A note from the editor:
Jenny Walton is a writer and the managing editor for PATTERN magazine. This is her take on this week's Culture Journal, a series that shares a week in the cultural lives of Indy residents. Because April is National Poetry Month, Jenny included a poem for each of her journal entries.
Day One
2 p.m. So much marketing has come to this, a total solar eclipse viewed–for some of us, anyway — from the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So much marketing that I wonder if the moon is feeling a little apprehensive about showtime. (You know what they say about having high expectations.)
3:06 p.m. A clear-ish sky and no moon in sight until we see her perfect shadow, and then she’s gone again. It’s eerie and beautiful and I can’t help but feel like maybe we missed something.
Poem of the day: Emily Dickinson’s Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
[Be sure to check out the 10 Indy poets that will get you in your feels.]
Day Two
4:30 p.m. Between work and the company of a couple friends, I have exactly 30 minutes to myself. I spend them in Irvington’s library wandering the shelves and shamelessly gathering an armful of books selected exclusively for their covers — no time to read the jackets today. It’s a habit that goes back as far as I can remember.
Is there anything better than a fresh stack of books? Is anything better than the promise that these new-to-me pages will solve everything?
Poem of the day: Gerald Locklin’s where we are
Day Three
5:30 p.m. Poet Lydia Johnson is hosting an open mic at Indy Reads in partnership with Indiana Humanities for National Poetry Month. The rain is making a fuss of things, and, as much as I’d love to just go home to that stack of books, I worry Lydia will end up with a room full of mostly empty chairs and no readers. I go. I sign up for an impromptu reading — I have a couple of bug poems on hand.
7 p.m. Of course, I had nothing to worry about. Plenty of people read. Several of them read twice.
Poem of the day: Billy Collins’s The Trouble with Poetry
Day Four
8 p.m. Today some of us stay late. PATTERN Vol. 25, The Basketball Issue, is running behind. (No space to list the reasons, but they’re good ones.) For now the office floor is covered in full-color spreads. We’re proofreading copy. Setting the pagination. Cross-referencing for the table of contents and the masthead. Disagreeing a bit, as we do. We try to remember which stories are still missing.
11 p.m. The text starts to feel like gibberish. I forget how to spell what few words I knew earlier in the day. What are these letters anyway?
Poem of the day: Bill Holm’s The Iceland Language
Day Five
7 p.m. My partner and I go to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for free — a performance in partnership with Sphinx. Three composers, long dead, reach beyond graves and through a paper, through a conductor, through an orchestra, and they play. The selection feels more accessible than so many other symphonies I’ve sat through.
9 p.m. Like all the rest, as soon as it’s over, the music is gone from my mind. A ghost town where a song used to be. I wonder if this is normal.
Poem of the day: Rita Dove’s Ars Poetica
[Conductor Jun Märkl was announced as ISO’s new music director in January.]
Day Six
3 p.m. I sneak off for a couple of hours in the afternoon to the Kan-Kan Cinema to see “Wicked Little Letters” by myself. I don’t know what to expect, just that I won’t hurt feelings by going to this one alone. No spoilers, but I feel the distance between myself and the female leads of this period film.
There are so many ways to be alive. So many ways to be a woman and to use your voice.
Poem of the day: Sarah Kay’s The Type
Day Seven
1 p.m. While the sun shines, while birds sing, while the breeze comes through open windows, I file my taxes.
Poem of the day: Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day
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