Author: Rae Spencer

Praying Mantis, September 2013

Rae Spencer14 Comments

Last night I found a praying mantis on the kitchen window. As I watched it groom its antennae and feet, I imagined it was using the window as a mirror.

Mantis Sept 26

I have no doubt that clean antennae and feet matter on a functional level, but does some portion of a praying mantis’s experience reflect a sentiment I would call vanity?

Mantis Sept 26

I thought about the mantis off and on all night. Does fall make it anxious? Are these last few weeks of summer, its last few weeks of life, more urgent than all of its previous weeks?

I decided to look for the mantis again today, starting with the flower beds closest to the kitchen window. When I found it (or a similarly sized mantis) the situation was decidedly urgent.

Mantis Sept 27

At first I thought a mantis had caught one of the yard’s few remaining dragonflies. Then I realized it had caught another praying mantis. Or rather, the two insects had caught each other.

When I approached with my camera, they retreated to the underside of the ginger lily’s leaf.

Mantis Sept 27

The battle took place in slow motion, a strained embrace of stamina, strength, and will. Both sustained significant injuries:  the larger mantis mauled its opponent’s bent and broken wing, while the smaller mantis locked one barbed foreleg over a vulnerable eye.

Mantis Sept 27

Gradually, the smaller mantis extracted its damaged wing, and it seemed on the verge of gaining an advantage.

Mantis Sept 27

But the larger mantis broke its opponent’s grip and disabled the smaller mantis by biting through the major joints of both forelegs.

Mantis Sept 27

It was a brutal way to end the battle, precursor to an even more brutal death for the defeated. I didn’t stay to watch the victor dine, but when I returned a half-hour later, little remained of the smaller mantis.

Mantis Sept 27

I’m fond of praying mantises. They are among my favorite subjects to photograph. But this encounter? This is not why I love praying mantises, and I didn’t enjoy taking these photos. I don’t know why I watched so long.

In particular, I regret that my presence changed the course of their struggle. Except, it’s possible my presence in the yard changes the course of every struggle. Perhaps my camera affects everything I photograph, and my eyes affect everything I see.

Mantis Sept 27

Hampton Roads Writers 5th Annual Conference, 2013

Rae Spencer3 Comments

Pink Spotted Hawkmoth Sept 22

As evening approached on Thursday, September 19, the writers gathered. Drawn by the promise of shared wisdom and new perspectives on writing, we made our way to the second floor of the Westin Virginia Beach Town Center.

Pink Spotted Hawkmoth Sept 22

This year I challenged myself with sessions about short story writing and first person point of view. (I rarely attempt short fiction, and I never write in first person.) Between challenges, I attended sessions about copyright, novel writing, and poetry.

  • Creating the World in a Short Story — Clifford Garstang
  • Copyrights and Wrongs: Fair use of quotes & other things to avoid a lawsuit — Jeff Ourvan
  • Where Does My Story Start: How to Write a Winning First Chapter — Lisa McMann
  • First Person Problems: The specific challenges and opportunities of writing first person — Lydia Netzer
  • Different Voices, Different Times — Lydia Netzer
  • Do Put Words in my Mouth: Creating realistic and effective dialogue — Ethan Vaughan
  • Exquisite Sounds — Jeanne Larsen

Pink Spotted Hawkmoth Sept 22

Each morning of the conference started with a keynote address followed by First Ten Lines Critique sessions. The critique panel consisted of authors Lisa McMann (Friday morning only) and Kevin Maurer, along with literary agents Ethan Vaughan, Jeff Ourvan, and Dawn Dowdle.

Recurrent themes emerged as the panelists discussed samples of writing submitted by conference attendees. Overwriting hampered many openings. Weak dialogue and too much description slowed the pace. Shifts in tense and point of view distracted from the stories.

Pink Spotted Hawkmoth Sept 22

Each of these problems exist in my writing, but they are easier to see in someone else’s lines. I came away from these sessions with renewed gratitude for my writing partners, who see my mistakes more readily than I do.

Pink Spotted Hawkmoth Sept 22

I could spend weeks cataloguing what I learned and fail to cover it all. I could read for months and not read all the books I discovered.* Instead of attempting either, I’m writing.

Pink Spotted Hawkmoth Sept 22

I’m following paths of scent and light, spreading grains of pollen gathered at the conference. Perhaps a few of my poems and stories will germinate, will take root and grow.

Pink Spotted Hawkmoth Sept 22

The conference ended with a delightful surprise. My short story (my only “finished” short story) won Honorable Mention in The Frank Lawlor Memorial Fiction Prize!

HRW 2013

* I came home with a new title from Unbound Content, and I’m waiting impatiently for delivery of books by Jeanne Larsen and Lisa McMann. Next year, I’ll order Lydia Netzer’s new book as soon as it is released. In the meantime, I’ll read Shine Shine Shine again.

Spider Wasp (Arachnophobia Alert!)

Rae Spencer9 Comments

I was talking on the phone yesterday afternoon, laughing (and cringing) about how awful it feels to walk through a spider web, when I noticed something moving along the fence. It looked like a leaf, caught (of course) in one of the yard’s many spider webs, being blown about by the wind. But it moved too far along the fence to be anything anchored in a web, and it moved far too purposefully.

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

After I hung up the phone and raced to find my camera, I spent nearly an hour watching this little wasp. First she hauled her prey along the middle rail of the fence …

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

… lowered it down one of the posts …

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

… and tugged it over the ground until she found a clump of grass big enough to hide it.

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

Then she crawled under an adjoining clump of grass and started digging, emerging every so often to check her catch. She seemed to be measuring, trying to see if her burrow was big enough yet.

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

Once the burrow was finished, she turned the spider around a few times, wrestled it down through the clump of grass, and presumably buried it in her burrow with one (or more?) of her eggs.

