My Week on Silver Island

Every writer I know covets two things: time and solitude. I was fortunate to receive both when B Lauer of the Keweenaw Land Trust invited me to be the first artist-in-residence at Silver Island. For one week in August, I lived outside my normal routines and environments and was able to reset and rejuvenate in a way I haven’t done since childhood. And to be with Lake Superior in a way I’ve never been in my life.

Those lucky enough to live along the Big Lake can attest to how completely the sound and sight of that body of water—throughout the changing light and weather, day after day—adjusts your entire nervous system. I admit I was a little nervous about contending without running water and electricity for a week, but that was part of the fun and challenge of the residency. I managed to pump drinking water from the lake through a filtration system without once falling in, and to cook on the two-burner camp stove without burning down the cabin. As an ex-urbanite, I left feeling proud of myself for these basic accomplishments, almost as much as for the writing I did.

The limited light of lanterns and candles meant I lived by the natural time of sunrise and sunset, and so I received the best gift a poet like myself could hope for—uninterrupted time and space to slow down, calm down, look and listen. The residency helped me clarify things in my own work that I didn’t realize I was grappling, with such as my past urban experiences and my current rural ones. Both have had their own joys and traumas; now I feel how much they mirror and enrich each other. So, a new body of work is started, and I am grateful beyond words for the experience that the generosity and vision of the Roses. working with KLT, have demonstrated in creating this residency. Silver Island is a special place and will be a gift to the region for generations.