing, but we donā€™t get to pretend itā€™s all right that millions of people died while those of us privileged to live were fumbling our way to this belated discovery.

Iā€™ve leveraged that new learning, because Iā€™m an engineer and tech things come naturally to me. Iā€™ve let myself get roped into volunteering to help others less comfortable with the technologyā€”and thatā€™s OK, because participating with other writers helps me connect more deeply with my writing community.  I value the friendships Iā€™ve formed with people Iā€™ve only met in Zoom rooms. This is not a trivial feelingā€”I dedicated my Monday afternoons for half this past year to help a Zoom friend whose critique circle had lost their only zoom-capable member. That meant stepping aside from one of my other critique circles, one that needed me less. Iā€™m returning to my prior group as of this month, because my friend’s old zoom-host has returned. Iā€™ll miss the new friends I made in her circle, even though we only ever saw each other in little boxes on our computer screens.

Am I a failure because I had to defer my writing career? Looking back through my drawer of shelved and partly-done stories, one thing is strikingly clearā€”I was so young, so ignorant, so clueless. Much of what Iā€™m writing now, I couldnā€™t have done when I was younger. In technique, I’m much better than my younger self; some of that gain I can attribute to years of writing science and engineering reports and papers, working collaboratively with colleagues on phrasing, structure, and word choice … plus coping with deadlines. Beyond the technique, older me is able to imagine more-complex characters, see worlds with more-different people in them. Through personal experience, I know most livesā€”most real storiesā€”don’t have a ā€œcall to adventureā€ or a ā€œsupreme ordeal.ā€ Thereā€™s no wise mentor waiting to guide us. We have to muddle through, try to survive in an irrational universe, and deal with the fact we’ll never quite make sense of it all.

Sure, Iā€™m still learning. You have to keep learning. Itā€™s the key to growth in every respect. Even there, though, Iā€™m doing better, working actively to learn more of what I need to continue improving.

In my next posting, Iā€™ll demonstrate my success by sharing a list of what I consider to be my 2021 accomplishments not only as a writer but also as a member of the writing community.

Iā€™ll warn you right now: itā€™s a longer post.

On recent weather in OklahomaOn recent weather in Oklahoma

Though it seems I just got started on the Grand Canyon project, this day is one to set aside for thinking about tornadoes.Ā Ā  This afternoon, I listened on the radio to an interview with a recent immigrant from California to Moore, Oklahoma.Ā  With tears in her voice, she spoke of how “scary, really scary” she found frequent tornadoes in her adopted home state.Ā Ā  When I interned at Argonne National Lab many many many years ago, a local described the tornado that had passed through the fringe of the lab a few years previously.Ā  He said the noise of the approaching tornado made him think of a T. Rex roaring through the forest.Ā  This was before the Jurassic Park movies had transformed T. Rex into a helpful bad-guy removing plot device.Ā Ā  Classic tornado image courtesy of NOAA

On the positive side, just down the road from Moore, college students at the University of Oklahoma are designing ways to use the DOD money invested in drone technology to create drones capable of collecting essential data which will vastly improve the ability to forecast tornadoes and predict their motions more accurately.Ā  Check out their work at the Government Technology e-mag page.Ā Ā  To understand how important it is to gather data to analyze, consider this NOAA consolidation of data over time which suggests when and where tornadoes are most likely…you can check in on these data on NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center site, daily.

StormPredictionCenterMap_NOAA

 

© 2012-2025 Vanessa MacLaren-Wray All Rights Reserved