The Gift of Time: Reading and Writing While on Sabbatical (So Far!)

And poetry news!

Last month, I attended the Festival of Faith & Writing at Calvin University. While there, I was signed up for two lunch sessions on the topic Writing for Substack. On my way to the second lunch, I tripped rather dramatically on-campus (scraping up my knees, torso, and hands) so, instead of learning more on the ins and outs of Substack, I had to go in search of first aid. Hopefully this isn’t too much of a sign about the future of this Substack, ha ha 😂,  but nevertheless we plow forward!

Today I’m a little over a month into my sabbatical from full-time work in parish ministry, with about two months still to go. In the denomination where I serve, you’re eligible for a 3-month sabbatical after 5 years at a congregation.

Clergy sabbaticals can look very different depending on the person. For me, one real gift of the sabbatical has been having more time to spend on my creative work. For a while, I’ve had an outline of poems to pull together into a new manuscript (which will hopefully turn into a second full-length book). With this time of sabbatical, I actually have ample space to do that ever-important work of editing. I’m hoping by June to have a manuscript that is ready to submit to publishers!

(Curious about the direction of the new book? Here are a few of the already-published poems that I currently have in the manuscript::

*“Pep Talk for the Mother-Self Who May Not Get to Live”
*“Dear Ruth, Written from a Crossroads Moment”
*“From Ruth, To A Woman at a Crossroads Moment”
*Some Sister Wives poems!)

It’s been truly surreal to be able to have a productive day of editing (at a coffee shop when I can!) and then realize….Wait, I can also do this tomorrow! In my usual life, I fit in writing or editing when I can, often in short bursts of time or on seasonal/sporadic bases depending on what’s going on at church and in the rest of my life. While I already had a sense of the overall arc of  this book, I am enjoying meditating on its themes while working on it day-by-day. 

This manuscript’s formation has been very different from the formation of my first book, Jesus Merch: A Catalog in Poems. Written entirely in the year 2020 as the pandemic shifted all our lives, Jesus Merch was always meant to be one project. I wasn’t sure what its length would be, but I knew I wanted to follow that concept – poems inspired by commercial objects with a Christian bent – for as long as I still found it compelling. From there I looked at the poems and began figuring out sections and ordering that might make sense. (Readers’ reactions to the book’s shift from more theoretical, theological poems to some of the book’s more personal poems, borne out of pandemic isolation, have been really interesting for me as a writer!)  

In contrast, this current manuscript comes from writing lots of poems first (some conceived as individual poems; others as series that I potentially thought could become chapbooks/books of their own) over the past few years and then seeing the ways some of  those might speak to each other in a book. The hope is that at least a fraction of what I’m sensing about how these poems relate to each other will translate on the page for others. Much of my editing so far has been working on individual poems on the tiny levels of line and words, so the poems are strong as possible, but in the weeks ahead, I look forward to diving more into the big picture, e.g. removing or adding poems as needed, assessing how they flow or don’t, reading it all as one book, etc. 

I feel grateful for this extended time to look at both details and the big picture! It is work that I have faith I would’ve gotten to eventually, but at a much slower pace. Time and how much we have available impacts all of us who are passionate about creating, though to different extends depending on the particulars of our lives. This stretch of time, for instance, is a rare privilege. In terms of my regular day-to-day, there may be some writers whose jobs, lifestyles, etc., leave more time for their creative work, and others who have much less time/opportunity. In many ways, this can feel feel unfair (and in some ways actually is unfair, impacted as it is by capitalism, proximity to wealth, gendered expectations, etc.) As I treasure this gift of time, I am also thinking about about how my time will eventually shift back into its more normal patterns — how writing is one piece (one treasured piece) of a whole of a life, and how life has its different seasons where different parts of ourselves can step forward and take center stage.

For many years, I was not interested in writing being the central thing about me. As a child and teenager, I identified myself so hugely with my writing and the achievement I wanted to make as a writer, that I began to sell all the other aspects of myself short. It was a liberation in college to begin to know myself as someone who was more than a writer - as someone who could have other callings.

As an adult who has at least somewhat recovered from her perfectionism and who is more spiritually grounded in a sense of value that isn’t reliant on achievement, I’m glad to have a different (and I believe healthier) relationship with my identity as a writer than I once had, and I’m excited to see how that continues to evolve over time.

Another valuable aspect of this time has been an opportunity for more reading than usual. As I mentioned earlier, I began my sabbatical time by going to the Festival of Faith and Writing in Michigan which was FANTASTIC. I still am going over the notes that I took at the conference, so there’s still some digesting to do of all the wonderful talks and presentations I heard. I have made progress, though, in terms of the stack of books I purchased at the Festival.

Probably the most exciting read to me so far was Naamah by Sarah Blake, a novel written in the perspective of Noah’s wife during the time on the ark. I have to make a confession – before this, I don’t know when the last time was that I read a whole novel! In undergrad, I fell in love with poetry; since then, I’ve mostly read poetry collections alongside nonfiction. Naamah was the perfect book to get me back to fiction – because of its topic being right up my alley (a feminist & queer exploration of a biblical story, yes please!) and, I’m suspecting, because it was written by a poet. The novel had surreal moments and a rich interiority that felt reminiscent of the way poets sometimes explore their subjects.

Once I make more progress on my TBR pile, I am hopeful to add some other novels to my personal reading! Perhaps more novels by writers who also write poetry. If you have novel recommendations, especially for prose that you feel has poetic qualities, please share. 

Otherwise, I’ve been reading poetry from my Festival of Faith and Writing haul: Hereverent by Katie Manning, Tiny Extravaganzas by Diane Mehta, Incarnation, Again by Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo, Wolf Lamb Bomb by Aviya Kushner, and the most recent issue of Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith You honestly can’t go wrong with any of these choices! 

Poetry (+ Poetry-Related) News

*A lovely review of Jesus Merch came out in this year’s issue of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, written by Justin Lacour. I am making my way through the issue now – it’s chock-full of interesting poets! You can pick up a copy by following the link I provided.

If you don’t get your own copy, the photos below show the beginning and end of Justin’s review.

I am beginning to really grow in my appreciation of people’s identification of humor in my work. I haven’t always known what to think about the role of comedy in my writing, but the last few years I’ve been exploring the importance of comedy through stand-up and improv classes, which has led me to a deeper appreciation of just how essential and spiritual I think comedy is.

*A review I wrote of Renee Emerson’s poetry collection Church Ladies was published a few weeks ago in Psaltery & Lyre! I hope you’ll give it a read. I particularly explore the way Emerson’s poems about historical women provide a way of grappling with, as I write, “Christianity's historical and present-day sins against women.”

*Speaking of Psaltery & Lyre, we’re open for submissions in June! I am one of the poetry readers. It’s such a joy to be a part of a team of such thoughtful readers. I hope you’ll consider sending us something!

*Poetry reading in Providence still on for Sunday June 9th. I’ll be reading alongside Aaron Caycedo-Kimura and Luisa Caycedo-Kimura! More details on location + time coming soon.

*As always, there are lots of ways to support my work if you’re interested!  Jesus Merch is available for purchase directly from my publisher Fernwood Press or through any major book retailer, including Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. Your local bookstore or library should also be able to order it! My chapbook Woman as Communion is also available directly from Game Over Books.

If you’ve read and enjoyed either, please consider reviewing at Amazon, Goodreads, Storygraph, etc., or sharing your thoughts on your social media of choice. It means a lot!

Until next time,
Megan