“On speaking terms with yourself”

Rachel Peden, from The Land, the People (Bloomington, IN: Quarry Books, 2010):

The blackberry patch in the woods was a good place for a farm woman to go if she wanted to talk aloud to herself . . . nobody was likely to embarrass her by overhearing her in that hidden place, though actually why should it be more embarrassing to be caught talking to yourself than singing to yourself, which many women love to do? And certainly, if you’re not on speaking terms with yourself, you need to do something about it.

Yes, you do. I think of an untitled poem from Lorine Niedecker’s Next Year or I Fly My Rounds Tempestuous (1934), a work made of short handwritten poems pasted over the inspirational aphorisms of a two-week-per-page calendar: “Jesus, I’m / going out / and throw / my arms / around.”

Also from Rachel Peden
Against school consolidation : Dry goods, &c. : Inspiration for writing : “For pies and jelly and philosophy”

[Ellipsis in the original.]