A Hundred Cups of Coffee, by Miriam Sagan. Tres Chicas Books, Española, N.M. 2019. Available in bookstores and online.
Longtime Santa Fe resident Miriam Sagan is the author of thirty books, including three memoirs, Dirty Laundry: A Hundred Days in a Zen Monastery, Gossip, and Geographic: A Memoir of Time and Space. She’s won numerous awards for her writing.
Miriam’s concept for this slim book was “to drink a hundred cups of coffee and record them, with my thoughts and surroundings.” It took her two years, and as she writes, “many things happened.”
I almost didn’t pick up the book because I’d been put off the concept of daily blog or journal posts after reading the Facebook posts of a new acquaintance. People LOVE her posts, so I was looking for the “there,” but trying to read them nearly drove me mad. They were all sweetness and light. Some people require the happy ending. I’m not one of them, though I do believe in redemption. Which you’ll see when you read my book The Dry Line: A Novel.
Back to Miriam, who embraces the contradictions, the pieces that don’t fit. The shadows. She observes in the moment and lets it be, without judgment. Instead of reading one or two of the “cups” entries per day, as I’d planned, I devoured multiple “cups” at one sitting.
Ramona: You can say so much—in a few words! Do you think this comes from being foremost a poet? And how long have you been writing poetry?
Miriam: Yes, I do think it comes from practicing poetry. I started writing poetry in high school, so let’s call it fifty years. Of course lots of people write poetry as teenagers—for me the trick was to keep at it and develop the craft and an adult voice. I also started keeping a journal in 1972. Journals tend to be short forms and daily. That also influences my approach to prose.
Ramona: In A Hundred Cups, you had me at Cup #7, where you wrote: “I am a bad daughter, and we both know it. Yes, I call my demented mother frequently, I send her cards and flowering plants. I visit every season. But I live thousands of miles away. And we do not like each other. I do not like her, but she started it. She has not liked me since we met, at my birth, sixty-one years ago. I loved her desperately for my first twenty-five years or so. I wanted her to stop saying I was fat, with horrible hair, a failure. I wanted her to stop saying I was a torment to her. Then I learned to get over it.”
How many mother-daughter relationships does this nail? I could’ve written it myself, about my own mother. I so much appreciate your writing so honestly about this matter. Did you write hundreds of journal pages about this before you arrived at “learning to get over it”? Anything else you want to add?
Miriam: I’m glad it seems accrete and relatable. Not hundreds of pages—more like hundreds of hours in therapy! And uncountable hours spent talking to other women, a lifetime of talking, and of listening. In retrospect, some of it does seem generational, or generational in my immigrant family. That is, many mothers my age seem to have better relationships with their own daughters, and less mania for control and criticism.
Ramona: In Cup #32, you write of “the terror of hanging suspended in the instant,” contrasted with “what remains, a husk, the carapace of a cicada, the paper wasp’s nest,” and how our feelings about those things don’t survive with the things themselves. How much does your Buddhist practice inform your writing? (I’m assuming you still practice Zen Buddhism, though your bio in the book doesn’t mention it.)
Miriam: Thank you for noticing and asking this question. My relationship to Buddhism remains somewhat conflicted. On the one hand, encountering its central ideas no doubt saved my life. On the other, I don’t do well in hierarchical, dare I say patriarchal, settings. Some years ago I had the opportunity to work with koans with a woman roshi at a time when I was very immersed in trying to use my writing to perceive things directly. This combination did open my mind, and hopefully it has not shut yet! My relationship to the “moment” comes out of a shared practice of Zen and writing—but the Zen is pretty informal—more domestic than monastic.
Ramona: I’m totally unqualified to review or write about poetry. So I’ll ask you instead to mention your favorite of your poems (and use it here if you like). How many collections of your own poetry have been published?
Miriam: If I add up the full-length volumes and the smaller chapbooks, it is probably upwards of twenty books of poetry.
My favorite poem always tends to be my most recent. It’s not that I’m improving that obviously as I go—just that I like what I feel close to.
Here is one from September, written because my husband had to go back east on a family emergency:
Unseasonable
snow in early autumn
in these mountains
when only a few leaves have turned
you leave a used
face mask
and a paper bag
of tomatoes
behind
how long we’ve lived
together, you and I
how easy—how difficult
to part
in this
unseasonable weather
Ramona: In Cup #34, you say the first draft of a novel is finished. Dated May 16, 2016. Please say more about this work.
Miriam: Ah, I’m always tormented by writing a novel! This one is called Future Tense of River, and is a utopian novel about a low-technological future and a community of potters. Who are menaced by drought, war, and more. About halfway through I realized I was writing about Santa Fe! It is still unpublished. A novella, Shadow on the Minotaur, was started later but is forthcoming from Red Mountain Press next year. My fiction writing is erratic and often tortuous. I’m glad it isn’t my only pursuit!
Ramona: On Cup #44, you write: “Dusty hollyhocks. It was so hot yesterday that my car’s tires went a little flat. I don’t know why I’m so happy. A pink hollyhock petal falls before my eyes.”
This reminded me of a poem by Li Po that I loved when I was in college…
“On the mountain: A conversation
you ask
why I perch
on a jade green mountain?
I laugh
but say nothing
my heart
free
like a peach blossom
in the flowing stream
going by
in the depths
in another world
not among men.”
Are moments like these, in nature, your refuge from the craziness of society?
Miriam: What an exquisite poem! Since the pandemic started, I’ve been reading the classic Chinese poets in translation—book after book. I even took one of those open online classes from Harvard on Chinese thought and poetry. It isn’t coincidence. No one can describe how an individual feels in a time of social chaos like the T’ang poets. Yes, nature is a respite, but nature can also be violent, and in today’s world full of destruction and crisis. I think the key is the level of perception in the poem, and how the sense of self is located “not among men.”
Ramona: How has your life changed now that you’ve retired from directing the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College? Did you find that young people are passionate about writing?
Miriam: Young and old, people love to write—and benefit so much from expression. At Santa Fe Community College many students were older, but still just starting out. That’s a delicate balance—life experience, but being a novice. The young, I think, are more fearless, but also tortured by the worry of being unoriginal. To settle down, to write what you want to express, to explore—it is a huge adventure. I was lucky to share that with so many people over the years.
Ramona: Do you want to say more about your joint creative project with your daughter? (My daughter created my author website for me, going in a direction I wouldn’t have thought of, but I love it.)
Miriam: Probably the greatest unexpected excitement in my life is working with my daughter, Isabel Winson-Sagan, a multimedia artist. We did numerous projects over the years, but really committed to working together as the creative duo Maternal Mitochondria four years ago when I retired. We went to Japan and were in residence in Kura Studio in Itoshima and created a poetry and suminagashi (Japanese ink marbling) video installation in an old abandoned grain silo. The whole experience was very inspiring, and remains a wellspring.
Right now we’re studying book arts together. You can see our sculptural text pieces, community teaching, and installations at our website: maternalmitochondria.com
I’m so fortunate to have the opportunity to work across disciplines and generations with an incredible woman who is also my daughter! The process isn’t always smooth—it’s good to know who is the leader on a project—but it has really extended my range, helped my thinking, and created amazing pieces.
Editor’s note: On the website Maternal Mitochondria, check out Miriam & Isabel’s latest project, Fairy Houses, inspired by their experience in Japan. Here’s a photo of one of the spirit houses created by Tim Brown. You can visit the installation in person at Santa Fe Skies RV Park.
And here’s Miriam’s blog, which she’s been writing faithfully for at least ten years. Must be a record, and even more of a record to keep it fresh every time.