17 Kinds of Hungry

I started my day not with a period of prayer, as I usually do, but with “17 Kinds of Hungry,” a poem by Adrian Matejka. He is on the faculty at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference 2024 in Vermont, which begins today. I imagine him this morning waking up in whatever cottage or house he's been assigned. Perhaps he's brought his wife and daughter with him, perhaps not. He is going to have a splendid experience on the mountain.

I was in my own kitchen workspace, at the table that faces the green vista behind the house I've lived in for 48 years. I was not admitted to Bread Loaf this year, nor was I invited off the waitlist. I've mourned this outcast state for three months now, moving from initial shock through an uncertain hope to a final understanding that I was not going to be invited off the wait list, as I had been several times in my long association with BLWC, and that the waitlisting may have been a "soft decline.”

I am in a distressing, season in my life. My journal is full of uncertainty and confusion, going back to at least February, maybe even to this time last year. I’ve known loss, estrangements, some physical pain and disability from an awakened spinal problem, a genuine clinical depression currently in its second month since official diagnosis, some PTSD, some just plain feeling sorry for myself. A decision to stay close by to accommodate family members’ needs led to my decision not to make the trip to Vermont even as a visitor to the readings and lectures open to the public.

I said above that I started this day with a poem instead of my habitual period of prayer. That’s not quite true. I endeavor to read a poem a day, often chosen at random by opening The Writer’s Almanac or a nearby print volume or somebody else’s choice. Poetry, for me, is a form of prayer, and I think it is for many poets. I made the decision this morning to read this week and next from the work of poets who are on the faculty this year at Bread Loaf, some of whom, like Matejka, I have never heard of.

“17 Kinds of Hungry” fed me this morning. I’ve worked all day on discerning what to do next to restart my writing practice. Resurrecting my nearly abandoned blog/Substack has been a good start. It's time to take a deep breath, pray a blessing on all those on the mountain these next ten days, square my shoulders, and begin again to Build Back Better. We all have a lot of work to do.