Eventually he anchored his boat near the shoreline, disembarked, and stood at the water’s edge, casting his lure into the open water, never knowing what he’d reel in. Often, he gazed at the water for hours, believing that he could pull a fish from its mysterious depths into the world of his reality. When he did catch a fish, he removed the hook from its mouth and, more frequently than not, released it back into the water. Sometimes he nabbed a fish he called “a keeper”—a fish suitable for a family meal.
Growing up, I certainly thought my father was rather fanatical about fishing, and I often wondered what drove him to be the angler that he was. After I became a writer, however, his fanaticism began to make sense to me. I, too, possess a masochistic urge to wake in the quiet predawn hours, stumble bleary-eyed out of the kitchen with a full cup of coffee, and head into my office. I clamber into my chair; open my laptop; and navigate through the scattered papers, journals, scrapbooks, and photographs strewn across my desk, taking note of the invisible currents and the direction of the ideas wafting across my mind.
Seated at my desk, I eventually stand on the precipice of creativity, casting my thoughts onto the blank screen, never knowing what I’ll reel in. Often, I stare at the glassy screen for hours, believing I’ll pull something from the mysterious realm of inspiration into the literary world I’m creating. I catch a phrase or two but, more frequently than not, I remove them, releasing them back into the realm of ideas from which they came. Sometimes I nab a paragraph or even a page or two that I dub as “keepers,” for they seem the perfect combination of words suitable for my readers.
Thus I’ve come to see that anglers and writers face similar daunting challenges. When an angler stands at the water’s edge, he’s scrubbed clean of life’s trivia and distractions. Watching the water, he’s confronted with the unconscious as surely as the writer who stares into the humming blank screen (or at a blank sheet of paper), praying that prose or poetry will rise from the fathomless reaches of their mind. Both fishing and writing are largely acts of faith—a belief that there is indeed a rich run of fish or ideas lurking below. The angler’s false casts and hooked branches and the writer’s convoluted first drafts are all part of some cosmic ritual designed to seduce a shiny gem to the surface.
So, why do anglers and writers persist? I can only speak for myself. I know if I don’t write consistently, I’m unhappy and suffer a type of melancholy defined only by its absence. Perhaps my need to write comes from the thrill of getting a nibble, playing with an idea, and reeling it in. When I gaze into that glassy screen, I’m much like an angler scrubbed clean of life’s trivia and distractions. Time collapses onto itself, leaving only the pulse and rhythm of the moment. In those rhythmic moments, my characters speak to me. I listen and write their stories. I don’t plan. I get out of the way, letting the story take me where it wants to go.
I suppose I just love the adventure of taking those intuitive leaps of faith onto a higher ground rich with ideas and imagination, never knowing what’s going to happen or what I’m going to reel in. In the end, it’s the not knowing that keeps me writing and fishing for words.
Woolf’s pen runs dry, Tesla holes up, Lincoln emerges in yet another bardo, and the witnesses for peace include soldiers under duress, models transformed to artists, descendants of forced immigrants, survivors of hurricanes.
Ember Days begins with ritual and ends with prayer as the poems tunnel through Wednesday’s jammed boulevards, Friday’s worthless cash, Saturday’s prodigal feet.
“Gilliland is a poet of witness and spirituality, grappling with climate devastation while also interrogating world policies and politics.”
— Best American Poetry
“Gilliland waltzes smoothly between the cheeky and conversational and the lyrical.”
— LitHub
“I am spellbound by the largesse of vision and the beauty.”
— Cynthia Hogue
Mary Gilliland is the guest poetry editor in the winter 2022 issue of Persimmon Tree.
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A high school teacher’s unexpected whisper, “You’ve got writing talent,” ignited Sara Etgen-Baker’s writing desire. But, putting aside that whisper and her teenage dream of becoming a writer, Etgen-Baker pursued a teaching career instead. Post-retirement, however, Etgen-Baker has written memoir vignettes, narrative essays, poems, and a novel (Secrets at Dillehay Crossing). Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines including Guideposts and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Her combined memoir vignettes (Shoebox Stories) will be published in 2025 along with her poetry chapbook (Kaleidoscopic Verses).
Darlene Detienne lives and works on the Oregon coast. She received her first camera as a child and has engaged in nature photography for over fifty years. Most mornings, she can be found on the beautiful beaches or in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.