Wasp and Spider Sept 12

The dynamic between these two predators, between the web spinner and its stinging foe, seems particularly cruel to me. Chances are the spider wasn’t dead when the wasp buried it with her egg. Merely paralyzed by her sting.

It’s a story that belongs in a horror movie or a nightmare, not in the yard. Except, it does belong in the yard. It belongs anywhere there are spiders and spider wasps. Perhaps what doesn’t belong are my words. Perhaps there is no place in the yard, at least in the lives of spiders and spider wasps, for words like “cruel” and “nightmare.” But where is the line? Where on the spectrum of consciousness do words begin? More importantly, where does empathy begin?

Review: Amytis Leaves Her Garden

Rae Spencer2 Comments

Amytis Leaves Her Garden by Karen Kelsay
(White Violet Press, 2012)

I confess to feeling intimidated as I approached this book. I am a long-time fan of the author’s online journal Victorian Violet Press, which is now closed, and I regularly submitted my poetry there. Our roles are established: I am a poet with no poetry credentials (other than my brief list of publications) and she is an editor. I submit. She reads and evaluates. I find the idea of reversing those roles unsettling.

Also, this book reveals embarrassing gaps in my knowledge. Who is/was Amytis? Easily answered by an internet search. But, more importantly, formal poetry? The majority of these poems are formal poetry, which I haven’t studied since high school. My preference, in both reading and writing, is free verse. So who am I to tackle this mysterious collection of formal poems? With my limited experience and non-existent credentials, what can I add to the conversation about Amytis Leaves Her Garden?

Then I started reading. I jotted down a few notes. And a few more notes. I read the whole thing again, flipping back and forth between poems, pen in hand. Now I have eleven pages of notes. With eleven pages of notes, perhaps I have something to add to the conversation after all. But it’s not a review. What I have is an argument for reading outside of comfort zones.

Formal or not, the poems in Amytis Leaves Her Garden are relentlessly beautiful. The first line sets the tone: “It’s always in the violet hour you call…”. (“Winter Lullaby” pg 11) Winter and dusk linger near every poem. Amytis is not leaving her garden, the garden is leaving her.

The book travels back and forth between fields and seashores, between childhood memories and adult responsibilities, between myth and reality.

…If I could wrap myself
around your limbs and carry you like nectar
cupped inside my hands–I’d drink your pain. (“Aurora Speaks to Tithonus” pg 32)

I wondered if their love had ever been
alive, or if their crazy, violent bouts
had killed it off–until the illness came. (“Outlooks” pg 40)

Time is fraught with grief, but also a maturing acceptance of change.

I’ve come to wrap long vines around my breasts
and smear wet clay upon my dress. To weep. (“At Sunset By the Oak” pg 26)

Your gauze-like scent clings to the walls, despair
and giddy memories return. I swear,
I hear a gull and jetty bell’s refrain.
They both dissolve like sand hills in the rain. (“Divining a Lost Summer” pg 45)

These poems are mesmerizing. Rhyme and meter are a tidy bonus, but not the primary allure. Whenever I try to name their forms, I succumb to the lure of imagery. When I try to pin down meter, I lose myself in metaphors.

Does my lack of appreciation for formal poetry rob me of a more profound connection? Probably so. A reader familiar with formal poetry would likely choose a different set of lines to illustrate a different understanding. But Amytis Leaves Her Garden did not hold me at arm’s length, demanding I study the intricacies of sonnets before entering its world.

My journey with Amytis Leaves Her Garden reflects my larger journey with poetry. I approached it with misgivings, circled a while in indecision, sampled and retreated, returned for a closer look, and finally waded in. Next time I’m tempted by a book that seems too difficult for me, I won’t be so hesitant to explore.

Sparrow August 12

Sparrow August 12

Sparrow August 12

Sparrow August 12

Amazon link and sample poems:

Cicadas, Cicada Killers, and Freshly Pressed Gratitude

Rae Spencer4 Comments

Cicada Sept 2

It’s cicada season in the yard. Each night a handful of them emerge from the ground and undergo their final molt.

Cicada August 21

They climb until some secret signal tells them they have climbed high enough, then they wait.

Cicada August 21

The wait must be uncomfortable–squeezed tight in hardening skin, wings constricted, an itchy seam along each tense back. Do they already understand flight? Do they regret leaving the safety of their root-laced tunnels?

Cicada August 21

Or do they simply stretch their new bodies until their old existence ruptures, until their wings straighten and strengthen, until they fling themselves into the dark abyss of the humid night sky.

Cicada August 21

Compared to last year’s numbers, the yard’s cicada population is small this year. Their molts are not accumulating in heaps at the base of the fence or over the roots of our trees. There’s no steady drone of cicada song, only occasional bursts from the wax myrtle.

Cicada Sept 2

Cicada Sept 2

Despite the relatively low number of cicadas, the yard has an unusually high concentration of cicada killer wasps.

Cicada Killer August 15

Here’s a post about these wasps from the Scientific American Blog Network:  A Feast of Cicadas. Our yard doesn’t have as many wasps as are described in the linked post, but I’ve seen more this year than ever before.

Cicada Killer August 15

But, are there actually more wasps than before? Or do I simply notice them more?

Cicada Killer August 15

Moving away from unanswerable questions, here’s a video from last summer:

In a final note, I want to thank the WordPress editors who Freshly Pressed my last post. Also, I want to thank the readers who visited the post, especially those who clicked the “like” button and commented. Each notification e-mail included links to your blogs, and I followed as many as time allowed. I found stories and poems full of laughter, tears, inspiration, and wisdom. I saw marvelous photographs, bookmarked tempting recipes, and added a dozen books to my wish list. It’s been a wonderful experience. Thank you!