Chila Bradshaw Woychik Writes

Chila:

A legacy lurks within me

bound within each cell—

the longing I have to matter

and passion to do it well,

to tread while leaving footprints

and live while loving hard,

to fight the wakeful sleeping

and benefit from scars.

I’ll fall off the edge of the boat

if I must, and sink beneath the waves

to risk the walk on water

embracing what life gives;

I risk it all for what’s ahead

and what I’ll leave behind;

I’ve nothing more than each new breath

and nothing less than time.

(from On Being A Rat, by Chila Woychik)

Her name is Chila Woychik. Yes, she is publisher/editor at Port Yonder Books. Yes, that puts some writers in an awkward position, but not this one: she doesn’t publish works like mine. So, freedom here: I have absolutely no self-serving reason at all to write well of her or her writing…except that I must. (See, Chila? One worry discarded. Poof!)

I chided Chila when she said, “I don’t call myself a poet.”  Of course, she’s a poet. She’s a sparkling word-weaver. There’s a power in her metaphors and language-juggling that reminds me of being lost in Frost as a young girl. (Think “Blueberries” and “The Road Not Taken.”) Some poems have the jaunty aspect of TS Elliot. (Oh, J. Alfred, my friend of old.) Some are merely free association: I ponder and smile.

In her new memoir-esque book, On Being a Rat, Chila flows from poem to prose to poem with word-smithing that may be too obscure for many. Sometimes she rails at life…and then pulls back with whimsy, which may then meander into darkness. She takes risks here: tread warily as you read. A person who exposes the rhythmic thumpings of her self to us, her readers, places herself at our mercy. (For this reason, I write fiction. I don’t want you examining the deepest me. In novels, I can pretend none of the dark things happened to me and none of the thoughts espoused are mine. Well, most didn’t and don’t, so I’m not lying. Merely entering another’s skin…such fun. Peopling new worlds…such fun. The created following the Creator’s bent.) Chila, instead, says, “Here I am. Love me or not.” How, when given that choice, can we turn away? How can we, careful reader, caring reader, do anything but say, “Thank you. I will hold your words close and whisper back.”

“Time respects no one,” Chila writes. “Young and old, it preys upon the world en masse; even the rocks groan. If you have a story to tell, do it; tomorrow may elude you.” She seems to be trying to stop time – or at least to leave an ash or two for memories.

Listen to this on friendship:

… I tell you truer truth after having spent the afternoon with a friend.

My tongue boils cold—

it licked a star—

sheds layers

while I add two more.

I storm around this Abell place

with snowshoes and a set of poles

and plant a flag of ownership—

squatter’s rights in space.

Now I freely give it,

piece by hard-earned piece.

Some friends deserve

a slice of star.

A slice of star. Do you hear it? Quickly – what picture comes to mind? Do you wish, as I do, for such a gift, handed in friendship?

She speaks of communing with Emily Dickinson: “…two porcelain spirits, confident, challenging, with a union as fragile as a poem gone wrong.”

I love this, Chila’s porcelain spirit revealed here. If you have a poet’s heart or even merely an ear for fine lines, please read this book written by an imperfect woman striving – as we’re each called to do – toward the best.